I may seem to have exaggerated her homesickness for Haworth. It may be said that Haworth was by no means Charlotte's home as it was Emily's. I am aware that there were moments--hours--when she longed to get away from it. I have not forgotten how Mary Taylor found her in such an hour, not long after her return from Brussels, when her very flesh shrank from the thought of her youth gone and "nothing done"; nothing before her but long, empty years in Haworth. The fact remains that she was never happy away from it, and that in Haworth her genius most certainly found itself at home. And this particular tone of misery and unrest disappeared from the moment when her genius declared itself, so that I am inclined to see in it a little personal dissatisfaction, if you will, but chiefly the unspeakable restlessness and misery of power unrecognized and suppressed. "Nothing done!" That was her reiterated cry. Again, if I have overlooked the complexities of Charlotte's character, it is that the great lines that underlie it may be seen. In my heart I agree with M. Dimnet that the Brontës were not simple. All the same, I think that his admirable portrait of Charlotte is spoiled by his attitude of pity for "_la pauvre fille_", as he persists in calling her. I think he dwells a shade too much on her small asperities and acidities, and on that "_ton de critique mesquine_", which he puts down to her provincialism. No doubt there were moments of suffering and of irritation, as well as moments of uncontrollable merriment, when Charlotte lacked urbanity, but M. Dimnet has almost too keen an eye for them. In making war on theories I cannot hope to escape a countercharge of theorizing. Exception may be taken to my own suggestion as to the effect of _Wuthering Heights_ on Charlotte Brontë's genius. If anybody likes to fling it on the rubbish heap they may. I may have theorized a little too much in laying stress on the supernatural element in _Wuthering Heights_. It is because M. Dimnet has insisted too much on its brutality. I may have exaggerated Emily Brontë's "mysticism". It is because her "paganism" has been too much in evidence. It may be said that I have no more authority for my belief that Emily Brontë was in love with the Absolute than other people have for theirs, that Charlotte was in love with M. Héger. Finally, much that I have said about Emily Brontë's hitherto unpublished poems is pure theory. But it is theory, I think, that careful examination of the poems will make good. I may have here and there given as a "Gondal" poem what is not a "Gondal" poem at all. Still, I believe, it will be admitted that it is in the cycle of these poems, and not elsewhere, that we should look for the first germs of _Wuthering Heights_. The evidence only demonstrates in detail--what has never been seriously contested--that the genius of Emily Brontë found its sources in itself. _10th October, 1911._ The Three Brontës