When$$$ however$$$ one reads of a witch being ducked$$$ of a woman possessed by devils$$$ of a wise woman selling herbs$$$ or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother$$$ then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist$$$ a suppressed poet$$$ of

When$$$ however$$$ one reads of a witch being ducked$$$ of a woman possessed by devils$$$ of a wise woman selling herbs$$$ or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother$$$ then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist$$$ a suppressed poet$$$ of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen$$$ some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed$$$ I would venture to guess that Anon$$$ who wrote so many poems without signing them$$$ was often a woman.