All through her life her temperament was more than merely peculiar. She inherited not a little of her father’s eccentricity untempered by her father’s _savoir faire_. Her aversion to strangers has been already mentioned. When the curates, who formed the only society of Haworth, found their way to the parsonage, she avoided them as though they had brought the pestilence in their train. On the rare occasions when she went out into the world, she would sit absolutely silent in the company of those who were unfamiliar to her. So intense was this reserve that even in her own family, where alone she was at ease, something like dread was mingled with the affection felt towards her. [Sidenote: Love of animals.] Her chief delight was to roam on the moors, followed by her dogs, to whom she would whistle in masculine fashion. Her heart, indeed, was given to the dumb creatures of the earth. She never forgave those who ill-treated them, nor trusted those whom they disliked. One is reminded of Shelley’s “Sensitive Plant” by some traits of Emily Brontë; like the lady of the poem, her tenderness and charity could reach even “----the poor banished insects, whose intent, Although they did ill, was innocent.” [Sidenote: Personal courage.] [Sidenote: Love of home.] One instance of her remarkable personal courage is related in ‘Shirley,’ where she herself is sketched under the character of the heroine. It is her adventure with the mad dog which bit her at the door of the parsonage kitchen while she was offering it water. The brave girl took an iron from the fire, where it chanced to be heating, and immediately cauterized the wound on her arm, making a broad, deep scar, which was there until the day of her death. Not until many weeks after this did she tell her sisters what had happened. Passionately fond of her home among the hills, and of the rough Yorkshire people among whom she had been reared, she sickened and pined away when absent from Haworth. A strange, untamed and untamable character was hers; and none but her two sisters ever seem to have appreciated her remarkable merits. T. WEMYSS REID: ‘Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Emily in 1833.]