For a specimen of true benevolence and
homely fidelity, look at the character of Nelly Dean; for an
example of constancy and tenderness, remark that of Edgar Linton.
(Some people will think these qualities do not shine so well
incarnate in a man as they would do in a woman, but Ellis Bell
could never be brought to comprehend this notion: nothing moved
her more than any insinuation that the faithfulness and clemency,
the long-suffering and loving-kindness which are esteemed virtues
in the daughters of Eve, become foibles in the sons of Adam. She
held that mercy and forgiveness are the divinest attributes of the
Great Being who made both man and woman, and that what clothes the
Godhead in glory, can disgrace no form of feeble humanity.) There
is a dry saturnine humour in the delineation of old Joseph, and
some glimpses of grace and gaiety animate the younger Catherine.
Nor is even the first heroine of the name destitute of a certain
strange beauty in her fierceness, or of honesty in the midst of
perverted passion and passionate perversity.
Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed; never once swerving in his
arrow-straight course to perdition, from the time when 'the little
black-haired swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the Devil,'
was first unrolled out of the bundle and set on its feet in the
farmhouse kitchen, to the hour when Nelly Dean found the grim,
stalwart corpse laid on its back in the panel-enclosed bed, with
wide-gazing eyes that seemed 'to sneer at her attempt to close
them, and parted lips and sharp white teeth that sneered too.
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