'
Heathcliff 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; 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 wherever he wanders. No;
the single link that connects Heathcliff with humanity is his
rudely-confessed regard for Hareton Earnshaw--the young man whom he
has ruined; and then his half-implied esteem for Nelly Dean. These
solitary traits omitted, we should say he was child neither of
Lascar nor gipsy, but a man's shape animated by demon life--a
Ghoul--an Afreet.
Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff,
I do not know: I scarcely think it is. But this I know: the
writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he
is not always master--something that, at times, strangely wills and
works for itself.
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