to me, have a tendency to change truth into affectation. When
people belong to a clique, they must, I suppose, in some measure,
write, talk, think, and live for that clique; a harassing and
narrowing necessity. I trust, the press and the public show
themselves disposed to give the book the reception it merits, and
that is a very cordial one, far beyond anything due to a Bulwer
or D'Israeli production."

Let us return from Currer Bell to Charlotte Bronte. The winter in
Haworth had been a sickly season. Influenza had prevailed amongst
the villagers, and where there was a real need for the presence
of the clergyman's daughters, they were never found wanting,
although they were shy of bestowing mere social visits on the
parishioners. They had themselves suffered from the epidemic;
Anne severely, as in her case it had been attended with cough and
fever enough to make her elder sisters very anxious about her.

There is no doubt that the proximity of the crowded church-yard
rendered the Parsonage unhealthy, and occasioned much illness to
its inmates. Mr. Bronte represented the unsanitary state at
Haworth pretty forcibly to the Board of Health; and, after the
requisite visits from their officers, obtained a recommendation
that all future interments in the churchyard should be forbidden,
a new graveyard opened on the hill-side, and means set on foot
for obtaining a water-supply to each house, instead of the weary,
hard-worked housewives having to carry every bucketful, from a
distance of several hundred yards, up a steep street. But he was
baffled by the rate-payers; as, in many a similar instance,
quantity carried it against quality, numbers against
intelligence. And thus we find that illness often assumed a low