that Emily welcomed her fancies, even the gloomiest, as a happy outlet from reality.
"Oh, dreadful is the check—intense the agony—
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again,
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain."
Such were the verses that Charlotte discovered one autumn day of 1845, which surprised her, with good reason, by their originality and music. Emily was not pleased by what in her eyes, so jealous of her liberty, must have seemed a deliberate interference with her property. "My sister Emily," continues Charlotte, "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 intrude unlicensed; it took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication. I knew, however, that a mind like hers could not be without some latent spark of honourable ambition, and refused to be discouraged in my attempts to fan that spark to flame.
"Meantime, my younger sister quietly produced some of her own compositions, intimating that since Emily's had given me pleasure, I might like to look at some of hers. I could not but be a partial judge, yet I thought that these verses, too, had a sweet sincere pathos of their own."
Only a partial judge could find anything much to praise in gentle Anne's trivial verses. Had the book an index of first lines, what a scathing criticism on the contents would it be!
"Sweet are thy strains, celestial bard."
"I'll rest me in this sheltered bower."
"Oh, I am very weary, though tears no longer flow."
