Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb01gaskrich).pdf/354



the course of this sad autumn of 1845, a new interest came up; faint, indeed, and often lost sight of in the vivid pain and constant pressure of anxiety respecting their brother. In the biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefixed to the edition of "Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey," published in 1850—a piece of writing unique, as far as I know, in its pathos and its power—she says:—

"One day in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse, in my sister Emily's hand-writing. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was not a person of demonstrative character, nor one, on the recesses of whose mind and feelings, even those nearest and dearest to her could, with impunity, intrude