merchant or lawyer, or doctor, steps into his vacant place, and
probably does as well as he. But no other can take up the quiet,
regular duties of the daughter, the wife, or the mother, as well
as she whom God has appointed to fill that particular place: a
woman's principal work in life is hardly left to her own choice;
nor can she drop the domestic charges devolving on her as an
individual, for the exercise of the most splendid talents that
were ever bestowed. And yet she must not shrink from the extra
responsibility implied by the very fact of her possessing such
talents. She must not hide her gift in a napkin; it was meant for
the use and service of others. In an humble and faithful spirit
must she labour to do what is not impossible, or God would not
have set her to do it.

I put into words what Charlotte Bronte put into actions.

The year 1848 opened with sad domestic distress. It is necessary,
however painful, to remind the reader constantly of what was
always present to the hearts of father and sisters at this time.
It is well that the thoughtless critics, who spoke of the sad and
gloomy views of life presented by the Brontes in their tales,
should know how such words were wrung out of them by the living
recollection of the long agony they suffered. It is well, too,
that they who have objected to the representation of coarseness
and shrank from it with repugnance, as if such conceptions arose
out of the writers, should learn, that, not from the
imagination--not from internal conception--but from the hard
cruel facts, pressed down, by external life, upon their very
senses, for long months and years together, did they write out
what they saw, obeying the stern dictates of their consciences.