1.

“Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?”

[…] “Why cannot you always be a good man, father?”

2.

“The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on; no parson in the world ever pictured Heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed, and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.”

3.

“Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy — yet the villain scowls so plainly on his face, would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts, as well as features?”

4.

“Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.”

5.

“But, Nelly, if i knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome, or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be.” […]

“You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors, and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!”

6.

“I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it, at last. I hope he will not die before I do!”

“For shame, Heathcliff!” said I. “It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.”

“No, God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,” he returned. “I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out: while I’m thinking of that, I don’t feel pain.”

7.

“I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body, […] not exactly from living among the hills, and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year’s end to year’s end: but I have undergone sharp discipline which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also; unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French — and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man’s daughter.”

8.

“I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacy — had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers.”

9.

“First and foremost, do you love Mr. Edgar?”

“Who can help it? Of course I do,” she answered.

Then I put her through the following catechism — for a girl of twenty-two it was not injudicious.

“Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?”

“Nonsense, I do — that is sufficient.”

“By no means; you must say why?”

“Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.”

“Bad,” was my commentary.

“And because he is young and cheerful.”

“Bad, still.”

“And, because he loves me.”

“Indifferent, coming there.”

“And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.”

“Worst of all! And now, say how you love him?”

“As everybody loves — You’re silly, Nelly.”

“Not at all — Answer.”

“I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says — I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely, and altogether. There now!”

[…] “you love Mr. Edgar, because he is handsome and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing — You would love him without that, probably; and with it you wou”ldn’t, unless he possessed the four former attractions.”

10.

“Where is the obstacle?”

“Here! and here! […] In whichever place the soul lives — in my soul, and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!

11.

“I’ve dreamt dreams in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.”

12.

“If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable. […] I dreamt, once, that I was there. […] heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

13.

“He quite deserted! we separated! […] Who is to separate us, pray? They’ll mee the fate of Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen — for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that’s not what I intend — that’s not what I mean! I shouldn’t be Mrs Linton were such a price demanded! He’ll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime.”

14.

“I cannot express it; but surely you and every body have a notion, that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. 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 pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but, as my own being — so, don’t talk of our separation again…”

15.

“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..”

16.

“It’s a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk, to go that journey! We’ve braved it’s ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come…But Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I’ll keep you. I’ll not lie there by myself; they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won’t rest till you are with me…I never will!”

17.

“You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighborhood, last summer, but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future, death and hell — existence, after losing her, would be hell.

Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton’s attachment more than mine — If he loved 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?”

18.

“I wish I could hold you […] till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me — will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, ‘That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since — my children are dearer to me than she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!’ Will you say so, Heathcliff?” […]

“Are you possessed with a devil […] to talk in that manner to me, when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally, after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you; and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you, as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?”

19.

“…the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I’m tired, tired of being enclosed here. I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart; but really within it, and in it. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength you are sorry for me — very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all.”

20.

“If I’ve done wrong, I’m dying for it. It is enough! You left me too; but I won’t upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!”

“It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands […] Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer — but yours! How can I?”

21.

“Oh! You said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer — I repeat it till my tongue stiffens — Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! 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! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

22.

“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!”

23.

“Don’t you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine — But there’s this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver — Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost — rendered worse than unavailing — I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any, but I, are aware of — And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You’ll own that I’ve out-matched Hindley there — If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring’s wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing said offspring fight him back again, indignant that she should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!”

24.

“I seated myself in a chair, and rocked, to and fro, passing harsh judgement on my many derelictions of duty; from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of all my employers sprang. It was not the case, in reality, I am aware; but it was, in my imagination, that dismal night, and I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I.”

25.

“Mr Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty rises from your greater misery! You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you — nobody will cry for you, when you die! I wouldn’t be you!”

26.

“I’ll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again — it is hers yet — he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew upon it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose — and covered it up — not Linton’s side, damn him! I wish he’d been soldered in lead — and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I’m laid there, and slide mine out too — I’ll have it made so, and then, but the time Linton gets to us, he’ll not know which is which!”

27.

“Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years — incessantly — remorselessly — till yesternight — and yesternight, I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep, by that sleeper, with my heart stopped, and my cheek frozen against hers.”

“And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then?” I said.

“Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!” he answered. “Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid, but I’m better pleased that it should not commence till I share it.”

28.

“The day she was buried there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. […]

Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself — ‘I’ll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I’ll think it is this north wind that chills me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep’.

I got a spade from the toolhouse, and began to delve with all my might — it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws, I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from someone above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down — ‘If I can only get this off […] I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!’ and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I know no living thing in flesh and blood was by — but as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there, not under me, but on the earth.

A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labor of agony, and turned consoled at once, unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me; it remained while I re-filled the grave, and let me home. You may laugh, if you will, but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.”

29.

“In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her — 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 tot his 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!”

30.

“Then, you are not afraid of death?” I pursued.

“Afraid! No! […] I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death — Why should I? With my hard constitution, and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to and probably shall remain above ground, till there is scarcely a black hair on my head — And yet I cannot continue in this condition! — I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring…it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act not prompted by one thought, and by compulsion, that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea…I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I’m convinced it will be reached — and soon — because it has devoured by existence — I am swallowed in the anticipation of its fulfilment.”