Ellen "Nelly" Dean Quotes

“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”

“You shouldn’t lie till ten. There’s the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.”

“Honest people don’t hide their deeds.”

“Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.”

“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—”

It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!”

Ah, I thought, there will be no saving him: he’s doomed, and flies to his fate!

“Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?” she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it.

“To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool.”

“Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?” “Nonsense, I do—that’s sufficient.” “By no means; you must say why?” “Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.” “Bad!” was my commentary. “And because he is young and cheerful.

“You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed the four former attractions.”

“I don’t want your permission for that—I shall marry him: and yet you have not told me whether I’m right.” “Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present.”

“We’re dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us.

As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all!

“Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.”

“In what has he wronged you, to warrant this appalling hatred?”

Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me.

Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty!

“Gone to heaven, I hope; where we may, every one, join her, if we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good!”

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 he does not interfere with my arrangements.

Heathcliff, if I were you, I’d go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog.

You had distinctly impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can’t imagine how you think of surviving her loss.

“Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm: she meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her.”

After all, it is preferable to be hated than loved by him.

But I loved Catherine too; and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply. Now that she’s dead, I see her in Hindley: Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and her—

″‘But then,’ I continued, holding myself ready to flee, ‘if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture! She wouldn’t have borne your abominable behaviour quietly: her detestation and disgust must have found voice.’

“Hush, hush!” I whispered; “people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn’t keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad.

“You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you.”

“It is not so buried in trees,” I replied, “and it is not quite so large, but you can see the country beautifully all round; and the air is healthier for you—fresher and drier. You will, perhaps, think the building old and dark at first; though it is a respectable house: the next best in the neighbourhood. And you will have such nice rambles on the moors. Hareton Earnshaw—that is, Miss Cathy’s other cousin, and so yours in a manner—will show you all the sweetest spots; and you can bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study; and, now and then, your uncle may join you in a walk: he does, frequently, walk out on the hills.”

“Well,” replied I, “I hope you’ll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or you’ll not keep him long; and he’s all you have akin in the wide world, that you will ever know—remember.”

“The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I suffered her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad design in encouraging her to do so,”

“Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more.”

“The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens.

At least, it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton; and probably he did not learn merely to show off: you had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt; and he wished to remedy it and please you.

He was as quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were; and I’m hurt that he should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so unjustly.”

Ellen, I’ve been very happy with my little Cathy: through winter nights and summer days she was a living hope at my side.

And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you?

“because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along with her, till your master dies.”

“Master Heathcliff,” I resumed, “have you forgotten all Catherine’s kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times too good to you: and now you join him against her. That’s fine gratitude, is it not?”

“You who have felt what it is to be so neglected! You could pity your own sufferings; and she pitied them, too; but you won’t pity hers!

“Catherine usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton and I presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than she had in her hostility.”