Mr. Leyland is even so
foolish as to compare Branwell's poetry with Emily's, to the advantage of
the former--which makes further comment impossible. 'My unhappy brother
never knew what his sisters had done in literature'--these words of
Charlotte's may be taken as final for all who had any doubts concerning
the authorship of _Wuthering Heights_.
CHAPTER VI: EMILY JANE BRONTE
Emily Bronte is the sphinx of our modern literature. She came into being
in the family of an obscure clergyman, and she went out of it at
twenty-nine years of age without leaving behind her one single
significant record which was any key to her character or to her mode of
thought, save only the one famous novel, _Wuthering Heights_, and a few
poems--some three or four of which will live in our poetic anthologies
for ever. And she made no single friend other than her sister Anne.
With Anne she must have corresponded during the two or three periods of
her life when she was separated from that much loved sister; and we may
be sure that the correspondence was of a singularly affectionate
character. Charlotte, who never came very near to her in thought or
sympathy, although she loved her younger sister so deeply, addressed her
in one letter 'mine own bonnie love'; and it is certain that her own
letters to her two sisters, and particularly to Anne, must have been
peculiarly tender and in no way lacking in abundant self-revelation.
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