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    Wuthering Heights
    Wuthering Heights
    Wuthering Heights
    Ebook441 pages10 hours

    Wuthering Heights

    By Emily Brontë

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    The classic novel. According to Wikipedia: "The Brontë sisters (Charlotte (1816 – 1855), Emily (1818 – 1848) and Anne (1820 – 1849), were English writers of the 1840s and 1850s. Their novels caused a sensation when they were first published and were subsequently accepted into the canon of great English literature."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455389261
    Author

    Emily Brontë

    Emily Jane Brontë nació en 1818 en Thornton (Yorkshire) y se crió en la población de Hawort (también en Yorkshire), donde su padre, pastor anglicano, había obtenido un cargo vitalicio en la parroquia. Habiendo perdido a su madre en 1821 y a dos hermanas mayores en 1825, los hijos supervivientes de la familia (Charlotte, Emily, Anne y Branwell) se educaron en casa, bajo la tutela de su padre y de una tía. Desde muy pequeñas, Emily y Anne escribieron crónicas fantásticas del imaginario reino de Gondal. A los diecisiete años fue a estudiar al internado de Roe Head, donde su hermana Charlotte daba clases, pero apenas estuvo unos meses. Tampoco duró mucho, por problemas de salud, en su puesto como maestra en la escuela Law Hill de Halifax. En 1842, acompañó a Charlotte al Pensionnat Héger en Bruselas, donde estudiarían francés y alemán, con la intención de abrir una escuela a su regreso. El plan nunca prosperó. En 1846 las tres hermanas consiguieron publicar un volumen conjunto de Poesías, con el seudónimo de Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) y Acton (Anne) Bell. Un año después, en una edición conjunta, aparecerían Cumbres Borrascosas de Emily y Agnes Grey de Anne. En 1848, a los treinta años, moriría de tuberculosis en Haworth.

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    Reviews for Wuthering Heights

    4/5

    9,033 ratings310 reviews

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    • 3/5
      300-odd pages of unpleasant people being hateful to each other.
    • 1/5
      I originally reviewed this book on my blog - The Cosy Dragon. For more recent reviews by me, please hop over there.

      This is a classic novel that I have been assigned to study in literature. This is not something I would choose to read by myself by any means. I didn't love the language, I didn't feel for the characters, but I read it anyway! Do I think anything is good about this novel? Well, maybe.

      This novel starts out slowly, and painfully, and I had to entice myself to read onwards with not allowing myself to read anything else (or is that punishment?). The drivel that is written, complete with personal endearing terms that I'm sure the author felt added colour, but just irritated me because I had to look to the back of the book to see what they meant.

      Eventually the storytelling gets going, and it is focused on the past for a time, with Mr Lockwood being told stories by his housekeeper. This part did keep me reading to an extent, mainly because I was ignoring another task I needed to be doing.

      I have to admit I did not finish reading this book. I haven't locked myself in for studying the unit that this book is required for this semester, and so I have abandoned it in favour of other things I need to read first. If I do end up taking the unit, I will finish reading this book, and post another review of my feelings about the whole thing.

      I'm sure there are Bronte fans out there that are going to hate me for saying this - but I really didn't feel for Heathcliff. I felt that he brought so many of his troubles upon himself, he didn't deserve any sympathy, not matter how bad things were for him.

      I find the cover of this book visually appealing at least. It fits in with the storms that seem to plague the countryside now that Lockwood has moved it (or at least it seems that way!).

      I'm not sure why you would want to read this book, except that it is a classic, and therefore is probably worth reading just to say yo have. I know that there is a movie based on it, and on the parts I saw of it, it is relatively violent. I'd recommend this book for adults I guess. But really - there are so many other good things to read out there, you don't need to waste your time on this one!
    • 4/5
      An excellent novel, and I really enjoyed it! I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Loved it, Heathcliff is a wonderful broken villain. Incredible the atmospheric analogies between the landscape and the characters - everything's dark, hopeless and obsessive. Only the ejaculations of Joseph are a real challenge for a non-native speaker.
    • 4/5
      An excellent novel, and I really enjoyed it! I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Wonderfully Overwrought - Confusingly Incestuous
    • 5/5
      A great classic.
    • 3/5
       Yawn. Truly uninspiring.
    • 5/5
      I still consider this one of my favorite books, possibly of all time, and that just further solidifies with each reread. One of the easier 'classic' novels to read, at least in my opinion. Cathy Heathcliff are my model couple for crazy love, and then Cathy 2.0 Hareton are a prime example of opposites attracting. Ahhhh I seriously just love this dark, twisted little book, plain and simple.
    • 3/5
      Wuthering Heights tells the tortured story of Catherine Earnshaw, the orphan Heathcliff, and the people who surround them. The story depicts a stark environment that surrounds the two soul mates and the passion that destroys almost everyone.

      Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, was the only novel written by Emily Bronte. It is classified as a Victorian Gothic novel, with a strong leaning toward Byronic Romanticism. Indeed, this novel is the epitome of a Gothic Romance- tortured souls, regret, a love that surpasses time. At the time of its publishing, it was met with mixed reviews. However, in the 20th century, it was deemed a superior classic.

      Emily Bronte was a masterful writer, who seems almost more in line with modern writers than those of her day. Wuthering Heights is the true model for the tortured love stories that seem to dominate the media these days. Heathcliff and Cathy are the ultimate tortured soul mates- one of the most well-known lines is when Cathy declares she is Heathcliff- meaning that they cannot live without the other.
      Heathcliff proves this when his life becomes a shell when she is gone. He allows the worst parts of himself to take over and treats everyone around him worse than he was treated as a child.

      I wasn't expecting to like this novel as much as I did. I tried to read it in high school, but couldn't get very far. I'd seen the movie with Laurence Olivier and thought the characters were insipid. A friend of mine and I were talking one day in April about classics and she wanted to read this, so I agreed to try it again. Boy, was I surprised. I literally couldn’t put the novel down. This book proves to me that everything deserves a second chance.
    • 3/5
      No book has made me more grateful to have been born in the latter half of the 20th century. The writing was fine, and the story moved along, but good lord, I wanted to slap every single character upside the head at some point in the novel. Nelly, 3 weeks in bed after a walk that got her shoes and hose wet?? Catherine, who swoons, then rebounds, then swoons again based on a raised eyebrow or not very sharp word?? Don't get me started on Linton.
    • 5/5
      Seldom must a book have differed between its commonly held perception and its actuality, as much as Wuthering Heights. I came to this book from the camp of the former with some reservations about some doomed love affair on the Yorkshire moors. Perhaps the realisation of how far removed any preconceptions were added to the subsequent enjoyment of the story.

      Wuthering Heights is a story of revenge fed by obsession crossing over the generations of two families. And it is much more gothic than romantic. The plot rolls along with the drama rising and falling. Ok, few if any of the characters elicit much sympathy but they are complex and so well drawn that it is difficult not to be drawn into their isolated world or to anticipate what happens next.

      Ultimately it's all madness. Grave tampering madness.
    • 1/5
      I love classic literature, and finally decided to give this one a try. It was awful - such a terrible book! I couldn't even finish it. About halfway through I declared myself done with it. Clearly not all the Bronte sisters should have been writers.
    • 1/5
      This book has so much hype so I expected it to be amazing. Boy was I let down! I didn't really care for this book at all. And people say Heathcliff and Catherine's love was so epic, but he was a horrible person who did nothing but torment others. I don't know, maybe I just didn't get it, but I wasn't impressed in the slightest.
    • 4/5
      This is a story of the Earnshaw and the Linton family who are quite isolated in their homes of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The homes represent the opposition that exists throughout the novel. There is a lot of death in the book but there is also the hopeful happy ending. That being said, I did feel the ending was a little bit off for me. The sudden decline and death of Heathcliff didn't make sense as it was presented. I see the need for the author to kill him off, I just didn't feel that the way made any sense. The novel is also told through the voice of a stranger who takes up a temporary residence and observes this dysfunctional family and the servant who has lived since childhood with these children.
    • 5/5
      I refuse to review this title, but I can say its one of my favorites and not just because of twisted dark romance, but the sheer elegance of the writing and the topic which was shocking for the time period.
    • 4/5
      A most unusual novel. Dark tale of wretched and unlikable characters, of a tormented and bold - yet unable to change his fate subjected to his time (the Victorian England) - tragic soul and his other-worldly passionate and dark love relationship, with vengeful, selfish or pathetic actions, obsessions and great tragedy, which is irritating and painful while reading; but somehow turns into a fluffy(?!), moderately sunny and comforting ending.

      Not quite pleasant and easy to read but definitely one of the most thought-provoking after: it is compelled to read it more than once.

      No. It's not about love. And it certainly is not a romance! Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship is much more complicated, messy and profound than a simple romantic love.

      On another note, has anyone been "vexed" by the narrative of this story as I was? The choice of the narrator has left much to be desired, too ambiguous and unrealiable to my liking, which, in a positive way, gives the readers the freedom to interpret as well, obviously.
    • 4/5
      Wuthering Heights is known as a gothic romance. I do not consider it a romantic story. It is dark, and "disagreeable", and utterly fascinating. It is difficult to feel sympathy for any of the characters, yet the story stays in your mind long after you finish it. What was this character's motivation? Why did that happen? What if.... Could it be.... One is compelled to reflect on human nature and the author's goals in telling the story.
    • 5/5
      "Wuthering Heights" is a writer's novel. The twists and turns of its frame narrative style, along with the reincarnation of Heathcliff's love and vengeance on so many different (but similarly named) instantiations of their initial targets, leave the reader constantly wondering who is talking, who is being talked about, and why more of the characters don't just speak for themselves. In a masterful way, this confusion calls out the subjugation inherent in Brontë's own society. The author shrieks back at a world that relegated women to subservience, and that on occasion dismissed her own and her sister Anne's writing as likely the product of their sister Charlotte's imagination, by voicing the eternity of her characters' hearts through the words of others. This, metaphorically, is what her writing did for her, and what all great writing does for its author. On first reading, the narrative structure consumed all of my attention, but left me entranced by its power. On second reading, ten years later, I vowed to focus on the characterisation of the novel and discovered some of the most unlikeable and least relatable personalities that literature has ever produced. This is not a book club read for gabbing with your girlfriends, but a manifesto on the power of words to haunt the minds of generations. I linger on Brontë's writing, and wonder how any one could ever imagine quiet slumbers for an author who continues to speak so powerfully today.The Barnes and Noble edition of this book contains a selection of famous quotations, a timeline of Brontë's life, an introduction by Daphne Merkin, a note on the text and dialect, a genealogical chart of the characters, the original biography of Ellis and Acton Bell and the editor's preface to the 1850 edition of the book written by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), footnotes (of dialect and translation) and endnotes, an exploration of works inspired by the novel, a set of critical opinions and questions for the reader, and a suggested bibliography for further reading.
    • 4/5
      > In Lord John and the Private Matter, Lord John opines that honour sacrificed on the altar of love renders the love dishonourable and the lesser of pure lust. Heathcliff’s love for Catherine is an example of just such dishonourable love and is hardly the stuff of any romantic sensibility nor of the philosophical bent of Nietschze (“Beyond good and evil there is love.”) Heathcliff’s feeling for Catherine is egocentric, destructive and, a fearful thing not unlike the wuthering moors. Like the twisted tangles of brush that somehow manage to survive on the moors, the people that come into contact with Heathcliff are bowed and bent under the sheer force of his will, passion and temper. The idea of such an unrelenting, aggressive and unsparing devotion is both shocking and frightening. Beyond the linear narrative, this novel merits re-examination (re-reading) for its dense language, its allegorical associations and, the ideas about human nature itself.
    • 3/5
      Firstly, I enjoyed this piece of literature. It was good and often had me on the edge of my seat with all the drama and goings on that took place between the Grange and the Height. I just feel like too much happened. To many people died and too much hate filled the air, it suffocated me and turned everything rotten. Although the ending reconciles the hateful atmosphere with love and release, everything was still tainted by the aforementioned plague. I also feel that the moral of the story may come down to the simple fact that we must love neighbors or if not don't invite a orphaned gypsy boy into your house. It does sorrow me that in the end an entire life became almost pointless.
    • 5/5
      It is hard to imagine a more powerful bond in all of fiction than that of Catherine and Heathcliff. I'm ever intrigued and perplexed, nay downright haunted by it. I'm fascinated by the author, a young recluse who's intimate relations, I'm told, were more confined to "bird and beast", yet her level of understanding of human relationships, and the various opposing forces of nature acting on them, is astonishing and exemplary. Catherine and Heathcliff's eternal bond, who's divine and darker contrasts are forever locked in a cosmic struggle, do battle on this mortal stage, threatening to tear them apart for ever, yet their love is unyielding and death itself cannot challenge it. This is a monumental work by the greatest of the Bronte sisters.
    • 5/5
      It is difficult to describe my feelings for this book, really. The changes from the start to the middle, from the middle to the end are so astounding they have changed the rating I was going to give it several times.

      For the start to the middle, or rather, to Catherine Linton’s death, I would have given this book four stars. I got really immersed in her writing, and all the characters were wonderfully developed – each had its own personality and background. The only complaint I had whilst reading it was that Heathcliff really needed to learn how to let Catherine go – like Rochester let Jane go.

      From Catherine Linton’s death to her daughter’s marriage with Linton, I would’ve given this book three stars. The writing style was still brilliantly captivating, but all the characters appeared to be so twisted to me: Heathcliff with his obsession on Catherine Linton even after her death, and his desire to gain Edgar Linton’s properties; Linton with his pathetic protests and cowardly personality; Catherine who goes against her housekeeper’s wishes even when it is obvious her actions can result in no good. It seemed to me that this was the part where Emily was demonstrating the worst of human characteristics: greed, hatred, anger, spitefulness et cetera et cetera.

      For the last part, five stars, definitely. I loved how everything got together, how Hareton finally learns to read and Catherine overcomes her spitefulness towards him. The two of them deserved their happy ending together, and I’m glad that Heathcliff finally found solace, even if it was in death. The changes in personalities were astounding, really, because there appeared to be no major event happening to cause such a change, but I’m glad for it nonetheless.

      Mrs. Dean and Joseph were probably the characters that didn’t really change dramatically throughout the entire story. Mrs. Dean remains the loyal housekeeper she was at the start, and Joseph still retains his swearing and obsession with the Bible at the end, and that really bound the story together, in my opinion.

      I found this book really relatable despite the fact that it was written 1800; greed, hatred, and the general ugliness of the human character has always been universally acknowledged to be timeless themes that would hold true anywhere, anytime.
    • 5/5
      Masterpiece of English literature. Gothic, mysterious, enthralling. Unforgettable characters (Heathcliff and Catherine), unforgettable landscapes, violent love. First got it as a gift, in Portuguese, but waited to buy it in English and read the original. I usually avoid translations whenever I can - and, in this case, it would have been a crime to read a translation.
    • 4/5
      Having read and loved this book when I was about 14, I decided that 17 years later a reread could be in order.

      To be honest I struggled, a lot, at the start. While there is no denying how well written it is, it's all so unrelentingly depressing. However I perservered and came to remember why I loved it so much. All the moodiness, madness and passion is still there and that's why I loved it.

      I'm happy to say it remains one of the most atmospheric books I've ever read.

      That being said I imagine it will be another 17 years before I even think about venturing back to the Heights!
    • 3/5
      Piecing my way through the narrative fog of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with its many layers of narrators, I was reminded of the found footage genre of films, in which the viewer’s entire understanding of the story is whatever is visually made apparent to them through the first person gaze of the whoever’s holding the camera in the fictional world and then the film’s editor, a figure who sits between that world and our reality. Everything we know about the love story is filtered through the recollections of Lockwood and Nelly and others, characters who Bronte employs to imply that Heathcliffe and Cathy and their decedents exist in a subjectively cruel, sadistic place cut off from a more benign reality. All are apparently reliable narrators, but throughout I couldn’t help a nagging suspicion, and that like The Blair Witch Project et al, there are multiple layers of fiction at play.
    • 3/5
      Always wondered if I'd enjoy Wuthering Heights. I'm still wondering. Any engagement I might have had was obliterated by the narrator on the Trout Lake Media audiobook version . The toned-down American accent she used for the more gentrified characters is bearable – but judging by her attempts at a Yorkshire accent, the book is actually set somewhere in the outer Hebrides. She also has A TENDENCY TO SHOUT, which makes the recording actively uncomfortable to listen to. I enjoyed Brontë's gruesome Gothic manner when I could focus on it – sadly, I can't face reading or listening through again. I'll find a movie version to make sense of it all.
    • 5/5
      A truly miserable story, but with very beautiful writing. There's no denying that almost everyone in this book suffers from some mental problems, but it's hard not to get pulled into the story all the same.
    • 4/5
      Nearly every character in this book is horrible and by the time I finished reading the book I was hate-reading in order to get finished. The writing was excellent, and I'm glad the end was the way it was, but dear lord - what horrible people.
    • 2/5
      In many ways, I didn't see the big deal about this book. I chose to read it because I fancied, for a moment, that if it were so highly praised, there must surely be something to it. I spent the majority of the book haunted by a peculiar despair on behalf of its characters; no one seemed disposed toward a good end, and the only character even remotely relatable was Mrs. Dean, the primary narrator of the story. Indeed, Heathcliff's monomania and violent devotion, coupled with his unfettered anger, made him a most repugnant character... and, while I gather that this was the intended emotional response for the reader, his primacy in the book's contents made much of it rather unpleasant.

      Worse still is that this book is often lauded (or so I've heard) for its romantic depth. The only romance even remotely healthy in nature takes place in the last several chapters of the book, and indeed, it is the only one which I ever wished to take place. Every other was malformed, disordered, and ultimately broken. Again, perhaps this was the point in the writing, but again, the book was not an enjoyable read.

      There were other issues, too, which I found vaguely amateurish and off-putting. The notion of supplying a story within a story within a story is a rather modern "meta" style, but this book employs it often. The primary story, of course, is Mr. Lockwood's renting of Thrushcross Grange and his learning about the owner's family history; most of the internal story is Mrs. Dean's own experience, but on many occasions, she lacks experience in the story and relates the story related to her. While this may be the most literal means of maintaining perspective, it is quite ridiculous that Mrs. Dean, as intelligent and sociable as the character may be, could remember not only everything she said and did, everything that was said to her, over a thirty-some year period.

      This perspective also makes certainly styles within the book seem out of place. Why is it, for example, that Catherine Earnshaw's diary should record the servant Joseph's accent in exactly the same manner as Isabella's tale of her escape from Wuthering Heights, as told by Mrs. Dean? Ignoring, for a moment, that trying to read Joseph's speech creates an intellectual dissonance that breaks up the story (and is, occasionally, utterly illegible, at least to my American mind), why should every person who quotes him repeat his accent perfectly, except as though the tale were written first, then given perspective afterward?

      I am certain that high-school English teachers everywhere will vehemently disagree with my assessment, but the most valuable detail I gleaned from this book is that it was written, most certainly, by a woman. None of the male characters, when their perspective is employed, think like men. There is almost no visual description of any person, place, or object throughout the book, except insofar as the simplest of actions must be described. On the contrary, every event, every place, and every person is tied intrinsically to the emotional reactions of the narrator (whoever that may be at the time). We hear often of the feelings that seeing Wuthering Heights invokes in Mr. Lockwood or Mrs. Dean or Mrs. Heathcliff, but never - to my recollection - do we hear a word about its actual appearance. While this is enlightening as to the female perspective on life, it makes both the perspective of Mr. Lockwood and several male behaviors throughout seem utterly alien to me. Women behave like women, and men behave like women, only with greater violence.

    Book preview

    Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

    WUTHERING HEIGHTS BY EMILY BRONTE

    published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

    established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

    Novels by the Bronte sisters:

    Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

    Agnes Grey by Ann Bronte

    The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

    Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

    Villette by Charlotte Bronte

    The Professor by Charlotte Bronte

    feedback welcome: [email protected]

    visit us at samizdat.com

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Chapter 25

    Chapter 26

    Chapter 27

    Chapter 28

    Chapter 29

    Chapter 30

    Chapter 31

    Chapter 32

    Chapter 33

    Chapter 34

    CHAPTER I

    1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.  This is certainly a beautiful country!  In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society.  A perfect misanthropist's heaven:  and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us.  A capital fellow!  He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

    'Mr. Heathcliff?' I said.

    A nod was the answer.

    'Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir.  I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange:  I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts - '

    'Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,' he interrupted, wincing.  'I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it - walk in!'

    The 'walk in' was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, 'Go to the Deuce:' even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation:  I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.

    When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the court, - 'Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse; and bring up some wine.'

    'Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,' was the reflection suggested by this compound order.  'No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge- cutters.'

    Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man:  very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy.  'The Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.

    Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.  Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed:  one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.  Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong:  the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.

    Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw.'  I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium.

    One stop brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby or passage:  they call it here 'the house' pre- eminently.  It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter:  at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls.  One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof.  The latter had never been under-drawn:  its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it.  Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge.  The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green:  one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade.  In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.

    The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee- breeches and gaiters.  Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner.  But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living.  He is a dark- skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman:  that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire:  rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.  Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling - to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again.  No, I'm running on too fast:  I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him.  Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me.  Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.

    While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature:  a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me.  I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears:  she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks.  And what did I do?  I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.  By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

    I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch.  My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl.

    'You'd better let the dog alone,' growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot.  'She's not accustomed to be spoiled - not kept for a pet.'  Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, 'Joseph!'

    Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me VIS-A-VIS the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements.  Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees.  I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us.  This proceeding aroused the whole hive:  half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre.  I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establishing peace.

    Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm:  I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch:  a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying-pan:  and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.

    'What the devil is the matter?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.

    'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered.  'The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir.  You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!'

    'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,' he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. 'The dogs do right to be vigilant.  Take a glass of wine?'

    'No, thank you.'

    'Not bitten, are you?'

    'If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.' Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin.

    'Come, come,' he said, 'you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood.  Here, take a little wine.  Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir?'

    I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his humour took that turn.  He - probably swayed by prudential consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant - relaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me, - a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement.  I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit to-morrow.  He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion.  I shall go, notwithstanding.  It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.

    CHAPTER II

    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.

    On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb.  Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.

    'Wretched inmates!' I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality.  At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time.  I don't care - I will get in!'  So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently.  Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.

    'What are ye for?' he shouted.  'T' maister's down i' t' fowld.  Go round by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.'

    'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I hallooed, responsively.

    'There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome dins till neeght.'

    'Why?  Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?'

    'Nor-ne me!  I'll hae no hend wi't,' muttered the head, vanishing.

    The snow began to drive thickly.  I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind.  He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received.  It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the 'missis,' an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected.  I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat.  She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute.

    'Rough weather!' I remarked.  'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance:  I had hard work to make them hear me.'

    She never opened her mouth.  I stared - she stared also:  at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.

    'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly.  'He'll be in soon.'

    I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance.

    'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again.  'Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam?'

    'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied.

    'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats.

    'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully.

    Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits.  I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.

    'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

    Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance.  She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood:  an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible:  fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there.  The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold.

    'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.'

    'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply.

    'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

    'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.

    'Were you asked?' she repeated.

    'No,' I said, half smiling.  'You are the proper person to ask me.'

    She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry.

    Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us.  I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not:  his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer:  still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.  In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state.

    'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!' I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful; 'and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space.'

    'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in.  Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes?  People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.'

    'Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morning - could you spare me one?'

    'No, I could not.'

    'Oh, indeed!  Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.'

    'Umph!'

    'Are you going to mak' the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.

    'Is HE to have any?' she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.

    'Get it ready, will you?' was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started.  The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature.  I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.  When the preparations were finished, he invited me with - 'Now, sir, bring forward your chair.'  And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table:  an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.

    I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it.  They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every-day countenance.

    'It is strange,' I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and receiving another - 'it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and ideas:  many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart - '

    'My amiable lady!' he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face.  'Where is she - my amiable lady?'

    'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.'

    'Well, yes - oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone.  Is that it?'

    Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it.  I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife.  One was about forty:  a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls:  that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years.  The other did not look seventeen.

    Then it flashed on me - 'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his broad with unwashed hands, may be her husband:  Heathcliff junior, of course.  Here is the consequence of being buried alive:  she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed!  A sad pity - I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice.'  The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not.  My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.

    'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise.  He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction:  a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

    'Ah, certainly - I see now:  you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour.

    This was worse than before:  the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault.  But he seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse, muttered on my behalf:  which, however, I took care not to notice.

    'Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,' observed my host; 'we neither of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead.  I said she was my daughter-in-law:  therefore, she must have married my son.'

    'And this young man is - '

    'Not my son, assuredly.'

    Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.

    'My name is Hareton Earnshaw,' growled the other; 'and I'd counsel you to respect it!'

    'I've shown no disrespect,' was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself.

    He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible.  I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle.  The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time.

    The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather.  A sorrowful sight I saw:  dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.

    'I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,' I could not help exclaiming.  'The roads will be buried already; and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.'

    'Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch.  They'll be covered if left in the fold all night:  and put a plank before them,' said Heathcliff.

    'How must I do?' I continued, with rising irritation.

    There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its place.  The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out - 'Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out!  Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking - yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!'

    I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door.  Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer.

    'You scandalous old hypocrite!' she replied.  'Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name?  I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour!  Stop! look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art:  I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it.  The red cow didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!'

    'Oh, wicked, wicked!' gasped the elder; 'may the Lord deliver us from evil!'

    'No, reprobate! you are a castaway - be off, or I'll hurt you seriously!  I'll have you all modelled 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!'

    The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating 'wicked' as he went.  I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress.

    'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said earnestly, 'you must excuse me for troubling you.  I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being good-hearted.  Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home:  I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!'

    'Take the road you came,' she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her.  'It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give.'

    'Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?'

    'How so?  I cannot escort you.  They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall.'

    'YOU!  I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night,' I cried.  'I want you to tell me my way, not to SHOW it:  or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.'

    'Who?  There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I.  Which would you have?'

    'Are there no boys at the farm?'

    'No; those are all.'

    'Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.'

    'That you may settle with your host.  I have nothing to do with it.'

    'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,' cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance.  'As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors:  you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.'

    'I can sleep on a chair in this room,' I replied.

    'No, no!  A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor:  it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!' said the unmannerly wretch.

    With this insult my patience was at an end.  I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste.  It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other.  At first the young man appeared about to befriend me.

    'I'll go with him as far as the park,' he said.

    'You'll go with him to hell!' exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore.  'And who is to look after the horses, eh?'

    'A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the horses:  somebody must go,' murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.

    'Not at your command!' retorted Hareton.  'If you set store on him, you'd better be quiet.'

    'Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,' she answered, sharply.

    'Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em!' muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering.

    He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.

    'Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern!' shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat.  'Hey, Gnasher!  Hey, dog!  Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him!'

    On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation.  Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me:  then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out - on their peril to keep me one minute longer - with several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.

    The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded.  I don't know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer.  This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar.  She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.

    'Well, Mr. Earnshaw,' she cried, 'I wonder what you'll have agait next?  Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones?  I see this house will never do for me - look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking!  Wisht, wisht; you mun'n't go on so.  Come in, and I'll cure that:  there now, hold ye still.'

    With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen.  Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.

    I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof.  He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.

    CHAPTER III

    WHILE leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly.  I asked the reason.  She did not know, she answered:  she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious.

    Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed.  The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows.  Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old- fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.  I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.

    The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.  This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small - CATHERINE EARNSHAW, here and there varied to CATHERINE HEATHCLIFF, and then again to CATHERINE LINTON.

    In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw - Heathcliff - Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres - the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.  I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee.  It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty:  a fly-leaf bore the inscription - 'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a century back.  I shut it, and took up another

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