The following quote is extremely depressing (especially the image of the loud clicking clock). Forgive. It is an excerpt from a letter of Charlotte Bronte to a dear friend. Last year I read The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell, a classic in the genre. It was written 2 centuries ago, so it has a flowery sentimental style, but I absolutely ate it up. First of all, 3/4 of it are quotes from Charlotte’s letters, and they are phenomenal.
The letter today was written on July 14, 1849 during a very dark time in Charlotte’s life. (Was there ever a light time in Charlotte’s life? In any of the Bronte’s lives??) Her sister Anne had just died. Charlotte feels very alone. She writes:
“My life is what I expected it to be. Sometimes when I wake in the morning, and know that Solitude, Remembrance, and Longing are to be almost my sole companions all day through — that at night I shall go to bed with them, that they will long keep me sleepless — that next morning I shall wake to them again, — sometimes, Nell, I have a heavy heart of it. But crushed I am not, yet; nor robbed of elasticity, nor of hope, nor quite of endeavor. I have some strengths to fight the battle of life. I am aware, and can acknowledge, I have many comforts, many mercies. Still I can get on. But I do hope and pray, that never may you, or any one I love, be placed as I am. To sit in a lonely room — the clock ticking loud through a still house — and have open before the mind’s eye the record of the last year, with its shocks, sufferings, losses — is a trial.
I write to you freely, because I believe you will hear me with moderation — that you will not take alarm or think me in any way worse off than I am.”
