Emily's genius towered far above the rest. Of the poems the sisters published together, only hers cling to the memory. Under more favorable surroundings she should have become a poet ranking with Christina Rossetti and Mrs. Browning. One may pick flaws enough in tWuthering Heights.' It is ill put together and perhaps the author has not fully realized her aim. It is no doubt brutal where it was intended not to be. But it displays the same intense power of utterance as the poems. It is one of the great things in English fiction, not much like any romance before or since its time. Over it hangs the mystery of the moors and their solitary wanderer.
(Wtithering Heights,' however, has never gained the popularity of Charlotte's novels. To many it is nightmarish and repellant. It is not softened by the humanity of Charlotte who mingled more with the world. 'Jane Eyre) was based upon Charlotte's experiences as school girl and governess. As a picture of the life of the times in the north, it came as a startling revelation. Its characters were drawn on hard and unconventional lines totally unlike the run of novels women were then writing. Against the author was brought the charge of coarse ness and brutality, though no mind was ever cleaner than hers. The novel was really the wail of a human soul compelled to haunt the Yorkshire moors. 'Shirley) was quieter in tone; but it caused a stir in the north, for the characters were easily recognized portraits, among which was a superb study of Emily as Shirley Keeldar of quivering lip, dilating nos trils and wild, fascinating eyes, when moved to passion or strange, Titanic visions. 'Viltette,' which is the worked over, was founded on Charlotte's life in Brussels. Though it suffers somewhat from its foreign setting, it is perhaps her masterpiece. Lucy
Snowe and Paul Emanuel are her most elabo rate characters, and nowhere else has Charlotte Bronte so subtly analyzed states of mind verg ing into madness. See JANE EYRE ; WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
'The Life of Charlotte Bronte) by Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (London 1857, afterward revised and frequently re issued) is among the finest biographies in the English language. It should be supplemented, however, by C. K. Shorter, 'Charlotte Brontė and her Circle) (London 1896) and 'Charlotte Bronte and her Sisters' (New York 1905). Inter esting but less valuable biographies of Charlotte Bronte have been written by T. W. Reid (Lon don 1877), and A. Birrell (London 1887). Consult also 'Emily Brontė' by A. Mary F. Robinson in the 'Eminent Women (Boston 1883); Swinburne's 'A Note on Char lotte Brontė' (London 1877); F. A. Leyland's 'The Bronte (London 1886) ; Wright's 'The Brontes in Ireland) (New York 1893); C. K. Shorter's 'The Brontes) (London 1907); May Sinclair's Three Brontės) (London and New York 1913), and the of the Bronte Society. The 'Life and Works of the Sisters Bronte) with a preface by Mrs. Ward, and introduction and notes to Mrs. Gas kell's 'Life) by C. K. Shorter (7 vols., London and New York 1899-1900) is the best complete edition yet published. Charlotte Bronfe's (Ad ventures of Ernest Alembert) is included in Nicholl and Wise, 'Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century) (Vol. II, London 1896). In the' London Times of 29 July 1913 a number of letters were published; these had passed be tween Charlotte Bronte and Heger, her teacher in Brussels. The letters shed a new light on the hero of (Villette.) Wri.atra L. Cuoss, Professor of English, Yale University.