known me.

"As an instance how the characters have been managed, take that
of Mr. Helstone. If this character had an original, it was in the
person of a clergyman who died some years since at the advanced
age of eighty. I never saw him except once--at the consecration
of a church--when I was a child of ten years old. I was then
struck with his appearance, and stern, martial air. At a
subsequent period, I heard him talked about in the neighbourhood
where he had resided: some mention him with enthusiasm--others
with detestation. I listened to various anecdotes, balanced
evidence against evidence, and drew an inference. The original of
Mr. Hall I have seen; he knows me slightly; but he would as soon
think I had closely observed him or taken him for a character--he
would as soon, indeed, suspect me of writing a hook--a novel--as
he would his dog, Prince. Margaret Hall called "Jane Eyre" a
'wicked book,' on the authority of the Quarterly; an expression
which, coming from her, I will here confess, struck somewhat
deep. It opened my eyes to the harm the Quarterly had done.
Margaret would not have called it 'wicked,' if she had not been
told so.

"No matter,--whether known or unknown--misjudged, or the
contrary,--I am resolved not to write otherwise. I shall bend as
my powers tend. The two human beings who understood me, and whom
I understood, are gone: I have some that love me yet, and whom I
love, without expecting, or having a right to expect, that they
shall perfectly understand me. I am satisfied; but I must have my
own way in the matter of writing. The loss of what we possess
nearest and dearest to us in this world, produces an effect upon