and he don’t draw well together at all.  Emily works like a horse, and she has had great difficulties to contend with—­far greater than I have had.  Indeed, those who come to a French school for instruction ought previously to have acquired a considerable knowledge of the French language, otherwise they will lose a great deal of time, for the course of instruction is adapted to natives and not to foreigners; and in these large establishments they will not change their ordinary course for one or two strangers.  The few private lessons that M. Heger has vouchsafed to give us, are, I suppose, to be considered a great favour; and I can perceive they have already excited much spite and jealousy in the school.

“You will abuse this letter for being short and dreary, and there are a hundred things which I want to tell you, but I have not time.  Brussels is a beautiful city.  The Belgians hate the English.  Their external morality is more rigid than ours.  To lace the stays without a handkerchief on the neck is considered a disgusting piece of indelicacy.”

The passage in this letter where M. Heger is represented as prohibiting the use of dictionary or grammar, refers, I imagine, to the time I have mentioned, when he determined to adopt a new method of instruction in the French language, of which they were to catch the spirit and rhythm rather from the ear and the heart, as its noblest accents fell upon them, than by over-careful and anxious study of its grammatical rules.  It seems to me a daring experiment on the part of their teacher; but, doubtless, he knew his ground; and that it answered is evident in the composition of some of Charlotte’s devoirs, written about this time.  I am tempted, in illustration of this season of mental culture, to recur to a conversation which I had with M. Heger on the manner in which he formed his pupils’ style, and to give a proof of his success, by copying a devoir of Charlotte’s with his remarks upon it.

He told me that one day this summer (when the Brontes had been for about four months receiving instruction from him) he read to them Victor Hugo’s celebrated portrait of Mirabeau, “mais, dans ma lecon je me bornais a ce qui concerne Mirabeau orateur.  C’est apres l’analyse de ce morceau, considere surtout du point de vue du fond, de la disposition de ce qu’on pourrait appeler la charpente qu’ont ete faits les deux portraits que je vous donne.”  He went on to say that he had pointed out to them the fault in Victor Hugo’s style as being exaggeration in conception, and, at the same time, he had made them notice the extreme beauty of his “nuances” of expression.  They were then dismissed to choose the subject of a similar kind of portrait.  This selection M. Heger always left to them; for “it is necessary,” he observed, “before sitting down to write on a subject, to have thoughts and feelings about it.  I cannot tell on what subject your heart and mind have been excited.  I must leave that to you.”  The marginal comments, I need hardly say, are M. Heger’s; the words in italics are Charlotte’s, for which he substitutes a better form of expression, which is placed between brackets. {6}