in first-rate playing condition_. _Will
they improve_? _I wonder how we shall all be and where and how
situated on the thirtieth of July_ 1848, _when_, _if we are all
alive_, _Emily will be just_ 30. _I shall_ _be in my_ 29th _year_,
_Charlotte in her_ 33rd, _and Branwell in his_ 32nd; _and what
changes shall we have seen and known_; _and shall we be much changed
ourselves_? _I hope not_, _for the worse at least_. _I for my part
cannot well be flatter or older in mind than I am now_. _Hoping for
the best_, _I conclude_.

_Anne Bronte_.

Exactly fifty years were to elapse before these pieces of writing saw the
light. The interest which must always centre in Emily Bronte amply
justifies my publishing a fragment in facsimile; and it has the greater
moment on account of the rough drawing which Emily has made of herself
and of her dog Keeper. Emily's taste for drawing is a pathetic element
in her always pathetic life. I have seen a number of her sketches.
There is one in the possession of Mr. Nicholls of Keeper and Flossy, the
former the bull-dog which followed her to the grave, the latter a little
King Charlie which one of the Miss Robinsons gave to Anne. The sketch,
however, like most of Emily's drawings, is technically full of errors.
She was not a born artist, and possibly she had not the best
opportunities of becoming one by hard work. Another drawing before me is
of the hawk mentioned in the above fragment; and yet another is of the
dog Growler, a predecessor of Keeper, which is not, however, mentioned in
the correspondence. Upon Emily Bronte, the poet, I do not propose to
write here. She left behind her, and Charlotte preserved, a manuscript
volume containing the whole of the poems in the two collections of her
verse, and there are other poems not yet published. Here, for example,
are some verses in which the Gondals make a slight reappearance.

[Picture: Facsimile of two pages of Emily Bronte's Diary]

'_May_ 21_st_, 1838.

GLENEDEN'S DREAM.

'Tell me, whether is it winter?
Say how long my sleep has been.
Have the woods I left so lovely
Lost their robes of tender green?

'Is the morning slow in coming?
Is the night time loth to go?
Tell me, are the dreary mountains
Drearier still wi