Remembering Emily Bronte

I am going to select memories concerning Emily Bronte, not the ideas of interpretors, but people who really knew her.

• Monsieur Heger remembered Emily Brontë as having “a head for logic, and a capability of argument, unusual in a man, and rare indeed in a woman.” To describe her, he used phrases such as these: “powerful reason” (that is, reasoning ability) and “strong, imperious will.”
•  I remember Emily Bronte walking in Haworth, a quiet unassuming lass, with simple long clothes, said Joshua Baldwin.

All that survives of Emily's own words about herself is two brief letters, two diary papers written when she was thirteen and sixteen, and two birthday papers, written when she was twenty-three and twenty-seven. Almost everything that is known about her comes from the writings of others, primarily Charlotte.

• Charlotte Bronte: Liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very secluded, but unrestricted and inartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindliest auspices), was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me—I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. 
• “Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with anguished wonder and love..Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was, that while full of ruth for others, on herself she had no pity...
• "kind, kindling, liquid eyes" Ellen Nussey. 
• Mr Jenkins, the Anglican cleric, who had helped the sisters find the Pensionnat, invited them to spend Sundays at his house in the Chaussée d’Ixelles. However, Mrs. Jenkins stopped inviting them after a while, as their shyness and awkwardness made the visits more and more painful. They were escorted to the house by the Jenkins' sons, who found the walks tedious owing to the girls' silence. Mrs. Jenkins observed that: “Emily hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable” when she was in their home.
• The eldest Wheelwright daughter, Laetitia, who was to become a friend and correspondent of Charlotte’s later in life, wrote of her antipathy of Emily:
  I simply disliked her from the first. She taught my three youngest sisters music for four months to my annoyance, as she would only take them in their play hours, so as not to curtail her own school hours, naturally causing tears to small children.