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Appendix
(MA 32, Pierpont Morgan Library)
Preface
This little book was written before either "Jane Eyre" or "Shirley" | and yet *no indugence can be solicited for it [ab. del. 'the plea of a first attempt'] on the plea of a first at-|tempt. A first attempt it certainly was not as the pen | which wrote it had been *previously worn down a good deal ['previously worn down **a good deal [intrl.] ['exercising' del.] ab. del. 'down' ab. del. 'worn and hackneyed'] in a ['secret' del.] prac-|tice of some years. I had not indeed published anything before I | commenced the Professor" — but in many *a crude [ab. del. 'an'] effort destroyed al-|most as soon as composed. I had *got over [ab. del. 'exhau' ab. del. 'man'] ['any' del.] *any such [ab. del. 'an early'] taste | *as I might once [ab. del. 'for the redundant'] have had for *the [intrl.] ornamented and redundant compo-|sition — and had come to prefer what was plain *and homely' [ab. del. simple and | direct'] | At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the | subject of incident etc. such as would be generally approved in | theory, but the results of which when carried out in practice | often procure for an author more surprise than pleasure. | ['The strictest resolutions to eschew what was [unreal' del.] ['improbable' del.] | startling were mine | The most religious determination' del.] I said | to myself that my hero should work his way through life | as I had seen real living men work theirs — that he should | never get a shilling he had not earned — that no sudden turns | should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station — that | ['to' del.] whatever *small [ab. del. 'ease'] competency he might gain should be won by the | sweat of his brow — that before he could find so much as an | arbour to sit down in he should master at least half the ascent | of the hill of Difficulty — that he should not even marry a beauti-|ful wife, nor a *lady of rank [ab. del. 'great nor a rich'] lady [undel. in error] — as Adam's son he | should *share [ab. del. 'have'] Adam's doom — & drain throughout life and a mixed | and moderate cup of enjoyment. |
In the sequel, however, I found most Publishers in general [end of recto page] | scarcely approved this system, but would have liked something | more imaginative and poetical — something more consonant with | a highly wrought fancy, with a native taste for pathos — | with sentiments more tender — elevated — unworldly — indeed until | an author has tried to dispose of a M. S. of this kind he | can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie | hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such | treasures. Men in business are *usually [ab. del. 'often'] thought to prefer the real | — on trial this idea will be often found fallacious: a pas-|sionate preference for the wild wonderful and thrilling — the | strange, startling and harrowing agitates *divers [intrl.] souls that show a calm | and sober surface. | Such being ['ent' del.] the case — the reader will comprehend that to have | reached him in the form of a printed book — this brief narrative | must have gone through some ['difficulties' del.] struggles — which | indeed it has — and after all — its worst struggle and strongest | ordeal is yet to come — but it takes comfort — subdues fear — leans | on the staff of a moderate expectation — and mutters under its | breath — while lifting its eye to that of the Public, |
"He that is low need fear no fall." |
- Alexander, Christine. The Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983.
- Brammer, M. M. "The Manuscript of The Professor," The Review of English Studies, ns, 11 (May 1960): 157-170.
- Brontë, Charlotte. The Professor. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857; rpt. New York: Dutton, 1969.
- ____. Shirley. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1849, rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
- Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857; rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 1975.
- Wise, Thomas James, and John Alexander Symington, eds. The Brontës: Their Lives, Friendships and Correspondence (The Shakespeare Head Bronte), 4 vols. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1932.
- Wroot, Herbert E. "Sources of Charlotte Brontës Novels: Persons and Places," Brontë Society Transcriptions 8, no. 4 (1935), Supplementary Part.
Works Cited
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