Editing Emily Brontë (section)

==Adulthood==
[[File:Constantinheger1.jpg|thumb|[[Constantin Heger]], teacher of Charlotte and Emily during their stay in Brussels, on a [[daguerreotype]] dated {{circa}}&nbsp;1865]]

Emily became a teacher at Law Hill School in [[Halifax, West Yorkshire|Halifax]] beginning in September 1838, when she was twenty.<ref name="Vine 11">Vine, ''Emily Brontë'' (1998), p. 11</ref> Her health soon broke under the stress of the 17-hour workday, and she returned home in April 1839.<ref>Krueger, Christine L. ''Encyclopedia of British writers, 19th century'' (2009), p. 41</ref> Thereafter she remained at home, helping the family's servant with the cooking, ironing, and cleaning at Haworth. She taught herself [[German (language)|German]] from books and also practiced<!--British English spelling, do not change please--> the piano.<ref>{{cite book|first=Robert K. |last=Wallace|title=Emily Brontë and Beethoven: Romantic Equilibrium in Fiction and Music|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2008|page=223}}</ref> Emily was an accomplished pianist.<ref>{{cite book|first=John |last=Hennessy|title=Emily Jane Brontë and Her Music|publisher=WK Publishing|year=2018|page=1}}</ref>

In 1842, Emily accompanied Charlotte to the Heger Pensionnat in [[Brussels]], [[Belgium]], where they attended the girls' academy run by [[Constantin Heger]] in the hope of perfecting their French and German before opening their own school. Unlike Charlotte, Emily was uncomfortable in Brussels and refused to adopt Belgian fashions, saying "I wish to be as God made me", which rendered her something of an outcast.<ref>Paddock & Rollyson ''The  Brontës A to Z''  p. 21.</ref> Nine of Emily's French essays survive from this period. Heger seems to have been impressed with the strength of Emily's character, writing that:
<blockquote><div>She should have been a man – a great navigator. Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old; and her strong imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty, never have given way but with life. She had a head for logic, and a capability of argument unusual in a man and rarer indeed in a woman... impairing this gift was her stubborn tenacity of will which rendered her obtuse to all reasoning where her own wishes, or her own sense of right, was concerned.<ref>[[Constantin Heger|Heger, Constantin]], 1842, referring to Emily Brontë, as quoted in ''The Oxford History of the Novel in English'' (2011), Volume 3, p. 208</ref>
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The two sisters were committed to their studies and by the end of the term had become so competent in French that Madame Heger proposed that they both stay another half-year, even, according to Charlotte, offering to dismiss the English master so that she could take his place. Emily had, by this time, become a competent pianist and teacher, and it was suggested that she might stay on to teach music.<ref>{{cite book|first=Norma |last=Crandall|title=Emily Brontë, a Psychological Portrait|publisher=R.&nbsp;R. Smith Publisher|year=1957|page=85}}</ref> However, the illness and death of their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, necessitated their return to Haworth.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/people/emily-bronte-9227381|title=Emily Brontë|website=Biography|access-date=2 February 2018}}</ref> In 1844, the sisters attempted to open a school in their house, but their plans were stymied by an inability to attract students to the remote area.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Brontës|last=Barker |first=Juliet R.&nbsp;V.|date=1995|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=0312145551|edition= 1st U.S.|location=New York|pages=440|oclc=32701664}}</ref>

In 1844, Emily began going through all the poems she had written, recopying them neatly into two notebooks.<ref>{{cite book|first=Claire |last=O'Callaghan|title=Emily Brontë Reappraised|publisher=Saraband|year=2018|page=146}}</ref> One was labelled "Gondal Poems"; the other was unlabelled. Scholars such as [[Fannie Ratchford]] and Derek Roper have attempted to piece together a Gondal storyline and chronology from these poems.<ref>Ratchford, Fannie, ed., ''Gondal's Queen''. University of Texas Press, 1955. {{ISBN|0-292-72711-9}}.</ref><ref>Roper, Derek, ed., ''The Poems of Emily Brontë''. Oxford University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-19-812641-7}}.</ref> 
In the autumn of 1845, Charlotte discovered the notebooks and insisted that the poems be published. Emily, understandably furious at the invasion of her privacy, at first refused but, according to Charlotte, relented when Anne brought out her manuscripts and revealed to Charlotte that she had been writing poems in secret as well. Around this time Emily wrote one of her most famous poems, "No coward soul is mine". Some literary critics have speculated that it is a poem about Anne Brontë, while others see it as an answer to the violation of her privacy and her own transformation into a published writer.<ref>{{cite book|first=Meredith L. |last=McGill|title=The Traffic in Poems: Nineteenth-century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2008|page=240}}</ref> Despite Charlotte's later claim that it was Emily's final poem, this is factually inaccurate.<ref name= GondalPoems>{{cite book|title= Gondal Poems | first = Emily Jane | last = Brontë |year= 1938|publisher= The Shakespeare Head Press| location= Oxford | pages= 5–8|editor-first= Helen |editor-last=Brown |editor2-first= Joan |editor2-last=Mott}}</ref>

In 1846, the sisters' poems were published in one volume as ''[[Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell]]''. Charlotte later stated that the Brontë sisters had adopted pseudonyms for publication, preserving their initials: Charlotte was "Currer Bell", Emily was "Ellis Bell" and Anne was "Acton Bell".<ref>''Encyclopedia of British writers, 19th century'' (2009), p. 41</ref> Charlotte wrote in the 'Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell' that their "ambiguous choice" was "dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because... we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice".<ref name="Gaskell 335">Gaskell, ''The life of Charlotte Brontë'' (1857), p. 335</ref> Charlotte contributed 19 poems, and Emily and Anne each contributed 21. Although the sisters were told several months after publication that only two copies had sold,<ref>Gérin, Winifred ''Charlotte Brontë: the evolution of genius'' (1969), p. 322</ref> they were not discouraged (of their two readers, one was impressed enough to request their autographs).<ref>Margot Peters, ''Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Brontë'' (1976), p. 219</ref> ''The Athenaeum'' reviewer praised Ellis Bell's work for its music and power, singling out those poems as the best in the book: "Ellis possesses a fine, quaint spirit and an evident power of wing that may reach heights not here attempted",<ref>''In the footsteps of the Brontës'' (1895), p. 306</ref> and ''The Critic'' reviewer recognised "the presence of more genius than it was supposed this utilitarian age had devoted to the loftier exercises of the intellect."<ref>''The poems of Emily Jane Brontë and Anne Brontë'' (1932), p. 102</ref>