The Professor | Page 3

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THE PROFESSOR by Charlotte Bronte [Published under the name
Currer Bell, see Etext #771 for details]

PREFACE.
This little book was written before either "Jane Eyre" or "Shirley," and
yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt. A
first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been
previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not
indeed published anything before I commenced "The Professor," but in
many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got
over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and
redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely.

At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of
incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the
result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an
author more surprise than pleasure.
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 whatever small 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
beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's
doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of
enjoyment.
In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely
approved of this system, but would have liked something more
imaginative and poetical--something more consonant with a highly
wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender,
elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a
manuscript 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 thought to prefer
the real; on trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate
preference for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling--the strange, startling,
and harrowing--agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober
surface.
Such being 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 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."

CURRER BELL.
The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the
publication of "The Professor," shortly after the appearance of
"Shirley." Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made
some use of the materials in a subsequent work--"Villette," As,
however, these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been
represented to me that I ought not to withhold "The Professor" from the
public. I have therefore consented to its publication.
A. B. NICHOLLS
Haworth Parsonage, September 22nd, 1856.
*

T H E P R O F E S S O R
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the
following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school
acquaintance:--
"DEAR CHARLES, "I think when you and I were at Eton together, we
were neither of us what could be called popular characters: you were a
sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I
will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly
attractive one--can you? What animal