and had her being.

Until the publication of the unknown poems, it was possible to ignore
the "Gondal Chronicles". They are not included in Mr. Clement Shorter's
exhaustive list of early and unpublished manuscripts. Nobody knew
anything about them except that they were part of a mysterious game of
make-believe which Emily and the ever-innocent Anne played together,
long after the age when most of us have given up make-believing. There
are several references to the Chronicles in the diaries of Emily and
Anne. Emily writes in 1841: "The Gondaland are at present in a
threatening state, but there is no open rupture as yet. All the princes
and princesses of the Royalty are at the Palace of Instruction." Anne
wonders "whether the Gondaland will still be flourishing" in 1845. In
1845 Emily and Anne go for their first long journey together. "And
during our excursion we were Ronald Macalgin, Henry Angora, Juliet
Angusteena, Rosabella Esmaldan, Ella and Julian Egremont, Catharine
Navarre, and Cordelia Fitzaphnold, escaping from the palaces of
instruction to join the Royalists, who are hard pressed at present by
the victorious Republicans. "The Gondals," Emily says, "still flourish
bright as ever." Anne is not so sure. "We have not yet finished our
'Gondal Chronicles' that we began three years and a half ago. When will
they be done? The Gondals are at present in a sad state. The Republicans
are uppermost, but the Royalists are not quite overcome. The young
sovereigns, with their brothers and sisters, are still at the Palace of
Instruction. The Unique Society, about half a year ago, were wrecked on
a desert island as they were returning from Gaul. They are still there,
but we have not played at them much yet."

But there are no recognizable references to the Gondal poems. It is not
certain whether Charlotte Bronte knew of their existence, not absolutely
certain that Anne, who collaborated on the Gondals, knew.

"Bronte specialists" are agreed in dismissing the Chronicles as puerile.
But the poems cannot be so dismissed. Written in lyric or ballad form,
fluent at their worst and loose, but never feeble; powerful, vehement,
and overflowing at their best, their cycle contains some of Emily
Bronte's very finest verse. They are obscure, incoherent sometimes,
because they are fragmentary; even poems apparently complete in
themselves are fragments, scenes torn out of the vast and complicated
epic drama. We have no clue to the history o