Soon after she returned home, her friend paid her a visit. While she stayed at Haworth, Miss Brontë wrote the letter from which the following extract is taken. The strong sense and right feeling displayed in it on the subject of friendship, sufficiently account for the constancy of affection which Miss Brontë earned from all those who once became her friends.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.

“July 21st, 1851.

“… I could not help wondering whether Cornhill will ever change for me, as Oxford has changed for you. I have some pleasant associations connected with it now – will these alter their character some day?

“Perhaps they may–though I have faith to the contrary, because, I think, I do not exaggerate my partialities; I think I take faults along with excellences–blemishes together with beauties. And, besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that disappointment here arises chiefly, not from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of their liking for and opinion of us; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive–can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes–I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. […] ”