Resident in a remote district, where education had made
little progress, and where, consequently, there was no inducement
to seek social intercourse beyond our own domestic circle, we were
wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study,
for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus,
as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood
upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition; formerly we used
to show each other what we wrote, but of late years this habit of
communication and consultation had been discontinued; hence it
ensued, that we were mutually ignorant of the progress we might
respectively have made.
One day, in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS.
volume of verse in my sister Emily's handwriting. Of course, I was
not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I
looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me--a deep
conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like
the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and
terse, vigorous and genuine.
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