I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I could feel. About the present, it was better … - Charlotte Brontë

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Engraved portrait of Charlotte Brontë, facing right

I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I could feel. About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future – such a future as mine – to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature.

English
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About Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, who first published her work under the pseudonym Currer Bell.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, George Richmond (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Tree Florian Wellesley Lord Charles Albert Captain Tree Charles Wellesley Charlotte Bronte Currer Bell Karlotta Bronte Douro Mrs. A. B. Nicholls Charlotte Nicholls Sharlotta Bronte Mrs. Arthur Bell NichollsMrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls

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Additional quotes by Charlotte Brontë

I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy — dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him — the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion.

A beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance.

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