[ Brontë / Letter ]
In one of her letters (June 8, 1839) Charlotte Brontë makes the following remark:
One of the pleasantest afternoons I have spent here — indeed, the only one at all pleasant — was when Mr. —— walked out with his children, and I had orders to follow a little behind. As he strolled on through his fields, with his magnificent Newfoundland dog at his side, he looked very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman ought to be.
(Reported in Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë)