Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

English Novelist and Poet best known for her solitary novel, "Wuthering Heights"

"Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair, 'if I could only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you - Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother.'"

"Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B. - I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five) - on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower."

"Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose - tolerably sober; not going to bed mad at six o'clock, and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently he rose, in suicidal low spirits; as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls."

"Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine -- If he love with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him -- Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse -- It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not?"

"You and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence apart from us. What would be the sense of self has been created, if contained only in myself? The big disappointments I had were the dislikes of Heathcliff, and I felt each from the beginning: what is it makes me live. If everything else was over, and he remained, I would continue to exist, and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would become a huge unknown. My love for Linton is like the foliage of the forest. Time will change it, I'm sure, just as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks: provides a little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!"

"You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!"

"You are my son, then, I'll tell you' and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed."

"You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!"

"You have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!"

"You must forgive me, for I struggled only for you."

"You talk of her mind being unsettled - how the devil could it be otherwise, in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity. He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!"

"You loved me-then what right had you to leave me? What right-answer me-for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine."

"You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering away your life on silly trifles."

"You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!"

"Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever; your veins are full of ice water; but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance."

"You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - Oh, God! would you like to lie with your soul in the grave?"

"You said I killed you - haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!"

"Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous."

"You should never lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning long gone before that time. A person who has not done one half of his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone."

"You're hard to please: so many friends and so few cares, and can't make yourself content."