n, and had much
tribulation and ill-health. . . . We hope he will be better and do
better in future.' And at the end of the paper she says, sadly,
forecasting the coming years, 'I for my part cannot well be flatter or
older in mind than I am now.' This is the language of disappointment and
anxiety; but it hardly fits the tragic story that Mrs. Gaskell believed.

That story was, no doubt, the elaboration of Branwell's diseased fancy
during the three years which elapsed between his dismissal from Thorpe
Green and his death. He imagined a guilty romance with himself and his
employer's wife for characters, and he imposed the horrid story upon his
sisters. Opium and drink are the sufficient explanations; and no time
need now be wasted upon unravelling the sordid mystery. But the vices of
the brother, real or imaginary, have a certain importance in literature,
because of the effect they produced upon his sisters. There can be no
question that Branwell's opium madness, his bouts of drunkenness at the
Black Bull, his violence at home, his free and coarse talk, and his
perpetual boast of guilty secrets, influenced the imagination of his
wholly pure and inexperienced sisters. Much of 'Wuthering Heights,' and
all of 'Wildfell Hall,' show Branwell's mark, and there are many passages
in Charlotte's books also where those who know the history of the
parsonage can hear the voice of those sharp moral repulsions, those
dismal moral questionings, to which Branwell's misconduct and ruin gave
rise. Their brother's fate was an element in the genius of Emily and
Charlotte which they were strong enough to assimilate, which may have
done them some harm, and weakened in them certain delicate or sane
perceptions, but was ultimately, by the strange alchemy of talent, far
more profitable than hurtful, inasmuch as it troubled the waters of the
soul, and brought them near to the more desperate realities of our
'frail, fall'n humankind.'

But Anne was not strong enough, her gift was not vigorous enough, to
enable her thus to transmute experience and grief. The probability is
that when she left Thorpe Green in 1845 she was already suffering from
that religious melancholy of which Charlotte discovered such piteous
evidence among her papers after death. It did not much affect the
writing of 'Agnes Grey,' which was completed in 1846, and reflected the
minor pains and discomforts of her teaching experience, but it combined
with the spectacle o