This passage sheds some light on Emily’s character and personality while in Brussels.
Her stubborn, uncompromising and self-centred attitude to others made her unpopular and anti-social. But Emily never had any intention of making friends, or adjusting to social conventions; she never had done before. She considered social intercourse a waste of time.
Already within a few weeks of their arrival at the Pensionnat, it became apparent that the two sisters differed sharply from the other pupils. They were older than most of them and were unique in being protestant. They clung to each other for dear life, being protective of each other. They conducted themselves differently, they had other, foreign, ways and morals and their old fashioned dress sense did them no favours either.
Though Charlotte was more prepared to make concessions and adapt the rules and etiquette within this new society, Emily refused point blank to change in any way.
Whereas Charlotte imitated and adopted a new dress style on the Continent, in buying dresses to suit her tiny figure, Emily would not abandon her old style. She persisted in wearing leg-of-mutton sleeves and petticoats, which lacked fullness, did not suit her tall and thin figure. But when she got teased about her odd clothes and ungainly figure, she lashed out, replying: “I wish to be as God made me.”

As Emily did not intend on making contact with her fellow pupils, her only contact with other people she had was a small circle of English acquaintances, which she and Charlotte knew.
Mr Jenkins, the Anglican cleric, who had helped the sisters find the Pensionnat, invited them to his house in the Chaussée d’Ixelles on Sundays. However, Mrs. Jenkins, the hostess, ceased inviting the two sisters after a while, as the visits became ever more painful. The young women were escorted to their home by their sons, John and Edward, but the walks to and from the Pensionnat became tedious and awkward as the girls remained silent and shy the whole time. Mrs. Jenkins observed that: “Emily hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable.”, when she was in their home. The Jenkins grew weary of the impenetrable, silent mask Emily presented to them.
On another outing, when Mary and Martha Taylor took her and Charlotte to their cousins, the Dixons, for tea, Emily remained completely silent the whole evening.
Later in July, five English girls enrolled at the Pensionnat, the daughters of the British doctor, Dr. Thomas Wheelwright. They lived in the Rue Royale, not far from the Rue d’Isabelle.
They also tried to make friends with the sisters. They liked Charlotte and wanted to invite her home for tea or accompany them to excursions, but they did not do so, knowing Emily would ruin the occasion. And they could invite one sister without the other.
They felt Emily bullied her sister and held Charlotte in a possessive grip. Emily cut off Charlotte from everyone with her anti-social behaviour.
The eldest Wheelwright daughter, Laetitia, who was to become one of Charlotte’s friends and correspondents 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…”.
Yet another mark of Emily’s single-minded and uncompromising behaviour; again Emily displayed no polite social attitude and she showed no inclination in making any concessions; she simply did not care whether she made herself unpopular.

Only one person makes an exception to the prevailing bad opinion of Emily. Louise de Bassompierre, a sixteen-year-old girl who was a student in the Brontës class, preferred Emily to her sister, finding her more sympathetic, kinder and more approachable. A friendship between the otherwise aloof Emily and Louise did exist, and Emily clearly valued her friendship with this Belgian girl because she gave Louise a signed pencil drawing of a damaged fir-tree. However miserable and difficult Emily must have been to others, it was equally painful for her for what she went through in Brussels. Emily more than ever wanted to prove a point: that she could stay away from home, however unpleasant the experience was and how homesick she got. She studied relentlessly, bent to acquire knowledge to the full. She was always in pursuit of the greatest challenges and went for every big opportunity.

Pencil drawing by Emily Brontë, 1842

Another big development during her time in Brussels was her music, making great strides as a pianist; she was later given the post of music teacher in the Pensionnat. She was given lessons by one of the best professors in Brussels.
Emily’s study of music on the continent changed her taste. She became fonder of the piano arrangements from symphonies. It is no wonder she concentrates on pieces from Beethoven, Gluck and Handel, from her music books with listings such as Bach, Boccherini, Clementi, Corelli, Haydn and Mozart. They show Emily’s more daring, insightful and dramatic taste, sharing an artistic and passionate spirit with her favourite composers.
Being so fond of Beethoven, another hero of the Romantic era, like Byron, it might well explain her eagerness to learn German, bringing her in contact with amazing German literature from the same period.

The initial plan was to stay for only six months in Brussels, but the Hegers proposed to the Brontës to stay on longer, offering them teaching posts in exchange for free board and education. Charlotte in a letter:
"…I consider it doubtful whether I shall come home in September or not. Madame Heger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to stay another half-year, offering to dismiss her English master, and take me as English teacher; also to employ Emily some part of each day in teaching music to a certain number of the pupils. For these services we are to be allowed to continue our studies in French and German, and to have board, &c., without paying for it; no salaries, however, are offered. The proposal is kind, and in a great selfish city like Brussels, and a great selfish school, containing nearly ninety pupils (boarders and day pupils included), implies a degree of interest which demands gratitude in return. I am inclined to accept it. What think you? I don't deny I sometimes wish to be in England, or that I have brief attacks of home sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like. Emily is making rapid progress in French, German, music, and drawing. Monsieur and Madame Heger begin to recognise the valuable parts of her character, under her singularities.”

What this prospect of remaining yet six more months inside the enclosure and confinement of the Pensionnat must have been to Emily, one can guess.
Emily became even more inaccessible and silent.
Charlotte saw the decline in Emily’s physique; she knew her sister was suffering, like she had done during her time at Roe Head which she left on the verge of collapse.
Emily wouldn’t eat, didn’t sleep properly and grew more weak and ill.
“Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution; with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer it in this second ordeal. She did conquer: but the victory cost her dear. She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old parsonage-house, and desolate Yorkshire hills” Charlotte later writes.

But then Providence overtook circumstances, and death broke into the lives of the young Brontë sisters, delivering Emily from an unendurable position.
Martha Taylor, Mary’s younger sister, who had stayed at the Château de Koekelberg, suddenly died of cholera. Emily and Charlotte heard of the news only after she had died. On 30th October they went with Mary to the Protestant cemetery to visit the grave of Martha.
Just a few days after this on 2nd November, they received terrible news that their Aunt Branwell was gravely ill, and was probably going to die. The next day, they received further tragic news, announcing their Aunt was already dead.
They were too late for the funeral, but it was their duty to return home.

Emily would see her beloved Yorkshire moors once more.
Despite her success in Brussels, she had no wish to return to the Pensionnat.
Emily resumed her old role as housekeeper and gladly decided to stay at home from then on.
She now could return to her Gondal poetry once again, and a few years later would produce one of the greatest novels in English literature: Wuthering Heights.

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