life from the simple life she had always led and continued to lead at Haworth.  She was ever busy, if not ever at her desk.  Success had come; she was sane in the midst of it.  She wrote slowly and only as she felt the impulse, and when she knew she had found the proper impression.  In 1849 ‘Shirley’ was published.  In 1853 appeared ‘Villette,’ her last finished work, and the one considered by herself the best.

In 1854 she married her father’s curate, Mr. A.B.  Nicholls.  She had lost her brother Branwell and her two sisters Emily and Anne.  Sorrow upon sorrow had closed like deepening shadows about her.  All happiness in life for her had apparently ended, when this marriage brought a brief ray of sunshine.  It was a happy union, and seemed to assure a period of peace and rest for the sorely tried soul.  Only a few short months, however, and fate, as if grudging her even the bit of happiness, snapped the slender threads of her life and the whole sad episode of her existence was ended.  She died March 31st, 1855, leaving her husband and father to mourn together in the lonely parsonage.  She left a literary fragment—­the story entitled ‘Emma,’ which was published with an introduction by Thackeray.

Such are the main facts of this reserved life of Charlotte Bronte.  Are they dull and commonplace?  Some of them are indeed inexpressibly sad.  Tragedy is beneath all the bitter chronicle.  The sadness of her days can be appreciated by all who read her books.  Through all her stories there is an intense note, especially in treating the pathos of existence, that is unmistakably subjective.  There is a keen perception of the darker depths of human nature that could have been revealed to a human heart only by suffering and sorrow.

She did not allow sadness, however, to crush her spirit.  She was neither morbid nor melancholy, but on the contrary Charlotte was cheerful and pleasant in disposition and manner.  She was a loving sister and devoted daughter, patient and obedient to a parent who afterwards made obedience a severe hardship.  There were other sides to her character.  She was not always calm.  She was not ever tender and a maker of allowances.  But who is such?  And she had good reason to be impatient with the world as she found it.

Her character and disposition are partially reflected in ‘Jane Eyre.’  The calm, clear mind, the brave, independent spirit are there.  But a fuller and more accurate picture of her character may be found in Lucy Snowe, the heroine of ‘Villette.’  Here we find especially that note of hopelessness that predominated in Charlotte’s character.  Mrs. Gaskell, in her admirable biography of Charlotte Bronte, has called attention to this absence of hope in her nature.  Charlotte indeed never allowed herself to look forward to happy issues.  She had no confidence in the future.  The pressure of grief apparently crushed all buoyancy of expectation.  It was in this attitude that when literary success