'With your husband's money, Miss Catherine?' I asked. 'You'll find
him not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I'm hardly a
judge, I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being
the wife of young Linton.'
'It is not,' retorted she; 'it is the best! The others were the
satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy
him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my
feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you
and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence
of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were
entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been
Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the
beginning: my great thought in living is himself. 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: I should not seem a part of it. - 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 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. So don't talk of
our separation again: it is impracticable; and - '
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