In the mornings young Bronte would
saunter out, saying, with a drunkard's incontinence of speech, "The poor
old man and I have had a terrible night of it; he does his best--the poor
old man! but it's all over with me."
CHAPTER XIV
In 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 handwriting. 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
unlicensed: it took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had
made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication .
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