Heathcliffe betrays one solitary human feeling, and that is not his love for Catherine, which is a sentiment fierce and inhuman: a passion such as might boil and glow in the bad essence of some evil genius [see my reference to "Robin-a-Ree"; and to the Craven Satyr, page 142]; a fire that might form the tormented centre—the ever-suffering soul of a magnate of the infernal world: and by its quenchless and ceaseless ravage effect the execution of the decree which dooms him to carry Hell with him ... we should say he was a man's shape animated by demon life.... Whether it is right or advisable to create a being like Heathcliffe I do not know; I scarcely think it is.
Even in Villette there were recurrences of the spasmodic spirit of vindictiveness responsible for Charlotte Brontë's harsh portrayal of M. Héger as Heathcliffe, though "at her heart's core she then forgave him." In Villette, Chapter XX., she refers to M. Paul (M. Héger) antithetically, and all the more significantly, in a comparison of him with Dr. John Bretton, of whom she says:—
Who could help liking him? He betrayed no weakness which harassed all your feelings with considerations as to how its faltering must be propped; from him broke no irritability which startled calm and quenched mirth; his lips let fall no caustic that burned to the bone; his eye shot no morose shafts that went cold, and rusty, and venomed through your heart.
Wuthering Heights, however, containing too humiliating a story of Charlotte Brontë's heart-thrall, her misery and her wild vindictiveness, and also for the reasons stated in the beginning of this chapter—her saving remorse—she seems early to have determined to repudiate her authorship of it; indeed, so largely is she now found to have used the work in Jane Eyre, we might say she once had contemplated destroying the manuscript. The subsequent arrangement made in the name of Ellis Bell that the work by the same author should go to Mr. Newby, the publisher of Wuthering Heights, gave finality to this tragedy of authorship which, but for the discoveries in this, The Key to the Brontë Works, would have remained for ever unrevealed, and a reproach to literature—a thing of untruth thickly hidden.
Had Charlotte Brontë destroyed Wuthering Heights before its publication she would have saved this sensational disclosure. But she hesitated to destroy the manuscript at once, and as an alternative to identifying herself with its authorship, she sent forth her work under a nom de guerre, part of which had been employed by her sister Emily. We well know the difficulties that resulted; the judgment of scholars and thinkers was impugned and their sane pronouncements were pilloried. To cover Charlotte Brontë's regretful error were to connive against law and literature. Wuthering Heights being published, the work was the world's property; it stood for public purposes, to submit to all criticism and research, and it came neither in Charlotte Brontë's province nor in that of any person to prevent its being subjected to the final inquiry with which the cold light of truth exposes all things.
Doubtless Charlotte Brontë perceived this, and regretting the facileness of her pen and the vituperativeness of her mood of that past and hateful night, she set herself, in her subsequent works, to make clear she had overdrawn the bitterness of the relations which one time had existed between herself and M. Héger. Perhaps she could not expect her retractions would be understood of all men, but it pleased her inmost soul, and having a final sense of justice, and a softening of her heart for her vehement passionateness, she continued in all her works subsequent to her Wuthering Heights to reconstruct this her early version. Thus Charlotte Brontë as Caroline Helstone of Shirley is Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights, with the distinction I mention. Moore is admitted, as I have said, to have been drawn from M. Héger[83]:—
| Wuthering Heights. | Shirley. |
| Chapter XII. | Chapter XXIV. |
| Catherine's illness, and herdoubting the absent lover,Heath(cliffe). Mrs. Dean inattendance. | Caroline's illness, and her doubtingthe absent lover, Moor(e).Mrs Pryor in attendance. |
| ———— | ———— |
| "And I dying!" exclaimedCatherine to Mrs. Dean. "Ion the brink of the grave! MyGod! does he know how I'maltered?" continued she, staringat her reflection in a mirror....How dreary to meet deathsurrounded by their cold faces....Edgar [? Mr. Brontë] standingsolemnly by to see it over;then offering prayers of thanksto God for restoring peace to hishouse, and going back to hisbooks. Tossing about, she increasedher feverish bewildermentof madness, ... then, raisingherself, desired that ... [Mrs.Dean] would open the window. And farther on, in delirium,as though her lover werepresent:— "Heath(cliffe) ... they maybury me twelve feet deep,and throw the church down overme, and I won't rest till you arewith me!" ["Heath(cliffe), Ionly wish us never to be parted,and should a word of mine distressyou hereafter, think I feelthe same distress underground,"says Catherine, in a furtherchapter] "I never will." Shepaused and resumed ...[Heath(cliffe's)] considering—"He'drather I'd come to him!Find a way then![84] not throughthat kirkyard. You are slow!Be content, you always followedme!" Mrs. Dean perceived it vain"to argue against her insanity." | "Am I ill?" asked Carolineof Mrs. Pryor, and looked atherself in the glass; ... she felt... her brain in strange activity....Now followed a hot,parched, restless night ... oneterrible dream seized her like atiger ... a fever of mental excitement,and a languor of longconflict and habitual sadnesshad fanned the flame ... andleft a well-lit fire behind it.... "Oh!" exclaimed Caroline,"God grant me a little comfortbefore I die!... But he[Moor(e)] will come when I amsenseless, cold, and stiff. Whatcan my departed soul feel then?Can it see or know what happensto the clay? Can spirits throughany medium communicate withliving flesh? Can the dead atall re-visit those they leave?Can they come in the elements?Will wind, water, fire, lend mea path to Moor(e)? Is itfor nothing the wind ...passes the casement sobbing?...Does nothing haunt it?" When Catherine dies Heathcliffesays:—"Catherine ...you said I killed you—haunt methen!" And haunt him shedoes. In the words of CarolineHelstone of Shirley she "revisitshim she has left." She"goes in the elements," "thewind lends her a path[84] to herlover," and it is not "for nothingthe wind passes the casement ofWuthering Heights sobbing"—she"haunts it" as the wailingphantom that cries as a child[Method II., altering the age ofcharacter portrayed], "Let me in—letme in!" outside "thelattice." And Heathcliffe, wrenchingopen "the lattice," sobs,"Come in!... Cathy, docome.... Catherine at last!"The spectre gives no sign ofbeing; but the snow and windwhirled ... through ...blowing out the light. |
| Chapter XIII. | Convalescent, Carolinewhispers:— "... I am better now....I feel where I am: this is Mrs.Pryor near me.... I wasdreaming.... Does the churchyardlook peaceful?... Canyou see many long weeds andnettles among the graves, or dothey look turfy or flowery?" "I see closed daisy-heads,gleaming like pearls on somemounds," replied Mrs. Pryor.[85] |
| Mrs. Dean continues:— In those two months[Catherine] encountered andconquered the worst shockof what was denominated asbrain fever. The first time sheleft the chamber ... on herpillow [was] a handful of goldencrocuses; her eye, long strangerto any gleam of pleasure, caughtthem in waking. "These are the earliest flowersat the Heights!... Is therenot a south wind, and is not thesnow gone?" |
It is in Shirley that Charlotte Brontë gives, inadvertently or purposely, the origin of the title of Wuthering Heights, and we see therewith why she came afterwards to choose for her autobiographical-self in Villette, the name of Lucy Snowe. We perceive she had been singularly impressed by an old Scottish ballad, entitled, "Puir Mary Lee," and it is important and interesting to note that Dr. Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary refers readers to this very same poem in connection with the origin of the northern word "wuthering," in the form of the verb "whudder," or "wuther." And so, in a letter to Mr. W. S. Williams, of November 6th, 1852, Miss Brontë wrote of Lucy Snowe[86]:—
As to the name of the heroine, I can hardly express what subtlety of thought made me decide upon giving her a cold name; but at first I called her 'Lucy Snowe' (spelt with an 'e'), which 'Snowe' I afterwards changed to 'Frost.' Subsequently I rather regretted the change, and wished it 'Snowe' again. If not too late, I should like the alteration to be made now throughout the MS. A cold name she must have; partly, perhaps on the lucus a non lucendo principle—partly on that of the 'fitness of things,' for she has about her an external coldness.