nd down the parlour of
the Parsonage. They showed the mysterious attraction and affinity of
opposites. Anne must have been fascinated, and at the same time
appalled, by the radiant, revealing, annihilating sweep of Emily's
thought. She was not indifferent to creeds. But you can see her fearful
and reluctant youth yielding at last to Emily's thought, until she
caught a glimpse of the "repose" beyond the clash of "conquered good and
conquering ill". You can see how the doctrine of eternal punishment went
by the board; how Anne, who had gone through agonies of orthodox fear on
account of Branwell, must have adjusted things somehow, and arrived at
peace. Trust in "the merits of the Redeemer" is, after all, trust in the
Immensity beyond Redeemer and redeemed. Of this trust she sang in a
voice, like her material voice, fragile, but sweet and true. She sang
naively of the "Captive Dove" that makes unheard its "joyless moan", of
"the heart that Nature formed to love", pining, "neglected and alone".
She sang of the "Narrow Way", "Be it," she sings, "thy constant aim

"To labour and to love,
To pardon and endure,
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure."

She hears the wind in an alien wood and cries for the Parsonage garden,
and for the "barren hills":

Where scarce the scattered, stunted trees
Can yield an answering swell,
But where a wilderness of heath
Returns the sound as well.

For yonder garden, fair and wide,
With groves of evergreen,
Long winding walks, and borders trim
And velvet lawns between.

Restore to me that little spot,
With grey hills compassed round,
Where knotted grass neglected lies,
And weeds usurp the ground.

For she, too, loved the moors; and through her love for them she wrote
two perfect lines when she called on Memory to

Forever hang thy dreamy spell
Round mountain star and heather-bell.

The critics, the theorists, the tale-mongers, have left Anne quiet in
that grave on the sea-coast, where she lies apart. Her gentle
insignificance served her well.

* * * * *

But no woman who ever wrote was more criticized, more spied upon, more
lied about, than Charlotte. It was as if the singular purity and poverty
of her legend offered irresistible provocation. The blank page called
for the scribbler. The silence that hung about her was dark with
challenge; it was felt to be ambiguous, enigma