ome known and famous. I have no means of ascertaining what answer
was returned by Mr. Wordsworth; but that he considered the letter
remarkable may, I think, be inferred both from its preservation, and its
recurrence to his memory when the real name of Currer Bell was made known
to the public.

"Haworth, near Bradford,
"Yorkshire, January 19, 1837.

"Sir,--I most earnestly entreat you to read and pass your judgment
upon what I have sent you, because from the day of my birth to this
the nineteenth year of my life, I have lived among secluded hills,
where I could neither know what I was, or what I could do. I read for
the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of
nature. I wrote on the same principle as I spoke--out of the impulse
and feelings of the mind; nor could I help it, for what came, came
out, and there was the end of it. For as to self-conceit, that could
not receive food from flattery, since to this hour, not half a dozen
people in the world know that I have ever penned a line.

"But a change has taken place now, sir: and I am arrived at an age
wherein I must do something for myself: the powers I possess must be
exercised to a definite end, and as I don't know them myself I must
ask of others what they are worth. Yet there is not one here to tell
me; and still, if they are worthless, time will henceforth be too
precious to be wasted on them.

"Do pardon me, sir, that I have ventured to come before one whose
works I have most loved in our literature, and who most has been with
me a divinity of the mind, laying before him one of my writings, and
asking of him a judgment of its contents. I must come before some one
from whose sentence there is no appeal; and such a one is he who has
developed the theory of poetry as well as its practice, and both in
such a way as to claim a place in the memory of a thousand years to
come.

"My aim, sir, is to push out into the open world, and for this I trust
not poetry alone--that might launch the vessel, but could not bear her
on; sensible and scientific prose, bold and vigorous efforts in my
walk in life, would give a farther title to the notice of the world;
and then again poetry ought to brighten and crown that name with
glory; but nothing of all this can be ever begun without means, and as
I don't possess these, I must in every shape strive to g