夏洛特·勃朗特/Charlotte Bronte
It was in the cold weather, which follows the shortest day that we first came to England. I was a little child at the time—perhaps four years old, or between that and five. The sea voyage is well remembered by me; the milky greenness of the waves, the curl of the foam, the dark meeting of December sea and sky, the glinting sea-birds and passing ships, made each an imprint on my vision which I yet retain—worn but not obliterated.
Whence did we come? Where had we lived? What occasioned this voyage? Memory puzzles herself to reply to these questions. She reflects with fingers raised to her lips and eyes bent on the pavement. She turns to her chronicle and searches its faded pages where the records are so pale, brief, and broken: this is all she reads—we came from a place where the buildings were numerous and stately, where before white house-fronts there rose here and there trees straight as spires, where there was one walk broad and endlessly long, down which on certain days rolled two tides: one of people on foot, brightly clad with shining silks, delicate bonnets with feathers and roses, scarves fluttering, little parasols gay as tulips; and the other of carriages rolling along rapid and quiet. Indeed, all was quiet in this walk it was a mysterious place, full of people but without noise.
We had lived in a house with slippery floors and no carpets; a house with many mirrors and many windows. In this house I know there was a hall with a door of red and violet glass, glowing brilliant in the shade of that end opposite the entrance. The bright portal opened into a garden, small but green, where there was turf, many flowers, and one tree. What chiefly made it green and filled it with leaf was the curtain of vines concealing the high walls—vines I know they were, because I remember both the grapes and the curled tendrils.
With whom did we live? To this question I can only reply—with my father; and of him I have twenty reminiscences, but they are all scant and fragmentary. My father—papa, as I called him was the origin of all the punishments I had in those early days. I had an unreasonable wish to be always with him; and to this end, whenever the nurse who had charge of me turned her back, I was apt to escape from the nursery and seek the study. Then I was caught, shaken, and sometimes whipped, which I well deserved.