In this small and busy house, the world of writing for all siblings was a way of enlarging space, freedom and liberty. This struggle for creative independence from her older sister continued into adulthood when in 1845 Charlotte invaded Emily's privacy by reading her poems without consent. To this end Emily and Anne established their own imaginary land of Gondal, a breakaway state. Initially the children all played together, but resentment grew as Emily and Anne, being the youngest of the quartet, were relegated the minor of roles. When their housekeeper Tabby scolds her for writing: "Ya pitter pottering there instead of pilling a potate." She answers in her writing, "O Dear, O Dear, O Dear I will directly with that I get up, take a knife and begin pilling", before her paper continues with the state of her person, the messy kitchen, the music lesson undone, the wanting to go out to play, the imaging of what she and her sister Anne will be all like when they are older.Īs children, Charlotte and Emily were co-conspirators over the shared imaginary world of the Glass Town Confederacy, inspired by the mythic arrival of brother Branwell's toy soldiers.
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