Quotes from book
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Anne Brontë Original title The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (British English, 1848)

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel by the English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.

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“Whatever my husband's faults may be, it can only aggravate the evil for me to hear them from a stranger's lips.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIX : The Neighbour; Helen to Walter

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“No one can be happy in eternal solitude.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. VII : The Excursion; Helen to Fergus

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“If your wife gives you her heart, you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIV : First Quarrel; Helen to Arthur

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“He cannot endure Rachel, because he knows she has a proper appreciation of him.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLIV : The Boundary Post; Helen Graham

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“I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIII : First weeks of Matrimony; Arthur to Helen

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“It is a woman's nature to be constant — to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXVII : Misdemeanour; Arthur to Helen

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“I sometimes think she has no feeling at all; and then I go on till she cries — and that satisfies me.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Ralph to Helen

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“How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Helen

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“"I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company — why — it will be the worse for him — that's all."
"If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry — or rather, you must avoid it altogether."”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLI : Hope Springs Eternal in the Human Breast; Helen and Esther

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“God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness — and Love; but if this idea is too vast for your human faculties — if your mind loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on Him who condescended to take our nature upon Him, who was raised to heaven even in His glorified human body, in whom the fullness of the Godhead shines.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLIX : "The Rain Descended..."; Helen to Arthur

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“"I have often wished in vain," said she, "for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it."
"That," replied I, "is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us."”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. VII : The Excursion; Helen and Gilbert

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“When a lady condescends to apologize, there is no keeping one’s anger.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. V : The Studio; Gilbert Markham

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“I will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXVII : The Neighbour Again; Walter to Helen

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“There is perfect love in heaven!”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLV : Reconciliation; Helen to Gilbert

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“You will form a very inadequate estimate of a man's character, if you judge by what a fond sister says of him. The worst of them generally know how to hide their misdeeds from their sisters' eyes, and their mother's, too.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XX : Persistence; Mrs. Maxwell to Helen

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“It is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing to be a happy, merry-hearted man.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIII : First weeks of Matrimony; Helen to Arthur

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“It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. II : An Interview; Gilbert to Eliza

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“The demon of drink was as black as the demon of play, and nearly as hard to get rid of — especially as his kind friends did all they could to second the promptings of his own insatiable cravings.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXII : Traits of Friendship; Arthur to Helen

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“Friends as we are, we would willingly keep your failings to ourselves — even from ourselves if we could, unless by knowing them we could deliver you from them.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXX : Domestic Scenes; Helen to Arthur

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“It is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XLII : A Reformation; Helen to Ralph