The sisters had long loved to write as well as to read; and Charlotte has told how, in the autumn of 1845, the thought of publication was suggested by a MS. volume of Emily's poetry. Her criticism of the verses is generous, but by no means extravagant. 'I thought them,' she says, 'condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and elevating.' The other sisters had written poems also, and after various difficulties a small volume of _Poems_ by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell was published in 1846. It attracted little attention, and Charlotte says with truth that only the poems of Emily deserved much. Hers display a genuine poetic gift. Had she lived to write much more verse she would certainly have been one of the greatest of English poetesses, and might have been the first of all. Strength, sincerity and directness are the characteristics of her verse; and the individuality of the writer gives it distinction: 'I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide: Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side. 'What have these lonely mountains worth revealing? More glory and more grief than I can tell: The earth that wakes _one_ human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of heaven and hell.' The volume of verse was followed by several volumes of prose. Each sister had a story ready, and the three were offered simultaneously for publication. Emily's novel, _Wuthering Heights_, and Anne's, _Agnes Grey_, were accepted, though 'on terms somewhat impoverishing to the two authors.' Charlotte's, _The Professor_, was rejected by one publisher after another, and ten years passed before it appeared. Meanwhile the dauntless author set to work and wrote _Jane Eyre_. This was accepted, and was published, like the stories by the other sisters, in 1847. Unlike theirs, it won a rapid and remarkable success and finally fixed the career of Charlotte Brontë. It will be convenient to take the work of the three sisters in the reverse order. That of Anne Brontë may be speedily dismissed. She was a gentle, delicate creature both in mind and body; and but for her greater sisters her writings would now be forgotten. Her pleasing but commonplace tale of _Agnes Grey_ was followed by _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_, in which she attempted, without success, to depict a profligate.