moderate love at least will come after; and as to intense passion, I am convinced that that is no desirable feeling.  In the first place, it seldom or never meets with a requital; and in the second place, if it did, the feeling would be only temporary; it would last the honeymoon, and then, perhaps, give place to disgust, or indifference, worse perhaps than disgust.  Certainly this would be the case on the man’s part; and on the woman’s—­God help her if she is left to love passionately and alone.

“I am tolerably well convinced that I shall never marry at all.”

And again, to Miss Nussey, six months later:  “Did you not once say to me in all childlike simplicity, ’I thought, Charlotte, no young lady should fall in love till the offer was actually made’?  I forgot what answer I made at the time, but I now reply, after due consideration, Right as a glove, the maxim is just, and I hope you will always attend to it.  I will even extend and confirm it:  no young lady should fall in love till the offer has been made, accepted, the marriage ceremony performed, and the first half-year of wedded life has passed away.  A woman may then begin to love, but with great precaution, very coolly, very moderately, very rationally.  If she ever loves so much that a harsh word or a cold look cuts her to the heart, she is a fool.  If she ever loves so much that her husband’s will is her law, and that she has got into a habit of watching his looks in order that she may anticipate his wishes, she will soon be a neglected fool.  Did I not tell you of an instance...?”

What could be more lucid, more light-hearted, and more sane?  And if Charlotte is suspicious of the dangers of her own temperament, that only proves her lucidity and sanity the more.

Later, at Brussels, when confronted with “three or four people’s” idea that “the future epoux of Miss Bronte is on the Continent”, she defends herself against the “silly imputation”.  “Not that it is a crime to marry, or a crime to wish to be married; but it is an imbecility, which I reject with contempt, for women, who have neither fortune nor beauty, to make marriage the principal object of their wishes and hopes, and the aim of all their actions; not to be able to convince themselves that they are unattractive, and that they had better be quiet, and think of other things than wedlock.”  Can anything be clearer?

So much for herself.  But she has to deal with Miss Nussey, in difficulties again, later:  “Papa has two or three times expressed a fear that since Mr. ——­ paid you so much attention, he will, perhaps, have made an impression on your mind which will interfere with your comfort.  I tell him I think not, as I believe you to be mistress of yourself in those matters.  Still, he keeps saying that I am to write to you and dissuade you from thinking of him.  I never saw Papa make himself so uneasy about a thing of the kind before; he is usually very sarcastic on such subjects.