[Charlotte Bronte to Ellen Nussey, on her struggles with religious melancholy, 20 February 1837:] 'Last Sunday I took up my Bible in a gloomy frame of mind; I began to read; a feeling stole over me such as I have not known for many long years -- a sweet, placid sensation like those that I remember used to visit me when I was a little child, and on Sunday evenings in summer stood by the open window reading the life of a certain French nobleman who attained a purer and higher degree of sanctity than has been known since the days of the Martyrs. I thought of my own Ellen -- I wished she had been near me that I might have told her how happy I was, how bright and glorious the pages of God's holy word seemed to me. But the "foretaste" passed away, and earth and sin returned.'