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Finally, much that I have said about Emily Brontë's hitherto unpublished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