Wuthering Heights Quotes

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

“If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.”

“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! . . . It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

“I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong.”

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

“Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of it.”

“In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!”

″‘He’s not a human being,’ she retorted; ‘and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.‘”

“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort.”

“You loved me—then what right had you to leave me?”

“Do I want to live? . . . [W]ould you like to live with your soul in the grave?”

“I have to remind myself to breathe—almost to remind my heart to beat!”

“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.”

“I’m tired of being enclosed here. I’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.”

“He shall never know I love him.”

“You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!”

“‘Are you possessed with a devil,’ he pursued, savagely, ‘to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me?‘”

“Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”

“I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”

“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—”

He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

“Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,” she answered, sharply.

“A man’s life is of more consequence than one evening’s neglect of the horses: somebody must go,”

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

“He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl. Do you know anything of his history?”

He had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend

“And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan.—And take that, I hope he’ll kick out your brains!”

“How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!”

Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders.

“I’m not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again.

“I’m now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”

“But I’ll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!”

It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed.

“A wild, wicked slip she was— but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her.”

“I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them—everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?”

He had room in his heart only for two idols—his wife and himself: he doted on both, and adored one, and I couldn’t conceive how he would bear the loss.

“but he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.”

″...for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his absence; and when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff, She dared not treat his sentiments with indifference, as if depreciation of her playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her.”

“Nothing—only look at the almanack on that wall;” he pointed to a framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued, “The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me. Do you see? I’ve marked every day.”

“It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,” she muttered.

“You’ve made me afraid and ashamed of you,”

The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten.

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

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.

My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning:

Well then, it is my darling! wisht, dry thy eyes—there’s a joy; kiss me.

“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.

“Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I’ve given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.”

“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.

“And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.”

“I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!”

“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.”

“Here! and here!” replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast: “in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!”

“And so do I. I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of it.”

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

“All sinners would be miserable in heaven.”

It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

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

Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.

“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.”

Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it.

He did not raise his to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers.

“I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice;”

“I’m not envious: I never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella’s yellow hair and the whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the family exhibit for her.”

Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it;

“I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!”

“I’m not jealous of you,” replied the mistress; “I’m jealous for you. Clear your face: you sha’n’t scowl at me! If you like Isabella, you shall marry her. But do you like her? Tell the truth, Heathcliff! There, you won’t answer. I’m certain you don’t.”

“I know you have treated me infernally—infernally! Do you hear? And if you flatter yourself that I don’t perceive it, you are a fool; and if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot: and if you fancy I’ll suffer unrevenged, I’ll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while!”

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him; they crush those beneath them.

Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous: for that cause, and to prevent worse consequences, I shall deny you hereafter admission into this house, and give notice now that I require your instant departure. Three minutes’ delay will render it involuntary and ignominious.”

“Mr. Linton, I’m mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!”

For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely.

“Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice.”

“Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend—if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I’ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own. That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity!”

“Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me? It is impossible for you to be my friend and his at the same time; and I absolutely require to know which you choose.”

How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.

We’ve braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come.

“You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never!”

“I don’t want you, Edgar: I’m past wanting you. I’m glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone.”

Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.”

“Catherine, last spring at this time, I was longing to have you under this roof; now, I wish you were a mile or two up those hills: the air blows so sweetly, I feel that it would cure you.”

It appeared dry and cold; but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it.

“You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!”

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

yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.

I do hate him—I am wretched—I have been a fool!

“I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I’m sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she’ll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.”

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!

“had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him.”

“The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood!”

You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me!

If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.

“Don’t put faith in a single word he speaks. He’s a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being!

“Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha’n’t obtain it—I’ll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me!”

The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!”

“The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.”

“I wish I could hold you,” she continued, bitterly, “till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. 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 than 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?”

“I’m not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won’t you come here again? Do!”

You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—

Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.

I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

“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!”

“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred;

Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well.

“He’s not a human being,” she retorted; “and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me.

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.

his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.”

“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.’

“But, Ellen,” cried she, staring fixed in astonishment, “how dare he speak so to me? Mustn’t he be made to do as I ask him? You wicked creature, I shall tell papa what you said.—Now, then!”

“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.

Try to be cheerful now; the travelling is at an end, and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you please.”

I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on as sad a countenance as himself, and returned to her father.

The company of a child of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by wishing for strength he’ll gain it.”

″...recalling Isabella’s hopes and fears, and anxious wishes for her son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved bitterly at the prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart how it might be avoided.”

“As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or bad, you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter: she cannot associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in ignorance of his proximity; lest she should be restless, and anxious to visit the Heights. Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and he has been obliged to leave us.”

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

“She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago. How am I to love papa? I don’t know him.”

“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.”

and naturally he’ll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own.

“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.”

“Only nobody else must be kind to him: I’m jealous of monopolising his affection.”

“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,”

Catherine had reached her full height; her figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole aspect sparkling with health and spirits.

“He thought me too poor to wed his sister,” answered Heathcliff, “and was grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he’ll never forgive it.”

I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance.

But there’s this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver.

If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring’s wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!”

“No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity.

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

“I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by this: I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him better than myself.”

I’ve got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I’ll send them to your father. I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn’t you? Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest: in love, really. As true as I live, he’s dying for you; breaking his heart at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually.

He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best medicine.

“Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living.”

“And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me.”

“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.”

I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me, frequently;

“Only, Catherine, do me this justice: believe that if I might be as sweet, and as kind, and as good as you are, I would be; as willingly, and more so, than as happy and as healthy. And believe that your kindness has made me love you deeper than if I deserved your love”

He’ll never let his friends be at ease, and he’ll never be at ease himself!

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

But I’ve been as happy musing by myself among those stones, under that old church: lying, through the long June evenings, on the green mound of her mother’s grave, and wishing—yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it.

And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant spirit, I must persevere in making her sad while I live, and leaving her solitary when I die.

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

“I must obey my own,” she replied, “and relieve him from this cruel suspense. The whole night! What would he think? He’ll be distressed already. I’ll either break or burn a way out of the house. Be quiet! You’re in no danger; but if you hinder me—Linton, I love papa better than you!”

“I promise to marry Linton: papa would like me to: and I love him. Why should you wish to force me to do what I’ll willingly do of myself?”

Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction.

As to your promise to marry Linton, I’ll take care you shall keep it; for you shall not quit this place till it is fulfilled.”

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

“Mr. Heathcliff, you’re a cruel man, but you’re not a fiend; and you won’t, from mere malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness.”

“He says she hates me and wants me to die, that she may have my money; but she shan’t have it: and she shan’t go home! She never shall!—she may cry, and be sick as much as she pleases!”

“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!

It isn’t hers! It’s mine: papa says everything she has is mine.

“Linton is all I have to love in the world, and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me to him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!”

″‘I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him.‘”

Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery.

Nobody loves you—nobody will cry for you when you die!

“Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years—incessantly—remorselessly—till yesternight;”

“I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us!”

“You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.”

“We know that!” answered Heathcliff; “but his life is not worth a farthing, and I won’t spend a farthing on him.”

“He’s safe, and I’m free,”

’Mr. Hareton, and the whole set of you, will be good enough to understand that I reject any pretence at kindness you have the hypocrisy to offer!

When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off.

“But I’ve most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those!”

Nay, if it made me a king, I’d not be scorned for seeking her good-will any more.”

“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.”

“You shouldn’t grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land!”

Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar.

Those two who have left the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony.

“Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being;

“In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image!”

“O God! It is a long fight; I wish it were over!”

“Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!”

“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms’ length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest.”

“I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.”

Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on ‘em looking out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his death:—