The Professor is a novel narrated by William Crimsworth, a young Englishman who leaves a cold family situation and a hostile older brother to seek work in Brussels. He becomes a teacher at a boys' school and later at a neighbouring girls' school, where he meets a talented pupil and teacher of mixed background. The story follows his struggle to make an independent living and his search for respect and affection. It was the author's first novel to be written but was rejected by publishers and appeared only after her death. It shows early versions of ideas and settings she later used in Villette.
Quotes
What animal magnetism drew thee and me together—I know not.
Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life.
Unlawful pleasure, trenching on another’s rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure—its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave forever.
I tell you, Mr. Hunsden, you are a more unpractical man than I am an unpractical woman, for you don't acknowledge what really exists; you want to annihilate individual patriotism and national greatness as an atheist would annihilate God and his own soul, by denying their existence.