Hareton Earnshaw

“ In Hareton Earnshaw Emily Brontë is fairly on the earth all the time, and nothing could be finer than her handling of this half-brutalized, and wholly undeveloped thing, her showing of the slow dawn of his feelings and intelligence. Her psychology is never psychologic. The creature reveals himself at each moment of his unfolding for what he is. It was difficult; for in his degradation he had a certain likeness in unlikeness to the degraded Heathcliff. ”

“ Passionate, insane constancy in Heathcliff; perverse, but intense in the elder Catharine; steady and holy in Edgar Linton; even the hard and narrow Ellen Dean; even Joseph, the hypocritical Pharisee, are constant until death. Wild Hindley Earnshaw drinks himself to death for grief at losing his consumptive wife; Hareton loves to the end the man who has usurped his place, degraded him, fed him on blows and exaction: and it is constancy in absence that embitters and sickens the younger Catharine. Even Isabella Heathcliff, weak as she is, is not fickle. ”

“ Put him on his guard, and watch for him. You know the terms we are on, I see; his danger does not shock you."
"What has Heathcliff done to you?" I asked. "In what has he wronged you to warrant this appalling hatred? Wouldn't it be wiser to bid him quit the house?"
"No," thundered Earnshaw, "should he offer to leave me, he's a dead man, persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess! Am I to lose all without a chance of retrieval? Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh, damnation! I will have it back; and I'll have his gold too; and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul! ”

“ Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff? Are they relations?’
‘No; he is the late Mrs. Linton’s nephew.’
‘The young lady’s cousin, then?’
‘Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother’s, the other on the father’s side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister.’
‘I see the house at Wuthering Heights has “Earnshaw” carved over the front door. Are they an old family?’
‘Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us—I mean, of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg pardon for asking ”

“ Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But, I've most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those!"
Earnshaw blushed crimson, when his cousin made this revelation of his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her accusations.
"Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge," I said, coming to his rescue. "He is not envious but emulous o your attainments—He'll be a clever scholar in a few years!"
"And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime," answered Catherine. ”

“ It was Heathcliff's indomitable will that raised him. Hareton cannot rise without a woman's hand to help him. The younger Catherine again was difficult, because of her likeness to her mother. Her temper, her vanity, her headstrong trickiness are Catherine Earnshaw. But Catherine Linton is a healthy animal, incapable of superhuman passion, capable only (when properly chastened by adversity) of quite ordinary pity and devotion. She inspires bewilderment, but terror and fascination never; and never the glamour, the magic evoked by the very name of Catherine Earnshaw. ”

“ Hareton does not inherit Hindley's drunkenness or his cruelty. It is not through any physical consequence of his father's vices that Hareton suffers. Linton is in no physical sense the son of Heathcliff. If Catherine Linton inherits something of Catherine Earnshaw's charm and temper, it is because the younger Catherine belongs to another world; she is an inferior and more physical creature. She has nothing in her of Catherine Earnshaw's mutinous passion, the immortal and unearthly passion which made that Catherine alive and killed her. ”

“ Dean, and keep with her, and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton Earnshaw if I see him listen to you, I'll send him seeking his bread where he can get it! your love will make him an outcast, and a beggar—Nelly, take her, and leave me, all of you! Leave me!"
I led my young lady out; she was too glad of her escape, to resist; the other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself, till dinner.
I had counselled Catherine to get hers upstairs ”

“ He is brutal beyond brutality to Hindley Earnshaw, and he degrades Hareton, Hindley's son, as he himself was degraded; but he is not brutal to him. The frustrated passion of Catherine Earnshaw for Heathcliff, and of Heathcliff for Catherine, hardly knows itself from hate; they pay each other back torture for torture, and pang for hopeless pang. When Catherine marries Edgar Linton, Heathcliff marries Isabella, Edgar's sister, in order that he may torture to perfection Catherine and Edgar and Isabella. ”

“ You wouldn’t think that I should cry at anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable companions. I’d rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than with ‘t’ little maister’ and his staunch supporter, that odious old man! When Heathcliff is in, I’m often obliged to seek the kitchen and their society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers; when he is not, as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself ”

“ And what excuse have you to offer for taking such liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head of it: see if we don’t! Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit than to go and make that mess at her bidding!’
‘I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s,’ answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled; ‘but I’ll tell him I did it.’
We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I held the mistress’s post in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table. Catherine usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton ”

“ Heathcliff—perhaps, you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will, or not. With Hareton the resemblance is carried farther, it is singular, at all times—then it was particularly striking: because his senses were alert, and his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. ”

“ Hareton,' I interrupted, 'since she repents of her sauciness! it would do you a great deal of good—it would make you another man, to have her for a companion.'
"'A companion?' he cried; 'when she hates me, and does not think me fit to wipe her shoon! Nay, if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for seeking her good will any more.'
"'It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me!' wept Cathy, no longer disguising her trouble. 'You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and more.'
"'You're a damned liar,' began Earnshaw ”

“ He is fond of reading, and he thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he offered, if I would lend him books out of the library, to do what I wished: but I preferred giving him my own, and that satisfied him better.
“On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits; and Zillah (that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayer-meeting and Hareton Earnshaw was off with his dogs—robbing our woods of pheasants, as I heard afterwards—we might do what we liked. ”

“ 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 ”

“ His lawyer had been Earnshaw's also: I called at the village, and asked him to accompany me. He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone; affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar.
"His father died in debt;" he said, "the whole property is mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he may be inclined to deal leniently towards him." ”

“ The tumult of Wuthering Heights ceases when Heathcliff sickens. It sinks suddenly into the peace and silence of exhaustion. And the drama closes, not in hopeless gloom, the agony of damned souls, but in redemption, reconciliation.
Catherine, the child of Catherine and of Edgar Linton, loves Hareton, the child of Hindley Earnshaw. The evil spirit that possessed these two dies with the death of Heathcliff. The younger Catherine is a mixed creature, half-spiritualized by much suffering. Hareton is a splendid animal, unspiritualized and unredeemed. ”

“ Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly, who certainly, did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.
"There's nothing the matter, but laziness, is there, Earnshaw?" he said. "My cousin fancies you are an idiot. . .There you experience the consequence of scorning "book-larning," as you would say. . .Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?"
"Why, where the devil is the use on't?" growled Hareton, more ready in answering his daily companion. He was about to enlarge further, but the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment ”

“ The whole drama moves on a plane of reality superior to any deed. The spirit of it, like Emily Brontë's spirit, is superbly regardless of the material event. As far as material action goes Heathcliff is singularly inert. He never seems to raise a hand to help his vengeance. He lets things take their course. He lets Catherine marry Edgar Linton and remain married to him. He lets Isabella's passion satisfy itself. He lets Hindley Earnshaw drink himself to death. He lets Hareton sink to the level of a boor. ”

“ Shoo wer niver soa handsome, bud whet a body mud look at her 'baht winking. It's yon flaysome, graceless quean, ut's witched ahr lad, wi' her bold een, un' her forrard ways—till—Nay! It fair brusts my heart! He's forgetten all E done fur him, un made on him, un' goan un' riven up a whole row ut t' grandest currant trees, i' t' garden!" and here he lamented outright, unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and Earnshaw's ingratitude and dangerous condition.
"Is the fool drunk?" asked Mr. Heathcliff. "Hareton is it you he's finding fault with?" ”

“ I whispered. "And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because, he's only half a man—not so much."
Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe; who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him; the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features.
"Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy," groaned the impatient man writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle. ”

“ Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him about his soul’s concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw’s weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter. ”

“ The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible. ”

“ This endurance made old Earnshaw furious when he discovered his son persecuting the poor, fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing, all he said, (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth,) and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite. ”

“ Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—“Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.”
I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. ”

“ 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 that she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!' Will you say so, Heathcliff? ”