Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb02gaskrich).pdf/221

 many months away: our moors are all white with snow just now, and little redbreasts come every morning to the window for crumbs. One can lay no plans three or four months beforehand. Besides, I don't deserve to go to London; nobody merits a change or a treat less. I secretly think, on the contrary, I ought to be put in prison, and kept on bread and water in solitary confinement—without even a letter from Cornhill—till I had written a book. One of two things would certainly result from such a mode of treatment pursued for twelve months; either I should come out at the end of that time with a three-volume MS. in my hand, or else with a condition of intellect that would exempt me ever after from literary efforts and expectations."

Meanwhile, she was disturbed and distressed by the publication of Miss Martineau's "Letters," &c.; they came down with a peculiar force and heaviness upon a heart that looked, with fond and earnest faith, to a future life as to the meeting-place with those who were "loved and lost awhile."

1em

"My dear Sir,—Have you yet read Miss Martineau's and Mr. Atkinson's new work, 'Letters on the Nature and Development of Man?' If you have not, it would be worth your while to do so.

"Of the impression this book has made on me, I will not now say much. It is the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism I have ever read; the first un-