_Idle_ she never was in any place, but of the multitude of
small talks, plans, duties, pleasures, &c., that make up most people's
days, her home life was nearly destitute. This made it possible for her
to go through long and deep histories of feeling and imagination, for
which others, odd as it sounds, have rarely time. This made it
inevitable that--later on, in her too short career--the intensity of her
feeling should wear out her physical health. The habit of "making out,"
which had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength, had
become a part of her nature. Yet all exercise of her strongest and most
characteristic faculties was now out of the question. She could not (as
while she was at Miss W---'s) feel, amidst the occupations of the day,
that when evening came, she might employ herself in more congenial ways.
No doubt, all who enter upon the career of a governess have to relinquish
much; no doubt, it must ever be a life of sacrifice; but to Charlotte
Bronte it was a perpetual attempt to force all her faculties into a
direction for which the whole of her previous life had unfitted them.
Moreover, the little Brontes had been brought up motherless; and from
knowing nothing of the gaiety and the sportiveness of childhood--from
never having experienced caresses or fond attentions themselves--they
were ignorant of the very nature of infancy, or how to call out its
engaging qualities.
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