lptor, written in 1845, where he says he
is writing a three-volume novel of which the first volume is completed.
He compares it with "Hamlet" and with "Lear". There is also Branwell's
alleged statement to Mr. Grundy. And there is an obscure legend of
manuscripts produced from Branwell's hat, before the eyes of Mr. Grundy,
in an inn-parlour. Leyland argues freely from the antecedent probability
suggested by Branwell's letters and his verse, which he published by way
of vindication. He could hardly have done Branwell a worse service.
Branwell's letters give us a vivid idea of the sort of manuscripts that
would be produced, in inn-parlours, from his hat. As for his verse--that
formless, fluent gush of sentimentalism--it might have passed as an
error of his youth, but for poor Leyland's comments on its majesty and
beauty. There are corpses in it and tombstones, and girls dying of
tuberculosis, obscured beyond recognition in a mush of verbiage. There
is not a live line in it. One sonnet only, out of Branwell's many
sonnets, is fitted to survive. It has a certain melancholy, sentimental
grace. But it is not a good sonnet, and it shows Branwell at his best.
At his worst he sinks far below Charlotte at her worst, and, compared
with Emily or with Charlotte at her best, Branwell is nowhere. Even Anne
beats him. Her sad, virginal restraint gives a certain form and value
to her colourless and slender gift.

There is a psychology of such things, as there is a psychology of works
of genius. Emily Bronte's work, with all its faults of construction,
shows one and indivisible, fused in one fire from first to last. One
cannot take the first seventeen chapters of _Wuthering Heights_ and
separate them from the rest. There is no faltering anywhere and no break
in the power and the passion of this stupendous tale. And where passion
is, sentimentalism is not. And there is not anywhere in _Wuthering
Heights_ a trace of that corruption which for the life of him Branwell
could not have kept out of the manuscripts he produced from his hat.

INDEX

Absolute, the, 16, 176.
_Agnes Grey_, 39, 40, 49.
Augustine, St., 185.

Ballynaskeagh, 20.
Balzac, 54, 120, 121, 163.
Bassompierre, Pauline de, in
Villette, 153-157.
Being, 184.
-- Parmenides on, 185.
Birrell, Mr., 14, 20, 31, 41, 65.
Blake, William, 175, 178.
Branwell, Miss, at Haworth, 23,
24.
-- -- death of, 36.
-- Maria, marries Rev. Patrick
Bronte, 20.
-- -- i