An Ode to Emily Bronte

"I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler that a child, her nature stood alone. [...] In Emily's nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and a fire that might have inflamed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; but she had no worldly wisdom; her powers were unadapted to the practical business of life: she would fail to defend her most manifest rights, to consult her most legitimate advantage. An interpreter ought to have stood between her and the world. Her will was not very flexible, and it generally opposed her interest. Her temper was magnanimous, but warm and sudden; her spirit altogether unbending"

This is what Charlotte Bronte had to say about her younger sister. Emily died on December 19, 1848 - but not without leaving a mark. Wuthering Heights, everyone has heard of that book. A large collection of (highly underrated, in my opinion) poetry. No, she wasn't prolific as others. Maybe she didn't even write as well as the others of her time (but you will have no doubt of her writing ability once you read her poetry). But there's still a reason that I keep July 30 and December 19 marked.

Emily lost her mother at 3. Then, she went to a horrible school, where she lost her older sisters Maria and Elizabeth. On returning home, she found that her father wasn't the best of tutors either. Emily, Charlotte and Ann would often write together, or go to the moors, and they only had the company of each other.

And that's one of the main reasons Emily strikes such a chord with me. On reading her writing, you could tell that she was a lonely girl. You could tell that she'd lost a lot. You could tell that "inartificial tastes and an unpretending outside," and that she had "a secret power and a fire". There was nothing fake about her. Nothing inartificial about it. She wrote with a passion, she wrote from her heart.

But the thing that stands out the most to me is, her pen-name. Charlotte, Emily and Anne published under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. And even though it's badass - that they're choosing to write when writing wasn't encouraged in girls is a pretty big thing in itself - it's sad that even in the 19th century we had such sexism. But that bit doesn't matter now.

I never knew Emily Bronte, but I wish I did. And through Wuthering Heights and her poetry, I do feel like I know her. I would like to end this piece on an emotional high, but I can't. So I'll just leave you with my motto for the rest of my life.

"I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side"
-Emily Bronte in Oft Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning.