"'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a
sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may
take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and
precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will,
and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honour, so blighted
your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is
cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and
humanity require of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself,
be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being.
Place her in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy,
and leave her.'
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"I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not
made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first
letter I wrote to apprise them of the union--having already begun to
experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family
character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me--I
added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous
conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him
blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish
the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself.
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