To MESSRS. SMITH AND ELDER.

"August 2nd, 1847.

"Gentlemen,--About three weeks since, I sent for your
consideration a MS. entitled "The Professor", a tale by Currer
Bell. I should be glad to know whether it reached your hands
safely, and likewise to learn, at your earliest convenience,
whether it be such as you can undertake to publish.--I am,
gentlemen, yours respectfully,

"CURRER BELL.

"I enclose a directed cover for your reply."

This time her note met with a prompt answer; for, four days
later, she writes (in reply to the letter which she afterwards
characterised in the Preface to the second edition of "Wuthering
Heights", as containing a refusal so delicate, reasonable, and
courteous, as to be more cheering than some acceptances):

"Your objection to the want of varied interest in the tale is, I
am aware, not without grounds; yet it appears to me that it might
be published without serious risk, if its appearance were
speedily followed up by another work from the same pen, of a more
striking and exciting character. The first work might serve as an
introduction, and accustom the public to the author's the success
of the second might thereby be rendered more probable. I have a
second narrative in three volumes, now in progress, and nearly