Great Throughts Treasury

"My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels — its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found; measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound — o, dreadful is the check — intense the agony when the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see; when the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again, the soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain. Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less; the more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless; and robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine if it but herald death, the vision is divine —"

"My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable."

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees — my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being — so, don't talk of our separation again — it is impracticable."

"No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall."

"No, reprobate! You are a castaway - be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modeled in wax and clay; and the first who passes the limits I fix, shall - I'll not say what he shall be done to - but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!"

"Nonsense, do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him?"

"Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!"

"Oh! dreadful is the check - intense the agony - / When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; when the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; / The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain."

"My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months - many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms. I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor - the middle one, gray, and half buried in heath - Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss, creeping up its foot - Heathcliff's still bare. I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

"Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them."

"Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life, he answered; and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it."

"Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being."

"No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, and Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life — that in me has rest, as I — undying Life — have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts: unutterably vain; worthless as withered weeds, or idlest froth amid the boundless main."

"Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! How can I bear it? was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt."

"Oh, I’m burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free . . . and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I’m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open!"

"Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy."

"Oh, my God, is inconceivable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

"Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, how could I seek the empty world again?"

"Once you have devastated my palace, do not construe as a hut and think you're being very charitable so."

"People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him."

"Perhaps your envy counseled her Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But I've most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those."

"Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?' I replied. 'To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool."

"Reason, indeed, may oft complain for Nature's sad reality, and tell the suffering heart, how vain its cherished dreams must always be; and Truth may rudely trample down the flowers of Fancy, newly-blown."

"Riches I hold in light esteem, and love I laugh to scorn, and lust of fame was but a dream that vanished with the morn. And if I pray, the only prayer that moves my lips for me is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, and give me liberty!' Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 'tis all that I implore - in life and death, a chainless soul, with courage to endure."

"Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better."

"Shall Earth no more inspire thee, thou lonely dreamer now? Since passion may not fire thee shall Nature cease to bow? Thy mind is ever moving in regions dark to thee; recall its useless roving — come back and dwell with me —"

"She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near; and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet, and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom, as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel in those days. It is a pity she could not stay content."

"Only two pointed arrows betrayal of violence is similar to injure users of worse enemies."

"One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten."

"One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness - mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine."

"She burned too bright for this world."

"She has lied to the end! Where is she! Not there ... not in heaven ... not destroyed ... where? Oh! you said you had no concern for my suffering. And I say a prayer ... I repeat it until my tongue is numb: Catherine Earnshaw, may you not find rest as I live! You say I killed you, haunt me then! Victims haunt their killer, I think. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Always be with me ... take any form ... make me crazy! but do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you. Oh! God! it is indescribable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

"She seemed almost over fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn."

"She started writing notes and keeping them under her pillow, and then she started writing them on her pillowcase, hoping they would help her have better dreams. And if she couldn’t sleep, she could just read them and be reminded of something so stunningly beautiful that her heart would swell and her bones would sigh and for just a second, the world would not seem like it was going to crush her."

"She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she has a right to go if she please. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only me sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me."

"She's fainted, or dead,' I thought: 'so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her."

"Should there be danger of such an event - should he be the cause of adding a single more trouble to her existence - why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss. The fear that she would restrains me: and there you see the distinction between our feelings. Had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out and drank his blood! But till then, if you don't believe me, you don't know me - till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!"

"So he'll never know how much love: not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself, than I own. I do not know that our souls are made, but they are equal, and Linton is as different from mine as a moonbeam is different from lightning, fire or ice."

"So hopeless is the world without; the world within I doubly prize; thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt, and cold suspicion never rise; where thou, and I, and Liberty, have undisputed sovereignty."

"So it's hopeless outside world, twice as valuable as is my world inside."

"Still, as I mused, the naked room, the alien firelight died away; and from the midst of cheerless gloom I passed to bright, unclouded day."

"Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, while the world's tide is bearing me along; other desires and other hopes beset me, hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!"

"Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes."

"That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul."

"That... which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least, for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!"

"The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her."

"The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights: he held firm possession, and proved to the attorney, who, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Linton, that Earnshaw had mortaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee. In that manner, Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighborhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father's inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant deprived of the advantage of wages, and quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged."

"The clock strikes off the hollow half-hours of all the life that is left to you, one by one."

"The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond—you would have said out of this world."

"That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least, for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!"