...AS MY OWN BEING

Emily Bronte

When we talk of  love we cannot but talk about another 19th century woman, Emily Bronte (1816-1848). She only wrote her one novel, Wuthering Heights, but she also wrote fiery poems which emphasise her mysterious lovelorn soul. She is the fifth of six children. Charlotte, her elder sister, is the very well known writer of Jane Eyre, Villette, Shirley and The Professor. However, the passion and sensuality that transpires from Emily's only novel is unique and beyond comparison. I shall be looking at Wuthering Heights  and the profound, passionate and almost insane love it depicts.

The story is a simple straightforward one; it is the emotion that tumultuous. Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw live with their father at Wuthering Heights, an old farmhouse battered by the winds blowing from the moors. One day returning from Liverpool Mr. Earnshaw brings back a foundling boy, whom he calls Heathcliff. Catherine takes to him and becomes his friend, But Hindley is jealous and does not accept him. He treats him very badly, as a servant, and belittles him every chance he can. 

Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. 'You'd better do it at once,' he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): 'you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with interest.' 'Off, dog!' cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. 'Throw it,' he replied, standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.' Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it.

After the death of Mr. Earnshaw, the situation gets steadily worse. As the children grow up, Catherine and Heathcliff become closer and their friendship develops into to love, a deep frenzied love. However, the situation with Hindley becomes untenable. The turning point comes when Edgar, a rich sophisticated neighbour, asks Catherine to marry him. Believing to protect her true love, Heathcliff, from the grasp of Hindley, Catherine accepts his proposal. Here she is talking to Nelly, the housekeeper, telling her that she will accept Edgar.

To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.'
'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.'
'If you talk so, I won't tell you any more,' she returned, peevishly rising to her feet. 'I accepted him, Nelly.

Catherine then tells Nelly that in reality she loves Heathcliff. Her words of love are perhaps the most heartrending and passionate expression of love ever written. Heathcliff sadly overhears only the part where she tells Nelly that it would degrade her to marry him and that she would marry Edgar. He therefore escapes from Wuthering Heights and disappears.

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.Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further. 

Heathcliff returns three years later. He is now rich and full of vengeance. Catherine is married to Edgar, but her love for Heathcliff is still passionate and explosive. Heathcliff's revenge starts by his marrying Edgar's sister, only to make her life miserable. In the meantime both Catherine and Heathcliff develop an almost crazed relationship:

Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.'I wish I could hold you,' she continued, bitterly, '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 are going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!" Will you say so, Heathcliff?' 'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.

 I shall refrain from telling you any more of this story in the hope that you will read it. Those who have already read it will know how lacerating and overwhelming their end is. 

I shall conclude with a very short poem by Emily Bronte on the theme of love, loss, and sorrow:

It will not shine again:Its sad course is done;I have seen the last ray waneOf the cold, bright sun.