My bride is here... because my equal is here, and my likeness. - Charlotte Brontë

It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment.

"Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale — a daydream."
"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin today."

Whatever my powers — feminine or the contrary — God had given them, and I felt resolute to be ashamed of no faculty of his bestowal.