Datasets:

pszemraj

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booksum-short

like 4

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/31.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_26_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide16.html", "summary": "Mr. Collins is ecstatic over the invitation to Rosings, for he wants to display \"the grandeur of his patroness to his wandering visitors\" and to show \"her civility towards himself and his wife.\" He spends hours instructing the guests on what they are to expect and how they are to behave at Lady Catherines. The company arrives at Rosings. They are greeted by Lady Catherine with an air of condescension designed \"not to make her visitors forget their inferior rank.\" Lady Catherine is a tall, large woman who speaks in an authoritative tone. Her daughter is a sickly, diminutive creature who speaks in a muffled voice, but only to Mrs. Jenkinson, who fusses over her comforts. Mr. Collins raves about the delicious and exotic dinner; Lady Catherine seems gratified from this overdose of praise. After dinner, Lady Catherine advises Charlotte on how to manage her house, her cows, and her poultry. Elizabeth is shocked at how the woman delights in dictating to others. She is also shocked by Lady Catherines many personal questions to her about her family; Elizabeth considers them interfering and impertinent and answers in a manner that surprises the smug Lady Catherine. After several games of cards, Lady Catherine indicates that the evening is over. Mr. Collins is eager to know Elizabeths opinion about Lady Catherine and Rosings. For Charlottes sake, she says the evening and the hostess have been pleasant.", "analysis": ""}

Mr. Collins's triumph in consequence of this invitation was complete. The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady Catherine's condescension as he knew not how to admire enough. "I confess," said he, "that I should not have been at all surprised by her Ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation moreover including the whole party) so immediately after your arrival!" "I am the less surprised at what has happened," replied Sir William, "from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the Court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon." Scarcely any thing was talked of the whole day or next morning, but their visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner might not wholly overpower them. When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth, "Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us, which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest, there is no occasion for any thing more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved." While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner.--Such formidable accounts of her Ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas, who had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings, with as much apprehension, as her father had done to his presentation at St. James's. As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park.--Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis De Bourgh. When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm.--Elizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money and rank, she thought she could witness without trepidation. From the entrance hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air, the fine proportion and finished ornaments, they followed the servants through an anti-chamber, to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting.--Her Ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be her's, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary. In spite of having been at St. James's, Sir William was so completely awed, by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word; and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her composedly.--Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them, such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said, was spoken in so authoritative a tone, as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he had represented. When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment, at her being so thin, and so small. There was neither in figure nor face, any likeness between the ladies. Miss De Bourgh was pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before her eyes. After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows, to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth looking at in the summer. The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants, and all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater.--He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted alacrity; and every dish was commended, first by him, and then by Sir William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son in law said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear. But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss De Bourgh--the former of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all dinner time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss De Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she were indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire. When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner as proved that she was not used to have her judgment controverted. She enquired into Charlotte's domestic concerns familiarly and minutely, and gave her a great deal of advice, as to the management of them all; told her how every thing ought to be regulated in so small a family as her's, and instructed her as to the care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great Lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins, was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked her at different times, how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her mother's maiden name?--Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions, but answered them very composedly.--Lady Catherine then observed, "Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line.--It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family.--Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?" "A little." "Oh! then--some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to----You shall try it some day.--Do your sisters play and sing?" "One of them does." "Why did not you all learn?--You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as your's.--Do you draw?" "No, not at all." "What, none of you?" "Not one." "That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters." "My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London." "Has your governess left you?" "We never had any governess." "No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess!--I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education." Elizabeth could hardly help smiling, as she assured her that had not been the case. "Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess you must have been neglected." "Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn, never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might." "Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and it was but the other day, that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalfe's calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?" "Yes, Ma'am, all." "All!--What, all five out at once? Very odd!--And you only the second.--The younger ones out before the elder are married!--Your younger sisters must be very young?" "Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be much in company. But really, Ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early.--The last born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth, as the first. And to be kept back on _such_ a motive!--I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind." "Upon my word," said her Ladyship, "you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.--Pray, what is your age?" "With three younger sisters grown up," replied Elizabeth smiling, "your Ladyship can hardly expect me to own it." Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence. "You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure,--therefore you need not conceal your age." "I am not one and twenty." When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card tables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille; and as Miss De Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss De Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking--stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to every thing her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names. When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broke up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted, and immediately ordered. The party then gathered round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by the arrival of the coach, and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins's side, and as many bows on Sir William's, they departed. As soon as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin, to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her Ladyship's praise into his own hands.

chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide16.html

Mr. Collins is ecstatic over the invitation to Rosings, for he wants to display "the grandeur of his patroness to his wandering visitors" and to show "her civility towards himself and his wife." He spends hours instructing the guests on what they are to expect and how they are to behave at Lady Catherines. The company arrives at Rosings. They are greeted by Lady Catherine with an air of condescension designed "not to make her visitors forget their inferior rank." Lady Catherine is a tall, large woman who speaks in an authoritative tone. Her daughter is a sickly, diminutive creature who speaks in a muffled voice, but only to Mrs. Jenkinson, who fusses over her comforts. Mr. Collins raves about the delicious and exotic dinner; Lady Catherine seems gratified from this overdose of praise. After dinner, Lady Catherine advises Charlotte on how to manage her house, her cows, and her poultry. Elizabeth is shocked at how the woman delights in dictating to others. She is also shocked by Lady Catherines many personal questions to her about her family; Elizabeth considers them interfering and impertinent and answers in a manner that surprises the smug Lady Catherine. After several games of cards, Lady Catherine indicates that the evening is over. Mr. Collins is eager to know Elizabeths opinion about Lady Catherine and Rosings. For Charlottes sake, she says the evening and the hostess have been pleasant.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_27_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 30

chapter 30

{"name": "chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide16.html", "summary": "Sir William returns home after a week, but Elizabeth and Maria stay on with the Collins. Elizabeth has another opportunity to observe the overbearing ways of Lady Catherine. Whenever she hears about any of the parishioners being quarrelsome or complaining, she goes forth to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony. With the approach of Easter, Mr. Darcy arrives at Rosings with his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. When they call at the parsonage, Darcy is surprised to find Elizabeth; out of politeness, he asks about her family, and Elizabeth tells him that Jane is in London. Darcy, looking baffled, says that he has not been fortunate enough to meet her there. The visitors soon return to Rosings.", "analysis": ""}

Sir William staid only a week at Hunsford; but his visit was long enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled, and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his mornings to driving him out in his gig, and shewing him the country; but when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her cousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden, or in reading and writing, and looking out of window in his own book room, which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. Elizabeth at first had rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer the dining-parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a pleasanter aspect; but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been much less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively; and she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement. From the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went along, and how often especially Miss De Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever prevailed on to get out. Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise; and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many hours. Now and then, they were honoured with a call from her Ladyship, and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement of the furniture, or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family. Elizabeth soon perceived that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty. The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week; and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one card table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart of the first. Their other engagements were few; as the style of living of the neighbourhood in general, was beyond the Collinses' reach. This however was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough; there were half hours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year, that she had often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity. In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it, was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine; who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself. His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage, for Mr. Collins was walking the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, in order to have the earliest assurance of it; and after making his bow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle, Lord ---- and to the great surprise of all the party, when Mr. Collins returned the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding, "I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me." Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment, before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, paid his compliments, with his usual reserve, to Mrs. Collins; and whatever might be his feelings towards her friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely curtseyed to him, without saying a word. Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to any body. At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to enquire of Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way, and after a moment's pause, added, "My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?" She was perfectly sensible that he never had; but she wished to see whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between the Bingleys and Jane; and she thought he looked a little confused as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went away.

chapter 30

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide16.html

Sir William returns home after a week, but Elizabeth and Maria stay on with the Collins. Elizabeth has another opportunity to observe the overbearing ways of Lady Catherine. Whenever she hears about any of the parishioners being quarrelsome or complaining, she goes forth to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony. With the approach of Easter, Mr. Darcy arrives at Rosings with his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. When they call at the parsonage, Darcy is surprised to find Elizabeth; out of politeness, he asks about her family, and Elizabeth tells him that Jane is in London. Darcy, looking baffled, says that he has not been fortunate enough to meet her there. The visitors soon return to Rosings.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/33.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_28_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 31

chapter 31

{"name": "chapter 31", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide17.html", "summary": "Colonel Fitzwilliam is about thirty years old and, though he is not very handsome, his manners make him popular. A week after the arrival of her nephews, Lady Catherine condescends to invite Mr. Collins guests to a party at Rosings on Sunday evening. Colonel Fitzwilliam is attracted to Elizabeth and converses with her animatedly. The mutually engrossed couple draws the attention of Darcy and Lady Catherine. The latter has no qualms about rudely interrupting their conversation, calling out questions to them. Fitzwilliam asks Elizabeth to play the piano, and she agrees; Lady Catherine, however, rudely continues to talk while Elizabeth is performing. Disgusted by his aunts churlish manner, Darcy stands by the piano to pay attention to Elizabeth. During the evening, Elizabeth cannot see any signs of love between Darcy and Miss de Borough.", "analysis": ""}

Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasure of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither, for while there were visitors in the house, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little of either Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had only seen at church. The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine's drawing-room. Her ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; any thing was a welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had moreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy. _His_ eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship after a while shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out, "What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is." "We are speaking of music, Madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply. "Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?" Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. "I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal." "I assure you, Madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly." "So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the piano-forte in Mrs. Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part of the house." Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill breeding, and made no answer. When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away from her, and moving with his usual deliberation towards the piano-forte, stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first convenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said, "You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? But I will not be alarmed though your sister _does_ play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me." "I shall not say that you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own." Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, "Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world, where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire--and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too--for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out, as will shock your relations to hear." "I am not afraid of you," said he, smilingly. "Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of," cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. "I should like to know how he behaves among strangers." "You shall hear then--but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball--and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you--but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact." "I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party." "True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders." "Perhaps," said Darcy, "I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction, but I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers." "Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?" "I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble." "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done." "My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault--because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe _my_ fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution." Darcy smiled and said, "You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you, can think any thing wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers." Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said to Darcy, "Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss, if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn." Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his cousin's praise; but neither at that moment nor at any other could she discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss De Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have been just as likely to marry _her_, had she been his relation. Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility; and at the request of the gentlemen remained at the instrument till her Ladyship's carriage was ready to take them all home.

chapter 31

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide17.html

Colonel Fitzwilliam is about thirty years old and, though he is not very handsome, his manners make him popular. A week after the arrival of her nephews, Lady Catherine condescends to invite Mr. Collins guests to a party at Rosings on Sunday evening. Colonel Fitzwilliam is attracted to Elizabeth and converses with her animatedly. The mutually engrossed couple draws the attention of Darcy and Lady Catherine. The latter has no qualms about rudely interrupting their conversation, calling out questions to them. Fitzwilliam asks Elizabeth to play the piano, and she agrees; Lady Catherine, however, rudely continues to talk while Elizabeth is performing. Disgusted by his aunts churlish manner, Darcy stands by the piano to pay attention to Elizabeth. During the evening, Elizabeth cannot see any signs of love between Darcy and Miss de Borough.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/34.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_29_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 32

chapter 32

{"name": "chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide17.html", "summary": "Since the rest of the party has gone out, the next morning Elizabeth sits alone, writing a letter to Jane. Darcy suddenly walks in. Both of them are at loss for words, but Elizabeth finally asks about the abrupt departure of the Bingleys from Netherfield. Darcy does not say much, but he tells her that Bingley may dispose of Netherfield. Their conversation is interrupted by the entry of Charlotte and her sister. After Darcy departs, Charlotte tells Elizabeth of her notion that Darcy is in love with her. Elizabeth laughs at the suggestion. Darcy and Fitzwilliam begin to often come to the parsonage. Although Darcy usually says little, Charlotte notices that he often looks at Elizabeth.", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane, while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to be Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her half-finished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions, when the door opened, and to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his intrusion, by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies to be within. They then sat down, and when her enquiries after Rosings were made, seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence recollecting _when_ she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty departure, she observed, "How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London." "Perfectly so--I thank you." She found that she was to receive no other answer--and, after a short pause, added, "I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again?" "I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in future. He has many friends, and he is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing." "If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But perhaps Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as for his own, and we must expect him to keep or quit it on the same principle." "I should not be surprised," said Darcy, "if he were to give it up, as soon as any eligible purchase offers." Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the trouble of finding a subject to him. He took the hint, and soon began with, "This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford." "I believe she did--and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object." "Mr. Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife." "Yes, indeed; his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding--though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a prudential light, it is certainly a very good match for her." "It must be very agreeable to her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends." "An easy distance do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles." "And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a _very_ easy distance." "I should never have considered the distance as one of the _advantages_ of the match," cried Elizabeth. "I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled _near_ her family." "It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Any thing beyond the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far." As he spoke there was a sort of smile, which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered, "I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expence of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case _here_. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys--and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself _near_ her family under less than _half_ the present distance." Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, "_You_ cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. _You_ cannot have been always at Longbourn." Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and, glancing over it, said, in a colder voice, "Are you pleased with Kent?" A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and concise--and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from their walk. The tete-a-tete surprised them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying much to any body, went away. "What can be the meaning of this!" said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. "My dear Eliza he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way." But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty of finding any thing to do, which was the more probable from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard table, but gentlemen cannot be always within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her former favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind. But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice--a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would have liked to believe this change the effect of love, and the object of that love, her friend Eliza, she sat herself seriously to work to find it out.--She watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind. She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power. In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the pleasantest man; he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but, to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all.

chapter 32

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide17.html

Since the rest of the party has gone out, the next morning Elizabeth sits alone, writing a letter to Jane. Darcy suddenly walks in. Both of them are at loss for words, but Elizabeth finally asks about the abrupt departure of the Bingleys from Netherfield. Darcy does not say much, but he tells her that Bingley may dispose of Netherfield. Their conversation is interrupted by the entry of Charlotte and her sister. After Darcy departs, Charlotte tells Elizabeth of her notion that Darcy is in love with her. Elizabeth laughs at the suggestion. Darcy and Fitzwilliam begin to often come to the parsonage. Although Darcy usually says little, Charlotte notices that he often looks at Elizabeth.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/35.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_30_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 33

chapter 33

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More than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy.--She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers.--How it could occur a second time therefore was very odd!--Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions--about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying _there_ too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant any thing, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the pales opposite the Parsonage. She was engaged one day as she walked, in re-perusing Jane's last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said, "I did not know before that you ever walked this way." "I have been making the tour of the Park," he replied, "as I generally do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?" "No, I should have turned in a moment." And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together. "Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?" said she. "Yes--if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases." "And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least great pleasure in the power of choice. I do not know any body who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy." "He likes to have his own way very well," replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. "But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence." "In my opinion, the younger son of an Earl can know very little of either. Now, seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring any thing you had a fancy for?" "These are home questions--and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from the want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like." "Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do." "Our habits of expence make us too dependant, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money." "Is this," thought Elizabeth, "meant for me?" and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what is the usual price of an Earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds." He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said, "I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps his sister does as well for the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her." "No," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy." "Are you, indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age, are sometimes a little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way." As she spoke, she observed him looking at her earnestly, and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied, "You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them." "I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentleman-like man--he is a great friend of Darcy's." "Oh! yes," said Elizabeth drily--"Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him." "Care of him!--Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture." "What is it you mean?" "It is a circumstance which Darcy of course would not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an unpleasant thing." "You may depend upon my not mentioning it." "And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this; that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer." "Did Mr. Darcy give you his reasons for this interference?" "I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady." "And what arts did he use to separate them?" "He did not talk to me of his own arts," said Fitzwilliam smiling. "He only told me, what I have now told you." Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful. "I am thinking of what you have been telling me," said she. "Your cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?" "You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?" "I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend's inclination, or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy." "But," she continued, recollecting herself, "as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case." "That is not an unnatural surmise," said Fitzwilliam, "but it is lessening the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly." This was spoken jestingly, but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer; and, therefore, abruptly changing the conversation, talked on indifferent matters till they reached the parsonage. There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There could not exist in the world _two_ men, over whom Mr. Darcy could have such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Mr. Bingley and Jane, she had never doubted; but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, _he_ was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted. "There were some very strong objections against the lady," were Colonel Fitzwilliam's words, and these strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in business in London. "To Jane herself," she exclaimed, "there could be no possibility of objection. All loveliness and goodness as she is! Her understanding excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither could any thing be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities which Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach." When she thought of her mother indeed, her confidence gave way a little, but she would not allow that any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in his friend's connections, than from their want of sense; and she was quite decided at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister. The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go, and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her, but Mr. Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather displeased by her staying at home.

chapter 33

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide17.html

Elizabeth, rambling in the park, often meets Darcy unexpectedly. On these occasions, he walks with her and asks odd questions about her likes and dislikes. Once she meets Fitzwilliam while she is strolling, and they speak of Darcy. Fitzwilliam tells her that recently Darcy has saved a friend from an unwise marriage, and he suspects this friend to be Bingley. Elizabeth is pained over hearing the news. She is furious with Darcy for ruining her sisters life. She later feigns a headache so she will not have to accompany the others to Rosings; angry with Darcy for his interference in Janes life, she does not want to see him.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/36.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_31_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 34

chapter 34

{"name": "chapter 34", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide18.html", "summary": "When the Company leaves, Elizabeth begins to reread Janes letters. Suddenly Darcy comes back in. After making perfunctory inquiries about her health, he declares his love for Elizabeth, who is thunderstruck and mute. Darcy speaks a good deal about his pride and makes Jane feel she is socially inferior to him. He acts like his proposal to her is a divine honor, which Elizabeth cannot turn down. Elizabeth, furious over his superior attitude, spares no words in refusing him. She accuses Darcy of separating Jane and Bingley, of treating Wickham horribly, and of acting in an arrogant manner. Darcy accepts these accusations without apology, but it hurts him when she says that his demeanor is not gentlemanly. When Darcy leaves the house, Elizabeth is so flustered great that she breaks into tears.", "analysis": ""}

When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterize her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself, and kindly disposed towards every one, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next, and a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do. She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent, without remembering that his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him. While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began, "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority--of its being a degradation--of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit. In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther, and when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she said, "In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot--I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation." Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantle-piece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips, till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said, "And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance." "I might as well enquire," replied she, "why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man, who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?" As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued. "I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind." She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. "Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated. With assumed tranquillity he then replied, "I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been kinder than towards myself." Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her. "But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation, can you here impose upon others?" "You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said Darcy in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour. "Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?" "His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy contemptuously; "yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed." "And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth with energy. "You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule." "And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps," added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, "these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by every thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said, "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner." She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued, "You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it." Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on. "From the very beginning, from the first moment I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." "You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness." And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for half an hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! that he should have been in love with her for so many months! so much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case, was almost incredible! it was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride, his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane, his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room.

chapter 34

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide18.html

When the Company leaves, Elizabeth begins to reread Janes letters. Suddenly Darcy comes back in. After making perfunctory inquiries about her health, he declares his love for Elizabeth, who is thunderstruck and mute. Darcy speaks a good deal about his pride and makes Jane feel she is socially inferior to him. He acts like his proposal to her is a divine honor, which Elizabeth cannot turn down. Elizabeth, furious over his superior attitude, spares no words in refusing him. She accuses Darcy of separating Jane and Bingley, of treating Wickham horribly, and of acting in an arrogant manner. Darcy accepts these accusations without apology, but it hurts him when she says that his demeanor is not gentlemanly. When Darcy leaves the house, Elizabeth is so flustered great that she breaks into tears.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/37.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_32_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 35

chapter 35

{"name": "chapter 35", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide18.html", "summary": "The next morning Elizabeth is walking by the park gates when she is confronted by Darcy, who thrusts a letter in her hand and leaves. The letter, contrary to her expectations, does not renew his marriage proposal. Instead, Darcy admits that he persuaded Bingley to give up Jane, for he had the impression that Jane did not really love Bingley. Darcy now realizes his mistake; however, he still feels the Bennet family, especially the mother, is ill suited to become the in-laws of a man of Bingleys caliber. Darcy also apologizes for keeping Janes presence in London a secret from Bingley. In regard to Wickham, Darcy informs Elizabeth that his own father, who employed Wickhams dad, had given Wickham 3,000 to aid him in studying law. Unfortunately, Wickham squandered the money in idle living; quickly exhausting the funds, Wickham demanded more money. When rebuffed by Darcy, Wickham tried to get back at Darcy by attempting to elope with Darcys young sister, which Darcy was able to foil. Darcy ends the letter by asserting the veracity of his statements, which Colonel Fitzwilliam can certify. Darcy closes the letter with \"God bless you.\"", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened; it was impossible to think of any thing else, and totally indisposed for employment, she resolved soon after breakfast to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led her farther from the turnpike road. The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground. After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent, had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park; he was moving that way; and fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced, was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced her name. She had turned away, but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also, and holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said with a look of haughty composure, "I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?"--And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight. With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter, and to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter paper, written quite through, in a very close hand.--The envelope itself was likewise full.--Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:-- "Be not alarmed, Madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation, and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice. "Two offences of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister,--and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity, and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham.--Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison.--But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read.--If, in the explanation of them which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to your's, I can only say that I am sorry.--The necessity must be obeyed--and farther apology would be absurd.--I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your eldest sister, to any other young woman in the country.--But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment.--I had often seen him in love before.--At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched.--Her look and manners were open, cheerful and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.--If _you_ have not been mistaken here, _I_ must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable.--If it be so, if I have been misled by such error, to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such, as might have given the most acute observer, a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.--That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain,--but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears.--I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it;--I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason.--My objections to the marriage were not merely those, which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me.--But there were other causes of repugnance;--causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me.--These causes must be stated, though briefly.--The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father.--Pardon me.--It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister, than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both.--I will only say farther, that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened, which could have led me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection.--He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning.--The part which I acted, is now to be explained.--His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London.--We accordingly went--and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend, the certain evils of such a choice.--I described, and enforced them earnestly.--But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal regard.--But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than on his own.--To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment.--I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley, but her brother is even yet ignorant of it.--That they might have met without ill consequence, is perhaps probable;--but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger.--Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me.--It is done, however, and it was done for the best.--On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.--With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates; and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust, naturally inclined my father to be of service to him, and on George Wickham, who was his god-son, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge;--most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging; he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities--the want of principle which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain--to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character. It adds even another motive. My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly recommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allow, and if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying the law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere; but at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman. The business was therefore soon settled. He resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him, to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question--of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances--and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others, as in his reproaches to myself. After this period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropt. How he lived I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and by her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented any public exposure, but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me, was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he has imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at. Ignorant as you previously were of every thing concerning either, detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination. You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night. But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of every thing here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and still more as one of the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of _me_ should make _my_ assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you. "FITZWILLIAM DARCY."

chapter 35

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide18.html

The next morning Elizabeth is walking by the park gates when she is confronted by Darcy, who thrusts a letter in her hand and leaves. The letter, contrary to her expectations, does not renew his marriage proposal. Instead, Darcy admits that he persuaded Bingley to give up Jane, for he had the impression that Jane did not really love Bingley. Darcy now realizes his mistake; however, he still feels the Bennet family, especially the mother, is ill suited to become the in-laws of a man of Bingleys caliber. Darcy also apologizes for keeping Janes presence in London a secret from Bingley. In regard to Wickham, Darcy informs Elizabeth that his own father, who employed Wickhams dad, had given Wickham 3,000 to aid him in studying law. Unfortunately, Wickham squandered the money in idle living; quickly exhausting the funds, Wickham demanded more money. When rebuffed by Darcy, Wickham tried to get back at Darcy by attempting to elope with Darcys young sister, which Darcy was able to foil. Darcy ends the letter by asserting the veracity of his statements, which Colonel Fitzwilliam can certify. Darcy closes the letter with "God bless you."

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all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/38.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_33_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 36

chapter 36

{"name": "chapter 36", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide19.html", "summary": "At first, Elizabeth finds the contents of Darcys letter incredulous, but soon the veracity of it dawns on her as she recalls the unscrupulous way in which Wickham has floated tales about Darcy and the purely mercenary attachment he has formed with Miss King. She chides herself for being so wretchedly blind to Wickhams faults, which she believes she failed to discern because of her vanity. Although she cannot accept that Jane was ever insensitive to Bingley, Elizabeth concedes to the critical statements Darcy has made about her parents. When Elizabeth returns to the parsonage from the park, she learns that Darcy and Fitzwilliam will be leaving Rosings.", "analysis": ""}

If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may be well supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and steadfastly was she persuaded that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong prejudice against every thing he might say, she began his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read, with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility, she instantly resolved to be false, and his account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and insolence. But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham, when she read with somewhat clearer attention, a relation of events, which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself, her feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!"--and when she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing any thing of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again. In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. The account of his connection with the Pemberley family, was exactly what he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words. So far each recital confirmed the other: but when she came to the will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did not err. But when she read, and re-read with the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu, so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality--deliberated on the probability of each statement--but with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on. But every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent, as to render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole. The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay to Mr. Wickham's charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his entrance into the ----shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man, who, on meeting him accidentally in town, had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life, nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As to his real character, had information been in her power, she had never felt a wish of enquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner, had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors, under which she would endeavour to class, what Mr. Darcy had described as the idleness and vice of many years continuance. But no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before her, in every charm of air and address; but she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to read. But, alas! the story which followed of his designs on Miss Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam himself--from whom she had previously received the information of his near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his cousin's corroboration. She perfectly remembered every thing that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Philips's. Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was _now_ struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcy--that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that _he_ should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball the very next week. She remembered also, that till the Netherfield family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but herself; but that after their removal, it had been every where discussed; that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's character, though he had assured her that respect for the father, would always prevent his exposing the son. How differently did every thing now appear in which he was concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at any thing. His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive; he had either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shewn. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their acquaintance, an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways, seen any thing that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust--any thing that spoke him of irreligious or immoral habits. That among his own connections he was esteemed and valued--that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of _some_ amiable feeling. That had his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible. She grew absolutely ashamed of herself.--Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. "How despicably have I acted!" she cried.--"I, who have prided myself on my discernment!--I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust.--How humiliating is this discovery!--Yet, how just a humiliation!--Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.--Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself." From herself to Jane--from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation _there_, had appeared very insufficient; and she read it again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal.--How could she deny that credit to his assertions, in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other?--He declared himself to have been totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment;--and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been.--Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane.--She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner, not often united with great sensibility. When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were mentioned, in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded, as having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers. The compliment to herself and her sister, was not unfelt. It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt which had been thus self-attracted by the rest of her family;--and as she considered that Jane's disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before. After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thought; re-considering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself as well as she could, to a change so sudden and so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must make her unfit for conversation. She was immediately told, that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes to take leave, but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found.--Elizabeth could but just _affect_ concern in missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object. She could think only of her letter.

chapter 36

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At first, Elizabeth finds the contents of Darcys letter incredulous, but soon the veracity of it dawns on her as she recalls the unscrupulous way in which Wickham has floated tales about Darcy and the purely mercenary attachment he has formed with Miss King. She chides herself for being so wretchedly blind to Wickhams faults, which she believes she failed to discern because of her vanity. Although she cannot accept that Jane was ever insensitive to Bingley, Elizabeth concedes to the critical statements Darcy has made about her parents. When Elizabeth returns to the parsonage from the park, she learns that Darcy and Fitzwilliam will be leaving Rosings.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/41.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_34_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 39

chapter 39

{"name": "chapter 39", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide19.html", "summary": "Kitty and Lydia wait at the village inn for their elder sisters. On their way back to Longbourn, they tell anecdotes and jokes to Elizabeth and Jane. Lydia reveals that Miss King has gone to Liverpool to break free from Wickham. Elizabeth and Jane are warmly welcomed by their parents. Mrs. Bennet is pleased to see Jane is still so beautiful, and Mr. Bennet more than once voices how glad he is to have his darling Lizzy back. Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters are aggrieved because the militia regiment is leaving for Brighton. Elizabeth is relieved on hearing the news for two reasons. First, she does not want to see Wickham in her present agitated state of mind; and secondly, she feels her sisters will not be so capricious with the soldiers gone. Lydia has been invited to Brighton for the summer, and Mrs. Bennet and the younger girls want Mr. Bennet to take the whole family there. Although Mr. Bennet has no intentions of doing this, his answers are vague and equivocal.", "analysis": ""}

It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch-street, for the town of ---- in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs. These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a sallad and cucumber. After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, "Is not this nice? is not this an agreeable surprise?" "And we mean to treat you all," added Lydia; "but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then shewing her purchases: "Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better." And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, "Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the ----shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight." "Are they indeed?" cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction. "They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme, and I dare say would hardly cost any thing at all. Mamma would like to go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!" "Yes," thought Elizabeth, "_that_ would be a delightful scheme, indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton." "Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down to table. "What do you think? It is excellent news, capital news, and about a certain person that we all like." Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told that he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said, "Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news: it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is not it? There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool; gone to stay. Wickham is safe." "And Mary King is safe!" added Elizabeth; "safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune." "She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him." "But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side," said Jane. "I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it he never cared three straws about her. Who _could_ about such a nasty little freckled thing?" Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such coarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_ was little other than her own breast had formerly harboured and fancied liberal! As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, workbags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and Lydia's purchases, were seated in it. "How nicely we are crammed in!" cried Lydia. "I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all, since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three and twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty! My aunt Philips wants you so to get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! how I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening; (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes, on purpose to pass for a lady,--only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Col. and Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter." With such kind of histories of their parties and good jokes, did Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name. Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth, "I am glad you are come back, Lizzy." Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news: and various were the subjects which occupied them; lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria across the table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to any body who would hear her. "Oh! Mary," said she, "I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! as we went along, Kitty and me drew up all the blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that any body might have heard us ten miles off!" To this, Mary very gravely replied, "Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for _me_. I should infinitely prefer a book." But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to any body for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all. In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to Meryton and see how every body went on; but Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme. It should not be said, that the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. There was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to _her_, of the regiment's approaching removal, was indeed beyond expression. In a fortnight they were to go, and once gone, she hoped there could be nothing more to plague her on his account. She had not been many hours at home, before she found that the Brighton scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.

chapter 39

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide19.html

Kitty and Lydia wait at the village inn for their elder sisters. On their way back to Longbourn, they tell anecdotes and jokes to Elizabeth and Jane. Lydia reveals that Miss King has gone to Liverpool to break free from Wickham. Elizabeth and Jane are warmly welcomed by their parents. Mrs. Bennet is pleased to see Jane is still so beautiful, and Mr. Bennet more than once voices how glad he is to have his darling Lizzy back. Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters are aggrieved because the militia regiment is leaving for Brighton. Elizabeth is relieved on hearing the news for two reasons. First, she does not want to see Wickham in her present agitated state of mind; and secondly, she feels her sisters will not be so capricious with the soldiers gone. Lydia has been invited to Brighton for the summer, and Mrs. Bennet and the younger girls want Mr. Bennet to take the whole family there. Although Mr. Bennet has no intentions of doing this, his answers are vague and equivocal.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/42.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_35_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 40

chapter 40

{"name": "chapter 40", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html", "summary": "No longer able to restrain herself, Elizabeth tells Jane about Darcys proposal and her rejection of it; the kind-hearted Jane feels sorry for Darcy. Elizabeth also tells about Darcys letter and explains about Wickham. Jane, who is oblivious to the existence of wickedness in the world, finds it hard to understand Wickhams depravity. Elizabeth does not tell Jane of Darcys influencing Bingley against her, for she knows her sister still has a tender love for Bingley. Mrs. Bennet continues her easy criticism. She calls Bingley an undeserving young man who has treated Jane shabbily. She also makes barbed comments about the Collins.", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome; and at length resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself. Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him. "His being so sure of succeeding, was wrong," said she; "and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment." "Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?" "Blame you! Oh, no." "But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham." "No--I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did." "But you _will_ know it, when I have told you what happened the very next day." She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear one, without involving the other. "This will not do," said Elizabeth. "You never will be able to make both of them good for any thing. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy's, but you shall do as you chuse." It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. "I do not know when I have been more shocked," said she. "Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so." "Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather." "Poor Wickham; there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner." "There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it." "I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the _appearance_ of it as you used to do." "And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty." "Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now." "Indeed I could not. I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable, I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to, of what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh! how I wanted you!" "How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they _do_ appear wholly undeserved." "Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness, is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point, on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not to make our acquaintance in general understand Wickham's character." Miss Bennet paused a little and then replied, "Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your own opinion?" "That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary every particular relative to his sister, was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton, to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anybody here, what he really is. Sometime hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it." "You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now perhaps sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate." The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last incumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!" She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets, which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity. "Well, Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet one day, "what is your opinion _now_ of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Philips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw any thing of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young man--and I do not suppose there is the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have enquired of every body too, who is likely to know." "I do not believe that he will ever live at Netherfield any more." "Oh, well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I shall always say that he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done." But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation, she made no answer. "Well, Lizzy," continued her mother soon afterwards, "and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in _their_ housekeeping, I dare say." "No, nothing at all." "A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. _They_ will take care not to outrun their income. _They_ will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it quite as their own, I dare say, whenever that happens." "It was a subject which they could not mention before me." "No. It would have been strange if they had. But I make no doubt, they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. _I_ should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me."

chapter 40

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html

No longer able to restrain herself, Elizabeth tells Jane about Darcys proposal and her rejection of it; the kind-hearted Jane feels sorry for Darcy. Elizabeth also tells about Darcys letter and explains about Wickham. Jane, who is oblivious to the existence of wickedness in the world, finds it hard to understand Wickhams depravity. Elizabeth does not tell Jane of Darcys influencing Bingley against her, for she knows her sister still has a tender love for Bingley. Mrs. Bennet continues her easy criticism. She calls Bingley an undeserving young man who has treated Jane shabbily. She also makes barbed comments about the Collins.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/43.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_36_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 41

chapter 41

{"name": "chapter 41", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html", "summary": "There is an omnipresent gloom over Hertfordshire as the regiments stay in Meryton is coming to an end. Kitty and Lydia are wretched, and their mother shares their grief. Elizabeth is ashamed of their behavior and realizes again the truth of Darcys denunciations. Elizabeth is worried about Lydias trip to Brighton with Mr. Foster; she is afraid that Lydia will behave in an unguarded, flippant, flirtatious, and wayward manner, damaging her reputation and the reputation of the Bennet family. Elizabeth, therefore, strongly advises her father not to allow Lydia to go; but her pleas fall on deaf ears. On the regiments last day in Meryton, Wickham and some other officers dine at Longbourn. Elizabeth tells Wickham that she has visited with Darcy and Fitzwilliam, which seems to alarm Wickham. He is also baffled by Elizabeths sudden reversal of opinion about Darcy and says that Darcy is always on his best behavior when he is staying with his aunt, Lady Catherine, whom he fears.", "analysis": ""}

The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family. "Good Heaven! What is to become of us! What are we to do!" would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. "How can you be smiling so, Lizzy?" Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five and twenty years ago. "I am sure," said she, "I cried for two days together when Colonel Millar's regiment went away. I thought I should have broke my heart." "I am sure I shall break _mine_," said Lydia. "If one could but go to Brighton!" observed Mrs. Bennet. "Oh, yes!--if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable." "A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever." "And my aunt Philips is sure it would do _me_ a great deal of good," added Kitty. Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn-house. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend. But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the Colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their _three_ months' acquaintance they had been intimate _two_. The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstacy, calling for every one's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish. "I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask _me_ as well as Lydia," said she, "though I am _not_ her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older." In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said, "Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances." "If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to us all, which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner; nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair." "Already arisen!" repeated Mr. Bennet. "What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity, are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly." "Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world, must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me--for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous. A flirt too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrouled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?" Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject; and affectionately taking her hand, said in reply, "Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known, you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of--or I may say, three very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to any body. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorizing us to lock her up for the rest of her life." With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations, by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition. Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw with the creative eye of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing place covered with officers. She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp; its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for the melancholy conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself. But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures continued with little intermission to the very day of Lydia's leaving home. Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure, for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those attentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance, could only serve, after what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified and her preference secured at any time by their renewal. On the very last day of the regiment's remaining in Meryton, he dined with others of the officers at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some enquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings, and asked him if he were acquainted with the former. He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment's recollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often; and after observing that he was a very gentleman-like man, asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added, "How long did you say that he was at Rosings?" "Nearly three weeks." "And you saw him frequently?" "Yes, almost every day." "His manners are very different from his cousin's." "Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves on acquaintance." "Indeed!" cried Wickham with a look which did not escape her. "And pray may I ask?" but checking himself, he added in a gayer tone, "Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add ought of civility to his ordinary style? for I dare not hope," he continued in a lower and more serious tone, "that he is improved in essentials." "Oh, no!" said Elizabeth. "In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was." While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added, "When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement, but that from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood." Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look; for a few minutes he was silent; till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents, "You, who so well know my feelings towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the _appearance_ of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness, to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgment he stands much in awe. His fear of her, has always operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss De Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart." Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge him. The rest of the evening passed with the _appearance_, on his side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no farther attempt to distinguish Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again. When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and impressive in her injunctions that she would not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible; advice, which there was every reason to believe would be attended to; and in the clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard.

chapter 41

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html

There is an omnipresent gloom over Hertfordshire as the regiments stay in Meryton is coming to an end. Kitty and Lydia are wretched, and their mother shares their grief. Elizabeth is ashamed of their behavior and realizes again the truth of Darcys denunciations. Elizabeth is worried about Lydias trip to Brighton with Mr. Foster; she is afraid that Lydia will behave in an unguarded, flippant, flirtatious, and wayward manner, damaging her reputation and the reputation of the Bennet family. Elizabeth, therefore, strongly advises her father not to allow Lydia to go; but her pleas fall on deaf ears. On the regiments last day in Meryton, Wickham and some other officers dine at Longbourn. Elizabeth tells Wickham that she has visited with Darcy and Fitzwilliam, which seems to alarm Wickham. He is also baffled by Elizabeths sudden reversal of opinion about Darcy and says that Darcy is always on his best behavior when he is staying with his aunt, Lady Catherine, whom he fears.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/44.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_37_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 2.chapter 42

chapter 42

{"name": "chapter 42", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html", "summary": "It is summer at Longbourn; Lydia has gone to Brighton, and Mrs. Bennet and Kitty constantly complain of boredom. Mr. Bennett, as always, stays aloof and uninvolved. Elizabeth, remembering the contents of Darcys letter, is more bothered by her parents behavior than ever. She realizes they are totally mismatched and decides she will not marry until she finds someone with whom she can have a proper and supportive relationship. Unlike the bored Kitty and her mother, Elizabeth is eagerly awaiting her trip with the Gardiners. As she dreams about the northern tour, she receives a letter explaining that the trip has to be shortened to only Derbyshire. She is momentarily disappointed, for she has been looking forward to seeing the lake. The Gardiners take Elizabeth to Lambton, where Mrs. Gardiner once resided. Pemberley, Darcys residence, is situated about five miles away. Elizabeth is persuaded by her aunt and uncle to visit Pemberley, since the family is away.", "analysis": ""}

Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now, the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents which rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife. When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure, she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before; and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dulness of every thing around them, threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance, by a situation of such double danger as a watering place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours, which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. "But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realized. A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation." When Lydia went away, she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother, contained little else, than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going to the camp;--and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still less to be learnt--for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public. After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good humour and cheerfulness began to re-appear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity, and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope, that by the following Christmas, she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the war-office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton. The time fixed for the beginning of their Northern tour was now fast approaching; and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month; and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour; and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northward than Derbyshire. In that county, there was enough to be seen, to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity, as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak. Elizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes; and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied--and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again. With the mention of Derbyshire, there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner. "But surely," said she, "I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me." The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way--teaching them, playing with them, and loving them. The Gardiners staid only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. One enjoyment was certain--that of suitableness as companions; a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniences--cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure--and affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad. It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenelworth, Birmingham, &c. are sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's former residence, and where she had lately learned that some acquaintance still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found from her aunt, that Pemberley was situated. It was not in their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation. "My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much?" said her aunt. "A place too, with which so many of your acquaintance are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you know." Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She must own that she was tired of great houses; after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains. Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. "If it were merely a fine house richly furnished," said she, "I should not care about it myself; but the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the country." Elizabeth said no more--but her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea; and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt, than to run such a risk. But against this, there were objections; and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource, if her private enquiries as to the absence of the family, were unfavourably answered. Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place, what was the name of its proprietor, and with no little alarm, whether the family were down for the summer. A most welcome negative followed the last question--and her alarms being now removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go. END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. [Illustration: MATLOCK] PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the Author of "Sense and Sensibility." VOL. III. London: Printed for T. Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall.

chapter 42

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide20.html

It is summer at Longbourn; Lydia has gone to Brighton, and Mrs. Bennet and Kitty constantly complain of boredom. Mr. Bennett, as always, stays aloof and uninvolved. Elizabeth, remembering the contents of Darcys letter, is more bothered by her parents behavior than ever. She realizes they are totally mismatched and decides she will not marry until she finds someone with whom she can have a proper and supportive relationship. Unlike the bored Kitty and her mother, Elizabeth is eagerly awaiting her trip with the Gardiners. As she dreams about the northern tour, she receives a letter explaining that the trip has to be shortened to only Derbyshire. She is momentarily disappointed, for she has been looking forward to seeing the lake. The Gardiners take Elizabeth to Lambton, where Mrs. Gardiner once resided. Pemberley, Darcys residence, is situated about five miles away. Elizabeth is persuaded by her aunt and uncle to visit Pemberley, since the family is away.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/46.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_38_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 43

chapter 43

{"name": "chapter 43", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide21.html", "summary": "As she arrives at Pemberley with the Gardiners, Elizabeth is thoroughly enchanted by the architecture and surrounding natural beauty of the place. For a moment she thinks it would be pleasant to be the mistress of Pemberley. They are greeted by the housekeeper, who shows them around; Elizabeth is impressed with all she sees. She also listens carefully to the housekeeper who generously praises Darcy as a sweet-tempered and benevolent young man. She claims he is an excellent landlord, unselfish, kind, and humane; she also explains that he is a devoted brother to his sister. Elizabeth momentarily feels sorry for having rebuffed Darcy. Then she thinks about his letter and his criticism of her low relations, which make her angry again. The tour of the house is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Darcy. Elizabeth is a bundle of nerves because she does not want Darcy to think that she has thrown herself in his way. He, however, seems calm and unaffected by her presence even though he speaks kindly to her. Elizabeth, after regaining her composure, introduces Darcy to the Gardiners; she cannot suppress her pleasure in showing him that some members of her family are intelligent and sensible. Darcy, showing no signs of his previous arrogance, is very cordial to the Gardiners; he even invites Mr. Gardiner to fish in his stream. He then suggests that Elizabeth meet his sister. The Gardiners find the charming Darcy far from being an insolent and disagreeable man; they tell Elizabeth that they are amazed that he could have been cruel to Wickham. Without disclosing the source of her information, Elizabeth exonerates Darcy by telling the truth that she has learned from Darcy. It is obvious that Elizabeth is becoming less prejudiced. She spends the rest of the day thinking about Darcy and his sister, Georgiana.", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter. The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood, stretching over a wide extent. Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills;--and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal, nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt, that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehensions of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was. The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking, elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendor, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. "And of this place," thought she, "I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt.--But no,"--recollecting herself,--"that could never be: my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me: I should not have been allowed to invite them." This was a lucky recollection--it saved her from something like regret. She longed to enquire of the housekeeper, whether her master were really absent, but had not courage for it. At length, however, the question was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied, that he was, adding, "but we expect him to-morrow, with a large party of friends." How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day! Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached, and saw the likeness of Mr. Wickham suspended, amongst several other miniatures, over the mantle-piece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it. The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was the picture of a young gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought up by him at his own expence.--"He is now gone into the army," she added, "but I am afraid he has turned out very wild." Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not return it. "And that," said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, "is my master--and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the other--about eight years ago." "I have heard much of your master's fine person," said Mrs. Gardiner, looking at the picture; "it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like or not." Mrs. Reynolds's respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this intimation of her knowing her master. "Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?" Elizabeth coloured, and said--"A little." "And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, Ma'am?" "Yes, very handsome." "I am sure _I_ know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them." This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them. Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn when she was only eight years old. "And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?" said Mr. Gardiner. "Oh! yes--the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so accomplished!--She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is a new instrument just come down for her--a present from my master; she comes here to-morrow with him." Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were easy and pleasant, encouraged her communicativeness by his questions and remarks; Mrs. Reynolds, either from pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her master and his sister. "Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?" "Not so much as I could wish, Sir; but I dare say he may spend half his time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months." "Except," thought Elizabeth, "when she goes to Ramsgate." "If your master would marry, you might see more of him." "Yes, Sir; but I do not know when _that_ will be. I do not know who is good enough for him." Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, "It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so." "I say no more than the truth, and what every body will say that knows him," replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, "I have never had a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old." This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man, had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was grateful to her uncle for saying, "There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master." "Yes, Sir, I know I am. If I was to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted, boy in the world." Elizabeth almost stared at her.--"Can this be Mr. Darcy!" thought she. "His father was an excellent man," said Mrs. Gardiner. "Yes, Ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him--just as affable to the poor." Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subject of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice, to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his many merits, as they proceeded together up the great staircase. "He is the best landlord, and the best master," said she, "that ever lived. Not like the wild young men now-a-days, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw any thing of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men." "In what an amiable light does this place him!" thought Elizabeth. "This fine account of him," whispered her aunt, as they walked, "is not quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend." "Perhaps we might be deceived." "That is not very likely; our authority was too good." On reaching the spacious lobby above, they were shewn into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done, to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room, when last at Pemberley. "He is certainly a good brother," said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows. Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter the room. "And this is always the way with him," she added.--"Whatever can give his sister any pleasure, is sure to be done in a moment. There is nothing he would not do for her." The picture gallery, and two or three of the principal bed-rooms, were all that remained to be shewn. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible. In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her--and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them, that it had been taken in his father's life time. There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original, than she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship!--How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow!--How much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she stood before the canvas, on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression. When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, they returned down stairs, and taking leave of the housekeeper, were consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall door. As they walked across the lawn towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables. They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility. She had instinctively turned away; but, stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil enquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration in his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there, recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued together, were some of the most uncomfortable of her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease; when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his enquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts. At length, every idea seemed to fail him; and, after standing a few moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took leave. The others then joined her, and expressed their admiration of his figure; but Elizabeth heard not a word, and, wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! How strange must it appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination, for it was plain that he was that moment arrived, that moment alighted from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly altered,--what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing!--but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family! Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosing's Park, when he put his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, nor how to account for it. They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching; but it was some time before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what at that moment was passing in his mind; in what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of every thing, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil, only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice, which was not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in seeing her, she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure. At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind roused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself. They entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds; whence, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole Park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile, they were told, that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, in one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene; it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it. Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. This idea lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance she saw, that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his politeness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place; but she had not got beyond the words "delightful," and "charming," when some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of Pemberley from her, might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed, and she said no more. Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked her, if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends. This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared; and she could hardly suppress a smile, at his being now seeking the acquaintance of some of those very people, against whom his pride had revolted, in his offer to herself. "What will be his surprise," thought she, "when he knows who they are! He takes them now for people of fashion." The introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore it; and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he could from such disgraceful companions. That he was _surprised_ by the connexion was evident; he sustained it however with fortitude, and so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, could not but triumph. It was consoling, that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners. The conversation soon turned upon fishing, and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose, while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm in arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of her wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme; and continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for _me_, it cannot be for _my_ sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me." After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected--"for your housekeeper," she added, "informed us that you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and indeed, before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country." He acknowledged the truth of it all; and said that business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. "They will join me early to-morrow," he continued, "and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you,--Mr. Bingley and his sisters." Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been last mentioned between them; and if she might judge from his complexion, _his_ mind was not very differently engaged. "There is also one other person in the party," he continued after a pause, "who more particularly wishes to be known to you,--Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?" The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her, must be the work of her brother, and without looking farther, it was satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her. They now walked on in silence; each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her, was a compliment of the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a mile behind. He then asked her to walk into the house--but she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time, much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly--and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tete-a-tete was over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up, they were all pressed to go into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and they parted on each side with the utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage, and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him walking slowly towards the house. The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them pronounced him to be infinitely superior to any thing they had expected. "He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming," said her uncle. "There _is_ something a little stately in him to be sure," replied her aunt, "but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, _I_ have seen nothing of it." "I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling." "To be sure, Lizzy," said her aunt, "he is not so handsome as Wickham; or rather he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features are perfectly good. But how came you to tell us that he was so disagreeable?" Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked him better when they met in Kent than before, and that she had never seen him so pleasant as this morning. "But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities," replied her uncle. "Your great men often are; and therefore I shall not take him at his word about fishing, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off his grounds." Elizabeth felt that they had entirely mistaken his character, but said nothing. "From what we have seen of him," continued Mrs. Gardiner, "I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by any body, as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance, that would not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But to be sure, the good lady who shewed us the house, did give him a most flaming character! I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal master, I suppose, and _that_ in the eye of a servant comprehends every virtue." Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs, to think of any thing else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk, they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years discontinuance. The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister.

chapter 43

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide21.html

As she arrives at Pemberley with the Gardiners, Elizabeth is thoroughly enchanted by the architecture and surrounding natural beauty of the place. For a moment she thinks it would be pleasant to be the mistress of Pemberley. They are greeted by the housekeeper, who shows them around; Elizabeth is impressed with all she sees. She also listens carefully to the housekeeper who generously praises Darcy as a sweet-tempered and benevolent young man. She claims he is an excellent landlord, unselfish, kind, and humane; she also explains that he is a devoted brother to his sister. Elizabeth momentarily feels sorry for having rebuffed Darcy. Then she thinks about his letter and his criticism of her low relations, which make her angry again. The tour of the house is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of Darcy. Elizabeth is a bundle of nerves because she does not want Darcy to think that she has thrown herself in his way. He, however, seems calm and unaffected by her presence even though he speaks kindly to her. Elizabeth, after regaining her composure, introduces Darcy to the Gardiners; she cannot suppress her pleasure in showing him that some members of her family are intelligent and sensible. Darcy, showing no signs of his previous arrogance, is very cordial to the Gardiners; he even invites Mr. Gardiner to fish in his stream. He then suggests that Elizabeth meet his sister. The Gardiners find the charming Darcy far from being an insolent and disagreeable man; they tell Elizabeth that they are amazed that he could have been cruel to Wickham. Without disclosing the source of her information, Elizabeth exonerates Darcy by telling the truth that she has learned from Darcy. It is obvious that Elizabeth is becoming less prejudiced. She spends the rest of the day thinking about Darcy and his sister, Georgiana.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/49.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_39_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 46

chapter 46

{"name": "chapter 46", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html", "summary": "Darcy seems to be on the verge of proposing to Elizabeth again when she receives alarming news from Jane. Lydia has eloped with Wickham, which distresses Elizabeth greatly since she knows that Wickham has not married her sister. Jane asks Elizabeth to return home immediately and asks Mr. Gardiner to aid their father with a search for Lydia in London. When Darcy enters, Elizabeth is trembling and in tears. He is genuinely concerned when he hears of the calamity. He holds himself partially responsible for what has happened to Lydia since he has failed to speak out against Wickham. Elizabeth also condemns herself for not warning her family about Wickham. She decides she must return home immediately to give support to the family.", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from Jane, on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but on the third, her repining was over, and her sister justified by the receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as Jane had written the direction remarkably ill. They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by themselves. The one missent must be first attended to; it had been written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded; but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect: "Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you--be assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham!--Imagine our surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides!--But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I, that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written." Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter, instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first. "By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F. who instantly taking the alarm, set off from B. intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, but no farther; for on entering that place they removed into a hackney-coach and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but without any success, no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved for him and Mrs. F. but no one can throw any blame on them. Our distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if _he_ could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to every thing?--Impossible. I grieve to find, however, that Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to be trusted. My poor mother is really ill and keeps her room. Could she exert herself it would be better, but this is not to be expected; and as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of confidence one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu. I take up my pen again to do, what I have just told you I would not, but circumstances are such, that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here, as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do, I am sure I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence my uncle's advice and assistance would be every thing in the world; he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness." "Oh! where, where is my uncle?" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door, it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself enough to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, hastily exclaimed, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose." "Good God! what is the matter?" cried he, with more feeling than politeness; then recollecting himself, "I will not detain you a minute, but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough;--you cannot go yourself." Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her, and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home, instantly. On his quitting the room, she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, "Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take, to give you present relief?--A glass of wine;--shall I get you one?--You are very ill." "No, I thank you;" she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. "There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well. I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn." She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence. At length, she spoke again. "I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from any one. My youngest sister has left all her friends--has eloped;--has thrown herself into the power of--of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. _You_ know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to--she is lost for ever." Darcy was fixed in astonishment. "When I consider," she added, in a yet more agitated voice, "that _I_ might have prevented it!--_I_ who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it only--some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now." "I am grieved, indeed," cried Darcy; "grieved--shocked. But is it certain, absolutely certain?" "Oh yes!--They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to Scotland." "And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?" "My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance, and we shall be off, I hope, in half an hour. But nothing can be done; I know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!" Darcy shook his head in silent acquiesence. "When _my_ eyes were opened to his real character.--Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared, to do! But I knew not--I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched, mistake!" Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation; his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; every thing _must_ sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain. But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia--the humiliation, the misery, she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief, Elizabeth was soon lost to every thing else; and, after a pause of several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion, who, in a manner, which though it spoke compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, "I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing, concern. Would to heaven that any thing could be either said or done on my part, that might offer consolation to such distress.--But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley to-day." "Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologize for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible.--I know it cannot be long." He readily assured her of his secrecy--again expressed his sorrow for her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only one serious, parting, look, went away. As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise, if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method, in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill-success might perhaps authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought, could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least of her feelings on this developement. While the contents of the first letter remained on her mind, she was all surprise--all astonishment that Wickham should marry a girl, whom it was impossible he could marry for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him, had appeared incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment as this, she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement, without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey. She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Lydia had any partiality for him, but she was convinced that Lydia had wanted only encouragement to attach herself to any body. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion. Her affections had been continually fluctuating, but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girl.--Oh! how acutely did she now feel it. She was wild to be at home--to hear, to see, to be upon the spot, to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a family so deranged; a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost importance, and till he entered the room, the misery of her impatience was severe. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing, by the servant's account, that their niece was taken suddenly ill;--but satisfying them instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last, with trembling energy.--Though Lydia had never been a favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply affected. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner readily promised every assistance in his power.--Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit, every thing relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to be off as soon as possible. "But what is to be done about Pemberley?" cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us;--was it so?" "Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. _That_ is all settled." "That is all settled;" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth! Oh, that I knew how it was!" But wishes were vain; or at best could serve only to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be written to all their friends in Lambton, with false excuses for their sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr. Gardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn.

chapter 46

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html

Darcy seems to be on the verge of proposing to Elizabeth again when she receives alarming news from Jane. Lydia has eloped with Wickham, which distresses Elizabeth greatly since she knows that Wickham has not married her sister. Jane asks Elizabeth to return home immediately and asks Mr. Gardiner to aid their father with a search for Lydia in London. When Darcy enters, Elizabeth is trembling and in tears. He is genuinely concerned when he hears of the calamity. He holds himself partially responsible for what has happened to Lydia since he has failed to speak out against Wickham. Elizabeth also condemns herself for not warning her family about Wickham. She decides she must return home immediately to give support to the family.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/50.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_40_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 47

chapter 47

{"name": "chapter 47", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html", "summary": "Elizabeth is certain that the mercenary Wickham will not marry the penniless Lydia, a fact which makes matters worse. Elizabeth tells the Gardiners that Lydia knows nothing of Wickhams despicable past and lacks the good sense and strength of character to judge him appropriately on her own. When Elizabeth arrives home, there has been no word from Lydia, and Mr. Bennet, in London, has had no luck finding her. Mrs. Bennet, in hysterics, blames everyone for her suffering. She is still blind to the fact that her over-indulgence with Lydia is the principal cause of her daughters disgrace. To add to the misery at the Bennets, Lady Lucas calls to console them, when in reality she has come to gloat. Lydia writes a letter to Mrs. Forster and says that she and Wickham are going to Gretna Green. Jane and Elizabeth read the letter and share its contents. Mr. Gardiner plans join Mr. Bennet to help in the search for Lydia.", "analysis": ""}

"I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth," said her uncle, as they drove from the town; "and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does of the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely, that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk." "Do you really think so?" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment. "Upon my word," said Mrs. Gardiner, "I begin to be of your uncle's opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of it. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you, yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe him capable of it?" "Not perhaps of neglecting his own interest. But of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland, if that had been the case?" "In the first place," replied Mr. Gardiner, "there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland." "Oh! but their removing from the chaise into an hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road." "Well, then--supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptionable purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London, than in Scotland." "But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh! no, no, this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia, what attractions has she beyond youth, health, and good humour, that could make him for her sake, forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehension of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that _he_ would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in such a matter." "But can you think that Lydia is so lost to every thing but love of him, as to consent to live with him on any other terms than marriage?" "It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed," replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, "that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the ----shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers, have been in her head. She has been doing every thing in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greater--what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman." "But you see that Jane," said her aunt, "does not think so ill of Wickham, as to believe him capable of the attempt." "Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be their former conduct, that she would believe capable of such an attempt, till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every sense of the word. That he has neither integrity nor honour. That he is as false and deceitful, as he is insinuating." "And do you really know all this?" cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive. "I do, indeed," replied Elizabeth, colouring. "I told you the other day, of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you, yourself, when last at Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man, who had behaved with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other circumstances which I am not at liberty--which it is not worth while to relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From what he said of Miss Darcy, I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found her." "But does Lydia know nothing of this? Can she be ignorant of what you and Jane seem so well to understand?" "Oh, yes!--that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation, Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the ----shire was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the neighbourhood had of him, should then be overthrown? And even when it was settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That _she_ could be in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a consequence as _this_ should ensue, you may easily believe was far enough from my thoughts." "When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I suppose, to believe them fond of each other." "Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either side; and had any thing of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware that ours is not a family, on which it could be thrown away. When first he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all were. Every girl in, or near Meryton, was out of her senses about him for the first two months; but he never distinguished _her_ by any particular attention, and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites." * * * * * It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. They travelled as expeditiously as possible; and sleeping one night on the road, reached Longbourn by dinner-time the next day. It was a comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied by long expectations. The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house, as they entered the paddock; and when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome. Elizabeth jumped out; and, after giving each of them an hasty kiss, hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down stairs from her mother's apartment, immediately met her. Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether any thing had been heard of the fugitives. "Not yet," replied Jane. "But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope every thing will be well." "Is my father in town?" "Yes, he went on Tuesday as I wrote you word." "And have you heard from him often?" "We have heard only once. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday, to say that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I particularly begged him to do. He merely added, that he should not write again, till he had something of importance to mention." "And my mother--How is she? How are you all?" "My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly shaken. She is up stairs, and will have great satisfaction in seeing you all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank Heaven! are quite well." "But you--How are you?" cried Elizabeth. "You look pale. How much you must have gone through!" Her sister, however, assured her, of her being perfectly well; and their conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were engaged with their children, was now put an end to, by the approach of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears. When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth had already asked, were of course repeated by the others, and they soon found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested, had not yet deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, to explain their proceedings, and perhaps announce the marriage. Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villanous conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill usage; blaming every body but the person to whose ill judging indulgence the errors of her daughter must be principally owing. "If I had been able," said she, "to carry my point of going to Brighton, with all my family, _this_ would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing, if she had been well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the charge of her; but I was over-ruled, as I always am. Poor dear child! And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, wherever he meets him, and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out, before he is cold in his grave; and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we shall do." They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia. "Do not give way to useless alarm," added he, "though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more, we may gain some news of them, and till we know that they are not married, and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as lost. As soon as I get to town, I shall go to my brother, and make him come home with me to Gracechurch Street, and then we may consult together as to what is to be done." "Oh! my dear brother," replied Mrs. Bennet, "that is exactly what I could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, _make_ them marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chuses, to buy them, after they are married. And, above all things, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am in,--that I am frightened out of my wits; and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me, such spasms in my side, and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia, not to give any directions about her clothes, till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I know you will contrive it all." But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well in her hopes as her fears; and, after talking with her in this manner till dinner was on table, they left her to vent all her feelings on the housekeeper, who attended, in the absence of her daughters. Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it better that _one_ only of the household, and the one whom they could most trust, should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the subject. In the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been too busily engaged in their separate apartments, to make their appearance before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in the business, had given something more of fretfulness than usual, to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth with a countenance of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table, "This is a most unfortunate affair; and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other, the balm of sisterly consolation." Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, "Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable--that one false step involves her in endless ruin--that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful,--and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex." Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for half an hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making many enquiries, which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible; the former continued the subject, by saying, "But tell me all and every thing about it, which I have not already heard. Give me farther particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of any thing before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever." "Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him. His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He _was_ coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey." "And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?" "Yes; but when questioned by _him_ Denny denied knowing any thing of their plan, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying--and from _that_, I am inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before." "And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?" "How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains! I felt a little uneasy--a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that, they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter, she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other, many weeks." "But not before they went to Brighton?" "No, I believe not." "And did Colonel Forster appear to think ill of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?" "I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad affair has taken place, it is said, that he left Meryton greatly in debt; but I hope this may be false." "Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!" "Perhaps it would have been better;" replied her sister. "But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions." "Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife?" "He brought it with him for us to see." Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents: "MY DEAR HARRIET, "You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt, for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown, before they are packed up. Good bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster, I hope you will drink to our good journey. "Your affectionate friend, "LYDIA BENNET." "Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. "What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment. But at least it shews, that _she_ was serious in the object of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!" "I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!" "Oh! Jane," cried Elizabeth, "was there a servant belonging to it, who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?" "I do not know.--I hope there was.--But to be guarded at such a time, is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen, almost took from me my faculties." "Your attendance upon her, has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh! that I had been with you, you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone." "Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure, but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate, and Mary studies so much, that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Philips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all, and lady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters, if they could be of use to us." "She had better have stayed at home," cried Elizabeth; "perhaps she _meant_ well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied." She then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. "He meant, I believe," replied Jane, "to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions, and try if any thing could be made out from them. His principal object must be, to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London; and as he thought the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another, might be remarked, he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could any how discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed: but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this."

chapter 47

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html

Elizabeth is certain that the mercenary Wickham will not marry the penniless Lydia, a fact which makes matters worse. Elizabeth tells the Gardiners that Lydia knows nothing of Wickhams despicable past and lacks the good sense and strength of character to judge him appropriately on her own. When Elizabeth arrives home, there has been no word from Lydia, and Mr. Bennet, in London, has had no luck finding her. Mrs. Bennet, in hysterics, blames everyone for her suffering. She is still blind to the fact that her over-indulgence with Lydia is the principal cause of her daughters disgrace. To add to the misery at the Bennets, Lady Lucas calls to console them, when in reality she has come to gloat. Lydia writes a letter to Mrs. Forster and says that she and Wickham are going to Gretna Green. Jane and Elizabeth read the letter and share its contents. Mr. Gardiner plans join Mr. Bennet to help in the search for Lydia.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/51.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_41_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 48

chapter 48

{"name": "chapter 48", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html", "summary": "Mr. Collins sends a letter of condolence, but is brimming with painful references to Lydias disposition and her faulty upbringing. Messages in a similar vein from Lady Catherine are also included. Another letter from Colonel Forster is sent to Mr. Gardiner, informing him that Wickham has left sizeable gambling and other debts behind him in Brighton. Persuaded by Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Bennet finally returns to Longbourn. He appears unruffled as ever but tells Elizabeth that he is to blame for being lenient with Lydia. He resolves, in his ironic manner, to be more strict with Kitty.", "analysis": ""}

The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent, but at such a time, they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude, that he had no pleasing intelligence to send, but even of _that_ they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off. When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel. Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them, in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up, though as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them. All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man, who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family. Every body declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; and every body began to find out, that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of her sister's ruin still more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come, when if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of them. Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday, his wife received a letter from him; it told them, that on his arrival, he had immediately found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch street. That Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added, that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present, to leave London, and promised to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect. "I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections, who would be likely to know in what part of the town he has now concealed himself. If there were any one, that one could apply to, with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do every thing in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps Lizzy could tell us, what relations he has now living, better than any other person." Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference for her authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information of so satisfactory a nature, as the compliment deserved. She had never heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the ----shire, might be able to give more information; and, though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to. Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the first grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told, would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance. But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as follows: "MY DEAR SIR, "I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear Sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter, will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others, for who, as lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family. And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect with augmented satisfaction on a certain event of last November, for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me advise you then, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence. "I am, dear Sir, &c. &c." Mr. Gardiner did not write again, till he had received an answer from Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send. It was not known that Wickham had a single relation, with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one living. His former acquaintance had been numerous; but since he had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one therefore who could be pointed out, as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations, for it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him, to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expences at Brighton. He owed a good deal in the town, but his debts of honour were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family; Jane heard them with horror. "A gamester!" she cried. "This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it." Mr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's intreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do, whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before. "What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia!" she cried. "Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?" As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and her children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend, that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return, that could come from Pemberley. The present unhappy state of the family, rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware, that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two. When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it. It was not till the afternoon, when he joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, "Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it." "You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth. "You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough." "Do you suppose them to be in London?" "Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?" "And Lydia used to want to go to London," added Kitty. "She is happy, then," said her father, drily; "and her residence there will probably be of some duration." Then, after a short silence, he continued, "Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shews some greatness of mind." They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's tea. "This is a parade," cried he, "which does one good; it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my library, in my night cap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as I can,--or, perhaps, I may defer it, till Kitty runs away." "I am not going to run away, Papa," said Kitty, fretfully; "if _I_ should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia." "_You_ go to Brighton!--I would not trust you so near it as East Bourne for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors, till you can prove, that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner." Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry. "Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them."

chapter 48

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html

Mr. Collins sends a letter of condolence, but is brimming with painful references to Lydias disposition and her faulty upbringing. Messages in a similar vein from Lady Catherine are also included. Another letter from Colonel Forster is sent to Mr. Gardiner, informing him that Wickham has left sizeable gambling and other debts behind him in Brighton. Persuaded by Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Bennet finally returns to Longbourn. He appears unruffled as ever but tells Elizabeth that he is to blame for being lenient with Lydia. He resolves, in his ironic manner, to be more strict with Kitty.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/52.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_42_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 49

chapter 49

{"name": "chapter 49", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html", "summary": "Lydia and Wickham are found and, as expected, they are not married. Wickham, however, has agreed to marry her on the stipulation that his debts are cleared and he is given a stipend of one hundred pounds a year. Mr. Bennet agrees to the offer, but suspects that a much greater amount must have been passed on by Mr. Gardiner to maneuver Wickham to yield. Mrs. Bennet, upon hearing that Lydia is to be married, forgets the disgraceful state of affairs under which the marriage is coming to a pass. She enthusiastically proceeds to make arrangements for a wedding and to convey the glad tidings in the neighborhood.", "analysis": ""}

Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper coming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their mother, went forward to meet her; but, instead of the expected summons, when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, "I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask." "What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town." "Dear madam," cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, "don't you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this half hour, and master has had a letter." Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast room; from thence to the library;--their father was in neither; and they were on the point of seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said, "If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the little copse." Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. Jane, who was not so light, nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out, "Oh, Papa, what news? what news? have you heard from my uncle?" "Yes, I have had a letter from him by express." "Well, and what news does it bring? good or bad?" "What is there of good to be expected?" said he, taking the letter from his pocket; "but perhaps you would like to read it." Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up. "Read it aloud," said their father, "for I hardly know myself what it is about." "Gracechurch-street, Monday, August 2. "MY DEAR BROTHER, "At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars, I reserve till we meet. It is enough to know they are discovered, I have seen them both----" "Then it is, as I always hoped," cried Jane; "they are married!" Elizabeth read on; "I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds, secured among your children after the decease of yourself and my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions, which, considering every thing, I had no hesitation in complying with, as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be. The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say, there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name, throughout the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore, stay quietly at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as soon as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best, that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as any thing more is determined on. Your's, &c. "EDW. GARDINER." "Is it possible!" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. "Can it be possible that he will marry her?" "Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we have thought him;" said her sister. "My dear father, I congratulate you." "And have you answered the letter?" said Elizabeth. "No; but it must be done soon." Most earnestly did she then intreat him to lose no more time before he wrote. "Oh! my dear father," she cried, "come back, and write immediately. Consider how important every moment is, in such a case." "Let me write for you," said Jane, "if you dislike the trouble yourself." "I dislike it very much," he replied; "but it must be done." And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house. "And may I ask?" said Elizabeth, "but the terms, I suppose, must be complied with." "Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little." "And they _must_ marry! Yet he is _such_ a man!" "Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know:--one is, how much money your uncle has laid down, to bring it about; and the other, how I am ever to pay him." "Money! my uncle!" cried Jane, "what do you mean, Sir?" "I mean, that no man in his senses, would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a-year during my life, and fifty after I am gone." "That is very true," said Elizabeth; "though it had not occurred to me before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh! it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this." "No," said her father, "Wickham's a fool, if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship." "Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be repaid?" Mr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued silent till they reached the house. Their father then went to the library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room. "And they are really to be married!" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. "How strange this is! And for _this_ we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice! Oh, Lydia!" "I comfort myself with thinking," replied Jane, "that he certainly would not marry Lydia, if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten thousand pounds, or any thing like it, has been advanced. He has children of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand pounds?" "If we are ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been," said Elizabeth, "and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage, as years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she first sees my aunt!" "We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side," said Jane: "I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten." "Their conduct has been such," replied Elizabeth, "as neither you, nor I, nor any body, can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it." It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, therefore, and asked their father, whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writing, and, without raising his head, coolly replied, "Just as you please." "May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?" "Take whatever you like, and get away." Elizabeth took the letter from his writing table, and they went up stairs together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgetty from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. "My dear, dear Lydia!" she cried: "This is delightful indeed!--She will be married!--I shall see her again!--She will be married at sixteen!--My good, kind brother!--I knew how it would be--I knew he would manage every thing. How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia!--How merry we shall be together when we meet!" Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under. "For we must attribute this happy conclusion," she added, "in a great measure, to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money." "Well," cried her mother, "it is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money you know, and it is the first time we have ever had any thing from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy. In a short time, I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds. And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately." She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait, till her father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay she observed, would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy, to be quite so obstinate as usual. Other schemes too came into her head. "I will go to Meryton," said she, "as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do any thing for you in Meryton? Oh! here comes Hill. My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall all have a bowl of punch, to make merry at her wedding." Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity, could be justly expected for her sister; in looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had gained.

chapter 49

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide22.html

Lydia and Wickham are found and, as expected, they are not married. Wickham, however, has agreed to marry her on the stipulation that his debts are cleared and he is given a stipend of one hundred pounds a year. Mr. Bennet agrees to the offer, but suspects that a much greater amount must have been passed on by Mr. Gardiner to maneuver Wickham to yield. Mrs. Bennet, upon hearing that Lydia is to be married, forgets the disgraceful state of affairs under which the marriage is coming to a pass. She enthusiastically proceeds to make arrangements for a wedding and to convey the glad tidings in the neighborhood.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/53.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_43_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 50

chapter 50

{"name": "chapter 50", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide23.html", "summary": "Mr. Bennet is ashamed that Mr. Gardiner has paid a sum to money to Wickham to accomplish the marriage; he plans to find out the amount and repay his brother-in-law as soon as possible. He even writes a letter to Gardiner to state his plans. He is also disappointed in Lydias behavior and has resolved not to admit them at Longbourn. In contrast, Mrs. Bennet has no remorse. Once she hears about the marriage, she ends her voluntary exile in her room and takes her seat at the head of the table. She is in high spirits, allowing no shame to dampen her victory. She is ecstatic about her plans for the married couple but her husband has resolved not to admit them at Longbourn. Elizabeth regrets that she has confided in Darcy, for it embarrasses her that he now knows of her familys disgrace. She finally acknowledges her love for Darcy, but she feels the chances of marrying him are now lost forever. She is saddened over the situation, for she thinks that Darcy is just the man to make her a suitable husband; she believes their marriage would be the ideal union, but unfortunately Lydias disgraceful union has marred her chances forever. Mr. Gardiner writes that Wickham intends to quit the militia and enter into a regiment stationed in the north; Lydia wishes to see her family before they depart. Mr. Bennet initially refuses Lydias request, but Jane and Elizabeth convince him to receive her and Wickham. It is arranged that after they are married, the couple will proceed to Longbourn.", "analysis": ""}

Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle, for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband, might then have rested in its proper place. He was seriously concerned, that a cause of so little advantage to any one, should be forwarded at the sole expence of his brother-in-law, and he was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could. When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son. This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income. Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter, depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with regard to Lydia at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself, as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a-year the loser, by the hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money, which passed to her, through her mother's hands, Lydia's expences had been very little within that sum. That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise; for his chief wish at present, was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon dispatched; for though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution. He begged to know farther particulars of what he was indebted to his brother; but was too angry with Lydia, to send any message to her. The good news quickly spread through the house; and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure it would have been more for the advantage of conversation, had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farm house. But there was much to be talked of, in marrying her; and the good-natured wishes for her well-doing, which had proceeded before, from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton, lost but little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband, her misery was considered certain. It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been down stairs, but on this happy day, she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes, since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a proper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance. "Haye-Park might do," said she, "if the Gouldings would quit it, or the great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful." Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption, while the servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her, "Mrs. Bennet, before you take any, or all of these houses, for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this neighbourhood, they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn." A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm: it soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever, on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment, as to refuse his daughter a privilege, without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all that she could believe possible. She was more alive to the disgrace, which the want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham, a fortnight before they took place. Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning, from all those who were not immediately on the spot. She had no fear of its spreading farther, through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; but at the same time, there was no one, whose knowledge of a sister's frailty would have mortified her so much. Not, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it, individually to herself; for at any rate, there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family, where to every other objection would now be added, an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned. From such a connection she could not wonder that he should shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him; when it was no longer likely they should meet. What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now have been gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex. But while he was mortal, there must be a triumph. She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance. But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family. How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture. * * * * * Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurances of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with intreaties that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal purport of his letter was to inform them, that Mr. Wickham had resolved on quitting the Militia. "It was greatly my wish that he should do so," he added, "as soon as his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in considering a removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into the regulars; and, among his former friends, there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an ensigncy in General ----'s regiment, now quartered in the North. It is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He promises fairly, and I hope among different people, where they may each have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham in and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list, according to his information. He has given in all his debts; I hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs. Gardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all, before she leaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and her mother.--Your's, &c. "E. GARDINER." Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal from the ----shire, as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet, was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the North, just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and besides, it was such a pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted with every body, and had so many favourites. "She is so fond of Mrs. Forster," said she, "it will be quite shocking to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General ----'s regiment." His daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being admitted into her family again, before she set off for the North, received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, urged him so earnestly, yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their mother had the satisfaction of knowing, that she should be able to shew her married daughter in the neighbourhood, before she was banished to the North. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent his permission for them to come; and it was settled, that as soon as the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and, had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would have been the last object of her wishes.

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Mr. Bennet is ashamed that Mr. Gardiner has paid a sum to money to Wickham to accomplish the marriage; he plans to find out the amount and repay his brother-in-law as soon as possible. He even writes a letter to Gardiner to state his plans. He is also disappointed in Lydias behavior and has resolved not to admit them at Longbourn. In contrast, Mrs. Bennet has no remorse. Once she hears about the marriage, she ends her voluntary exile in her room and takes her seat at the head of the table. She is in high spirits, allowing no shame to dampen her victory. She is ecstatic about her plans for the married couple but her husband has resolved not to admit them at Longbourn. Elizabeth regrets that she has confided in Darcy, for it embarrasses her that he now knows of her familys disgrace. She finally acknowledges her love for Darcy, but she feels the chances of marrying him are now lost forever. She is saddened over the situation, for she thinks that Darcy is just the man to make her a suitable husband; she believes their marriage would be the ideal union, but unfortunately Lydias disgraceful union has marred her chances forever. Mr. Gardiner writes that Wickham intends to quit the militia and enter into a regiment stationed in the north; Lydia wishes to see her family before they depart. Mr. Bennet initially refuses Lydias request, but Jane and Elizabeth convince him to receive her and Wickham. It is arranged that after they are married, the couple will proceed to Longbourn.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/54.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_44_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 51

chapter 51

{"name": "chapter 51", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide23.html", "summary": "Mr. and Mrs. Wickham arrive at Longbourn. Mrs. Bennet welcomes them warmly, but Mr. Bennet is provoked by the couples easy manner and shameless impudence. Elizabeth is indignant over their behavior, and even the gentle Jane is mortified by their indifferent attitude. Lydia chatters unabashedly about Wickham and seems to be totally in love with him, in spite of the shabby treatment that he has given her. In contrast, Wickham does not seem to be much in love with Lydia. While talking to Elizabeth, Lydia says that Darcy was present at the wedding. Elizabeth is thoroughly intrigued at his presence there and writes to her aunt to find out why.", "analysis": ""}

Their sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to meet them at ----, and they were to return in it, by dinner-time. Their arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets; and Jane more especially, who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had _she_ been the culprit, was wretched in the thought of what her sister must endure. They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room, to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage drove up to the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy. Lydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand with an affectionate smile to Wickham, who followed his lady, and wished them both joy, with an alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness. Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations, and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there. Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down, resolving within herself, to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man. _She_ blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the two who caused their confusion, suffered no variation of colour. There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began enquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good humoured ease, which she felt very unable to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects, which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world. "Only think of its being three months," she cried, "since I went away; it seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was." Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw any thing of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh! mamma, do the people here abouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like any thing." Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining-parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, "Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman." It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment, from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Philips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called "Mrs. Wickham," by each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to shew her ring and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. "Well, mamma," said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast room, "and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go." "Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?" "Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all." "I should like it beyond any thing!" said her mother. "And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over." "I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands." Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet, regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time, by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth, "Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?" "No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat. "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure London was rather thin, but however the little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he _had_ been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." "Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. "Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!" "If it was to be secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further." "Oh! certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will ask you no questions." "Thank you," said Lydia, "for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be angry." On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away. But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended. "You may readily comprehend," she added, "what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it--unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance." "Not that I _shall_ though," she added to herself, as she finished the letter; "and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out." Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad of it;--till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante.

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Mr. and Mrs. Wickham arrive at Longbourn. Mrs. Bennet welcomes them warmly, but Mr. Bennet is provoked by the couples easy manner and shameless impudence. Elizabeth is indignant over their behavior, and even the gentle Jane is mortified by their indifferent attitude. Lydia chatters unabashedly about Wickham and seems to be totally in love with him, in spite of the shabby treatment that he has given her. In contrast, Wickham does not seem to be much in love with Lydia. While talking to Elizabeth, Lydia says that Darcy was present at the wedding. Elizabeth is thoroughly intrigued at his presence there and writes to her aunt to find out why.

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finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_45_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 52

chapter 52

{"name": "chapter 52", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide23.html", "summary": "When she responds to Elizabeths letter, Mrs. Gardiner is surprised that Elizabeth does not know the truth about the Wickham marriage. She informs Elizabeth that Darcy had found Lydia and bribed Wickham to marry her. Darcy then made Mr. Gardiner promise that he would conceal this information and take the credit for having paid Wickham. Elizabeth is overwhelmed by Darcys kindness and finds it hard to believe that he has done all this. She assumes that his involvement has sprung from his sense of responsibility for Wickham. Wickham confronts Elizabeth and tries to find out if she knows the truth about his relationship with Darcy. Elizabeth is evasive and cynical in her vague response and succeeds in getting rid of him quickly.", "analysis": ""}

Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter, as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it, than hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches, and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial. "Gracechurch-street, Sept. 6. "MY DEAR NIECE, "I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application; I did not expect it from _you_. Don't think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know, that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised as I am--and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned, would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as _your's_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both, Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed, was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known, as to make it impossible for any young woman of character, to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him, to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil, which had been brought on by himself. If he _had another_ motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than _we_ had; and the consciousness of this, was another reason for his resolving to follow us. There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him, as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham indeed had gone to her, on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wished-for direction. They were in ---- street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends, she wanted no help of his, she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt, had never been _his_ design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment, on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia's flight, on her own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have nothing to live on. Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage, in some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of course wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be reasonable. Every thing being settled between _them_, Mr. Darcy's next step was to make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch-street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be seen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further enquiry, that your father was still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him, till after the departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next day, it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home, and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together. They met again on Sunday, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character after all. He has been accused of many faults at different times; but _this_ is the true one. Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it,) your uncle would most readily have settled the whole. They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane at most. You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon _her_, and his commission purchased. The reason why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It was owing to him, to his reserve, and want of proper consideration, that Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth in _this_; though I doubt whether _his_ reserve, or _anybody's_ reserve, can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking, my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured, that your uncle would never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for _another interest_ in the affair. When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were then to receive the last finish. I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us; and Wickham had constant admission to the house. _He_ was exactly what he had been, when I knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was satisfied with _her_ behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell you, can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most serious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was sometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her. Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you, attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and _that_, if he marry _prudently_, his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly;--he hardly ever mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion. Pray forgive me, if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far, as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little pair of ponies, would be the very thing. But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half hour. Your's, very sincerely, "M. GARDINER." The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match, which she had feared to encourage, as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper, that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her, for a woman who had already refused him, as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had to be sure done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she could, perhaps, believe, that remaining partiality for her, might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing to him. Oh! how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself. She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one's approach; and before she could strike into another path, she was overtaken by Wickham. "I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?" said he, as he joined her. "You certainly do," she replied with a smile; "but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome." "I should be sorry indeed, if it were. _We_ were always good friends; and now we are better." "True. Are the others coming out?" "I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find from our uncle and aunt, that you have actually seen Pemberley." She replied in the affirmative. "I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of me. But of course she did not mention my name to you." "Yes, she did." "And what did she say?" "That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had--not turned out well. At such a distance as _that_, you know, things are strangely misrepresented." "Certainly," he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had silenced him; but he soon afterwards said, "I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other several times. I wonder what he can be doing there." "Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh," said Elizabeth. "It must be something particular, to take him there at this time of year." "Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had." "Yes; he introduced us to his sister." "And do you like her?" "Very much." "I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well." "I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age." "Did you go by the village of Kympton?" "I do not recollect that we did." "I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A most delightful place!--Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited me in every respect." "How should you have liked making sermons?" "Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repine;--but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the retirement of such a life, would have answered all my ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance, when you were in Kent?" "I _have_ heard from authority, which I thought _as good_, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron." "You have. Yes, there was something in _that_; I told you so from the first, you may remember." "I _did_ hear, too, that there was a time, when sermon-making was not so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business had been compromised accordingly." "You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it." They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him; and unwilling for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile, "Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind." She held out her hand; he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house.

chapter 52

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide23.html

When she responds to Elizabeths letter, Mrs. Gardiner is surprised that Elizabeth does not know the truth about the Wickham marriage. She informs Elizabeth that Darcy had found Lydia and bribed Wickham to marry her. Darcy then made Mr. Gardiner promise that he would conceal this information and take the credit for having paid Wickham. Elizabeth is overwhelmed by Darcys kindness and finds it hard to believe that he has done all this. She assumes that his involvement has sprung from his sense of responsibility for Wickham. Wickham confronts Elizabeth and tries to find out if she knows the truth about his relationship with Darcy. Elizabeth is evasive and cynical in her vague response and succeeds in getting rid of him quickly.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/56.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_46_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 53

chapter 53

{"name": "chapter 53", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide24.html", "summary": "Mrs. Bennet is crestfallen after the departure of Lydia, her favorite daughter. The only thing that excites her is Mr. Bingleys arrival with Darcy at Netherfield. Elizabeth fears that her mothers incorrigible behavior will surface again to embarrass her further. During the first visit, Mrs. Bennet, as always, talks foolishly, humiliating Elizabeth. She also gushes over Mr. Bingley, while being cold and ceremoniously polite to Darcy. Elizabeth is particularly pained by her mothers icy treatment of Darcy, who has been Lydias savior. Darcys behavior, which is solemn and reserved, aggravates Elizabeths misery further. The only positive thing in the visit is Bingleys marked attention towards Jane, whom he finds as pretty as ever, though not so communicative.", "analysis": ""}

Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation, that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet. The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth. "Oh! my dear Lydia," she cried, "when shall we meet again?" "Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years perhaps." "Write to me very often, my dear." "As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to _me_. They will have nothing else to do." Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things. "He is as fine a fellow," said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, "as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself, to produce a more valuable son-in-law." The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days. "I often think," said she, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them." "This is the consequence you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter," said Elizabeth. "It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single." "It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married; but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon." But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into, was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news, which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled, and shook her head by turns. "Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister," (for Mrs. Philips first brought her the news.) "Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure _I_ never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what _may_ happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?" "You may depend on it," replied the other, "for Mrs. Nicholls was in Meryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks, just fit to be killed." Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming, without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said, "I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I _should_ be looked at. I do assure you, that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of _myself_, but I dread other people's remarks." Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there, with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there _with_ his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come without it. "Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot come to a house, which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I _will_ leave him to himself." In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings, in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them. The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again. "As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "you will wait on him of course." "No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again." His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield. "'Tis an etiquette I despise," said he. "If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend _my_ hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away, and come back again." "Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him." Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley in consequence of it, before _they_ did. As the day of his arrival drew near, "I begin to be sorry that he comes at all," said Jane to her sister. "It would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; but she does not know, no one can know how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!" "I wish I could say any thing to comfort you," replied Elizabeth; "but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much." Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side, might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him from her dressing-room window, enter the paddock, and ride towards the house. Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window--she looked,--she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. "There is a gentleman with him, mamma," said Kitty; "who can it be?" "Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not know." "La!" replied Kitty, "it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr. what's his name. That tall, proud man." "Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!--and so it does I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him." Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person, to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming--at his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire. The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time, that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure. "Let me first see how he behaves," said she; "it will then be early enough for expectation." She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister, as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment, or any unnecessary complaisance. Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious as usual; and she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but not an improbable, conjecture. Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility, which made her two daughters ashamed, especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her curtsey and address to his friend. Elizabeth particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied. Darcy, after enquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely any thing. He was not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed, without bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at Jane, as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More thoughtfulness, and less anxiety to please than when they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so. "Could I expect it to be otherwise!" said she. "Yet why did he come?" She was in no humour for conversation with any one but himself; and to him she had hardly courage to speak. She enquired after his sister, but could do no more. "It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away," said Mrs. Bennet. He readily agreed to it. "I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People _did_ say, you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood, since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in the Times and the Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or any thing. It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?" Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not tell. "It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married," continued her mother, "but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay, I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the ----shire, and of his being gone into the regulars. Thank Heaven! he has _some_ friends, though perhaps not so many as he deserves." Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before; and she asked Bingley, whether he meant to make any stay in the country at present. A few weeks, he believed. "When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley," said her mother, "I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please, on Mr. Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you." Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present, as had flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant she felt, that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends, for moments of such painful confusion. "The first wish of my heart," said she to herself, "is never more to be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure, that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the other again!" Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good natured, and as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent. When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn in a few days time. "You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley," she added, "for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement." Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his concern, at having been prevented by business. They then went away. Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there, that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think any thing less than two courses, could be good enough for a man, on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a-year.

chapter 53

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide24.html

Mrs. Bennet is crestfallen after the departure of Lydia, her favorite daughter. The only thing that excites her is Mr. Bingleys arrival with Darcy at Netherfield. Elizabeth fears that her mothers incorrigible behavior will surface again to embarrass her further. During the first visit, Mrs. Bennet, as always, talks foolishly, humiliating Elizabeth. She also gushes over Mr. Bingley, while being cold and ceremoniously polite to Darcy. Elizabeth is particularly pained by her mothers icy treatment of Darcy, who has been Lydias savior. Darcys behavior, which is solemn and reserved, aggravates Elizabeths misery further. The only positive thing in the visit is Bingleys marked attention towards Jane, whom he finds as pretty as ever, though not so communicative.

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all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/59.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_47_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 56

chapter 56

{"name": "chapter 56", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide24.html", "summary": "Lady Catherine comes charging in at Longbourn \"with an air more than usually ungracious\". As always, she is cold and haughty; she treats the Bennet family with open contempt, declining all offers of refreshment and remarking about the small size of their property. Lady Catherine asks Elizabeth to walk on the lawn with her. There she tells Elizabeth she has heard a scandalous falsehood that Darcy has become engaged to her. She forces Elizabeth to negate the rumor and wants the assurance that Elizabeth will never consent if Darcy should propose. She declares that her daughter and Darcy have been intended for each other from the cradle. She bitterly derides the lack of class of the Bennets and speaks about Lydias elopement. The self-assured Elizabeth unflinchingly argues that there is no reason why Darcy or she should not make their own choice about marriage. Lady Catherine is incensed and calls Elizabeth a selfish creature who will pollute the shades of Pemberley by her inferior presence.", "analysis": ""}

One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open, and their visitor entered. It was lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation, than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother, on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, "I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady I suppose is your mother." Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. "And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters." "Yes, madam," said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a lady Catherine. "She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all, is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man, who I believe will soon become a part of the family." "You have a very small park here," returned Lady Catherine after a short silence. "It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's." "This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west." Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner; and then added, "May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well." "Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last." Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then rising up, said to Elizabeth, "Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company." "Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and shew her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage." Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest down stairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on. Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman, who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable. "How could I ever think her like her nephew?" said she, as she looked in her face. As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner:-- "You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come." Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment. "Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here." "Miss Bennet," replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, "you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere _you_ may choose to be, you shall not find _me_ so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature, reached me two days ago. I was told, that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that _you_, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I _know_ it must be a scandalous falsehood; though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you." "If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?" "At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted." "Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth, coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence." "If! do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?" "I never heard that it was." "And can you likewise declare, that there is no _foundation_ for it?" "I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. _You_ may ask questions, which _I_ shall not choose to answer." "This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?" "Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible." "It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But _your_ arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in." "If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it." "Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns." "But you are not entitled to know _mine_; nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit." "Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to _my daughter_. Now what have you to say?" "Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me." Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied, "The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of _his_ mother, as well as of her's. While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished, in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?" "Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it, by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss De Bourgh. You both did as much as you could, in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?" "Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us." "These are heavy misfortunes," replied Elizabeth. "But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine." "Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? "Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment." "_That_ will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on _me_." "I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable, honourable, and ancient, though untitled families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere, in which you have been brought up." "In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal." "True. You _are_ a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition." "Whatever my connections may be," said Elizabeth, "if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to _you_." "Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?" Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question; she could not but say, after a moment's deliberation, "I am not." Lady Catherine seemed pleased. "And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?" "I will make no promise of the kind." "Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away, till you have given me the assurance I require." "And I certainly _never_ shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise, make _their_ marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would _my_ refusing to accept his hand, make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application, have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in _his_ affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject." "Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her, was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is _such_ a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is _her_ husband, is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!--of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" "You can _now_ have nothing farther to say," she resentfully answered. "You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house." And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back. Her ladyship was highly incensed. "You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you, must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?" "Lady Catherine, I have nothing farther to say. You know my sentiments." "You are then resolved to have him?" "I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to _you_, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me." "It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world." "Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either, would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former _were_ excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern--and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn." "And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but depend upon it I will carry my point." In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of the carriage, when turning hastily round, she added, "I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased." Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself. "She did not choose it," said her daughter, "she would go." "She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?" Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible.

chapter 56

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Lady Catherine comes charging in at Longbourn "with an air more than usually ungracious". As always, she is cold and haughty; she treats the Bennet family with open contempt, declining all offers of refreshment and remarking about the small size of their property. Lady Catherine asks Elizabeth to walk on the lawn with her. There she tells Elizabeth she has heard a scandalous falsehood that Darcy has become engaged to her. She forces Elizabeth to negate the rumor and wants the assurance that Elizabeth will never consent if Darcy should propose. She declares that her daughter and Darcy have been intended for each other from the cradle. She bitterly derides the lack of class of the Bennets and speaks about Lydias elopement. The self-assured Elizabeth unflinchingly argues that there is no reason why Darcy or she should not make their own choice about marriage. Lady Catherine is incensed and calls Elizabeth a selfish creature who will pollute the shades of Pemberley by her inferior presence.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/60.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_48_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 57

chapter 57

{"name": "chapter 57", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide24.html", "summary": "A letter arrives from Mr. Collins congratulating Mr. Bennet on Janes betrothal and also hinting at the rumors which are floating in and out of Hertfordshire that Darcy and Elizabeth are soon to be engaged. Mr. Collins also conveys that Lady Catherine views the Darcy-Elizabeth match with an unfriendly eye. Mr. Bennet reads the letter to Elizabeth and voices his thorough amusement, for he believes that Darcy has no interest in his daughter. Elizabeth pretends to be equally surprised at the rumors.", "analysis": ""}

The discomposure of spirits, which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she for many hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings, for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. It was a rational scheme to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that _his_ being the intimate friend of Bingley, and _her_ being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding, made every body eager for another, to supply the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours at Lucas lodge, therefore, (for through their communication with the Collinses, the report she concluded had reached lady Catherine) had only set _that_ down, as almost certain and immediate, which _she_ had looked forward to as possible, at some future time. In revolving lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate an application to her nephew; and how _he_ might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her ladyship than _she_ could do; and it was certain, that in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with _one_, whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. If he had been wavering before, as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and intreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy, as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way. "If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise, should come to his friend within a few days," she added, "I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all." * * * * * The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same kind of supposition, which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and Elizabeth was spared from much teazing on the subject. The next morning, as she was going down stairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand. "Lizzy," said he, "I was going to look for you; come into my room." She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her, was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it might be from lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations. She followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He then said, "I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its contents. I did not know before, that I had _two_ daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you, on a very important conquest." The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself; when her father continued, "You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even _your_ sagacity, to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins." "From Mr. Collins! and what can _he_ have to say?" "Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which it seems he has been told, by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows. "Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another: of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate, may be reasonably looked up to, as one of the most illustrious personages in this land." "Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this?" "This young gentleman is blessed in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire,--splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur, by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of." "Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out." "My motive for cautioning you, is as follows. We have reason to imagine that his aunt, lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye." "_Mr. Darcy_, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I _have_ surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at _you_ in his life! It is admirable!" Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her. "Are you not diverted?" "Oh! yes. Pray read on." "After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned." "Mr. Collins moreover adds," "I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place, should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing." "_That_ is his notion of christian forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _Missish_, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" "Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!" "Yes--_that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_ pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?" To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of his seeing too _little_, she might have fancied too _much_.

chapter 57

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide24.html

A letter arrives from Mr. Collins congratulating Mr. Bennet on Janes betrothal and also hinting at the rumors which are floating in and out of Hertfordshire that Darcy and Elizabeth are soon to be engaged. Mr. Collins also conveys that Lady Catherine views the Darcy-Elizabeth match with an unfriendly eye. Mr. Bennet reads the letter to Elizabeth and voices his thorough amusement, for he believes that Darcy has no interest in his daughter. Elizabeth pretends to be equally surprised at the rumors.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/61.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_49_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 58

chapter 58

{"name": "chapter 58", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide25.html", "summary": "Darcy returns from London and visits Longbourn. When Elizabeth thanks him for his kind intervention in Lydia's affair, Darcy blushes because he had not expected that Mrs. Gardiner would tell Elizabeth about his part in the marriage. Darcy then proposes to Elizabeth again. This time Elizabeth happily accepts his proposal. As they talk over their past relationship, many misunderstandings are cleared. Darcy humbly informs Elizabeth that he has apologized to Bingley for his former rash advice about Jane and assured his friend that Jane truly loves him.", "analysis": ""}

Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking, Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy, were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same. They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them, she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said, "Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding your's. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express." "I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted." "You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them." "If you _will_ thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your _family_ owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of _you_." Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. _My_ affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable. They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought; and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who _did_ call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter, which, in her ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew, which _she_ had refused to give. But, unluckily for her ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise. "It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that, had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly." Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of my _frankness_ to believe me capable of _that_. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations." "What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time, had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence." "We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening," said Elizabeth. "The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility." "I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;--though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice." "I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way." "I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way, that would induce you to accept me." "Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you, that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it." Darcy mentioned his letter. "Did it," said he, "did it _soon_ make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?" She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed. "I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me." "The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies." "When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy, "I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit." "The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it, ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." "I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. _Your_ retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them, is not of philosophy, but what is much better, of ignorance. But with _me_, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was _right_, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son, (for many years an only _child_) I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves, (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to _wish_ at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." "Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?" "Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses." "My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after _that_ evening?" "Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction." "I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me; when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?" "No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise." "Your surprise could not be greater than _mine_ in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive _more_ than my due." "My object _then_," replied Darcy, "was to shew you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you." He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister, had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there, had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend. She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each, to be dwelt on farther. After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know any thing about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home. "What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!" was a wonder which introduced the discussion of _their_ affairs. Darcy was delighted with their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it. "I must ask whether you were surprised?" said Elizabeth. "Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen." "That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much." And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. "On the evening before my going to London," said he "I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs, absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. "Did you speak from your own observation," said she, "when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?" "From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made her here; and I was convinced of her affection." "And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him." "It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine, made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now." Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laught at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted.

chapter 58

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide25.html

Darcy returns from London and visits Longbourn. When Elizabeth thanks him for his kind intervention in Lydia's affair, Darcy blushes because he had not expected that Mrs. Gardiner would tell Elizabeth about his part in the marriage. Darcy then proposes to Elizabeth again. This time Elizabeth happily accepts his proposal. As they talk over their past relationship, many misunderstandings are cleared. Darcy humbly informs Elizabeth that he has apologized to Bingley for his former rash advice about Jane and assured his friend that Jane truly loves him.

thebestnotes

all_chapterized_books/42671-chapters/62.txt

finished_summaries/thebestnotes/Pride and Prejudice/section_50_part_0.txt

Pride and Prejudice.volume 3.chapter 59

chapter 59

{"name": "chapter 59", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide25.html", "summary": "On the same night, Elizabeth confides to Jane about her engagement. Jane is initially shocked because she was under the impression that Elizabeth still disliked Darcy. Elizabeth assures her sister that her feelings have changed, her prejudices have vanished, and she is very much in love with him. Jane is genuinely happy for her sister. The next evening Darcy asks Mr. Bennet's consent to marry Elizabeth. Mr. Bennet grants him the permission grudgingly, for he believes Darcy to be an insolent, proud man. To improve her father's opinion, Elizabeth reveals Darcy's kind intervention in getting Lydia married. On hearing the news of Darcy's basic goodness, Mr. Bennet becomes happy for his favorite child. Mrs. Bennet, on hearing the news, is overjoyed. She quickly forgets that she has hated Darcy in the past; she now shows an admirable awe for her future son-in-law. Mr. Bennet says that he likes all his three sons-in-law; ironically, he says he probably likes Wickham the most.", "analysis": ""}

"My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?" was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered the room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor any thing else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by any thing extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather _knew_ that she was happy, than _felt_ herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known; she was aware that no one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a _dislike_ which not all his fortune and consequence might do away. At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here. "You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!--engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible." "This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged." Jane looked at her doubtingly. "Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him." "You know nothing of the matter. _That_ is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself." Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously assured her of its truth. "Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you," cried Jane. "My dear, dear Lizzy, I would--I do congratulate you--but are you certain? forgive the question--are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?" "There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?" "Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do any thing rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?" "Oh, yes! You will only think I feel _more_ than I ought to do, when I tell you all." "What do you mean?" "Why, I must confess, that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry." "My dearest sister, now _be_ be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?" "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." Another intreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing farther to wish. "Now I am quite happy," said she, "for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know of it, to another, not to you." Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer conceal from her, his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation. * * * * * "Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning, "if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion but he would go a shooting, or something or other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's way." Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet. As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud, "Mr. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?" "I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty," said Mrs. Bennet, "to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view." "It may do very well for the others," replied Mr. Bingley; "but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Wont it, Kitty?" Kitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying, "I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to inconvenience." During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her disapprobation. * * * * * In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy, and that it should be through her means, that _she_, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her, was a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while pretending to admire her work, said in a whisper, "Go to your father, he wants you in the library." She was gone directly. Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. "Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?" How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary, and she assured him with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy. "Or in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy?" "Have you any other objection," said Elizabeth, "than your belief of my indifference?" "None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him." "I do, I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes, "I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms." "Lizzy," said her father, "I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse any thing, which he condescended to ask. I now give it to _you_, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing _you_ unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about." Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match. "Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy." To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment. "This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing; made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and _would_ have paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter." He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading Mr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her at last to go--saying, as she quitted the room, "If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure." Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer any thing material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time. When her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her, and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary; for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes, that she could comprehend what she heard; though not in general backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. "Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane's is nothing to it--nothing at all. I am so pleased--so happy. Such a charming man!--so handsome! so tall!--Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted." This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her. "My dearest child," she cried, "I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! 'Tis as good as a Lord! And a special licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it to-morrow." This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman himself might be; and Elizabeth found, that though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood in such awe of her intended son-in-law, that she ventured not to speak to him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her deference for his opinion. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising every hour in his esteem. "I admire all my three sons-in-law highly," said he. "Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well as Jane's."

chapter 59

https://web.archive.org/web/20190903025227/http:/thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Pride_And_Prejudice_Austen/Pride_And_Prejudice_Study_Guide25.html

On the same night, Elizabeth confides to Jane about her engagement. Jane is initially shocked because she was under the impression that Elizabeth still disliked Darcy. Elizabeth assures her sister that her feelings have changed, her prejudices have vanished, and she is very much in love with him. Jane is genuinely happy for her sister. The next evening Darcy asks Mr. Bennet's consent to marry Elizabeth. Mr. Bennet grants him the permission grudgingly, for he believes Darcy to be an insolent, proud man. To improve her father's opinion, Elizabeth reveals Darcy's kind intervention in getting Lydia married. On hearing the news of Darcy's basic goodness, Mr. Bennet becomes happy for his favorite child. Mrs. Bennet, on hearing the news, is overjoyed. She quickly forgets that she has hated Darcy in the past; she now shows an admirable awe for her future son-in-law. Mr. Bennet says that he likes all his three sons-in-law; ironically, he says he probably likes Wickham the most.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/2.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_2.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter ii

part ii, chapter ii

{"name": "part ii, Chapter II", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"A Description of the Farmer's Daughter. The Author carried to a Market-Town, and then to the Metropolis. The Particulars of his Journey. Gulliver is given into the care of the farmer's daughter, Glumdalclitch, who teaches him the language and treats him very well, like a child would care for a favorite doll. In fact, she keeps him in a doll's cradle, which she closes inside a drawer at night to keep him safe from the rats. As word of Gulliver spreads throughout the kingdom, the farmer begins to realize that there is profit to be made and takes Gulliver to the marketplace, where he performs shows for paying patrons. The show is so successful that the farmer decides to take Gulliver on a tour of the kingdom. Gulliver does ten shows a day, which makes him quite tired", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER II. THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT, ATTENDED BY SEVERAL OF THE NOBILITY, COMES TO SEE THE AUTHOR IN HIS CONFINEMENT. THE EMPEROR'S PERSON AND HABIT DESCRIBED. LEARNED MEN APPOINTED TO TEACH THE AUTHOR THEIR LANGUAGE. HE GAINS FAVOR BY HIS MILD DISPOSITION. HIS POCKETS ARE SEARCHED, AND HIS SWORD AND PISTOLS TAKEN FROM HIM. When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a more entertaining prospect. The country around, appeared like a continued garden, and the enclosed fields, which were generally forty feet square, resembled so many beds of flowers. These fields were intermingled with woods of half a stang,[12] and the tallest trees, as I could judge, appeared to be seven feet high. I viewed the town on my left hand, which looked like the painted scene of a city in a theatre. The emperor was already descended from the tower, and advancing on horseback towards me, which had like to have cost him dear; for the beast, though very well trained, yet wholly unused to such a sight, which appeared as if a mountain moved before him, reared up on his hind feet. But that prince, who is an excellent horseman, kept his seat, till his attendants ran in and held the bridle, while his majesty had time to dismount. When he alighted, he surveyed me round with great admiration, but kept without the length of my chain. He ordered his cooks and butlers, who were already prepared, to give me victuals and drink, which they pushed forward in a sort of vehicles upon wheels, till I could reach them. I took these vehicles, and soon emptied them all; twenty of them were filled with meat; each afforded me two or three good mouthfuls. The empress and young princes of the blood of both sexes, attended by many ladies, sat at some distance in their chairs;[13] but upon the accident that happened to the emperor's horse, they alighted, and came near his person, which I am now going to describe. He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three-quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off. However, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description. [Illustration] His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels, and a plume an the crest.[14] He held his sword drawn in his hand, to defend himself, if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three inches long; the hilt and scabbard were gold, enriched with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it, when I stood up. The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad; so that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread on the ground, embroidered with figures of gold and silver. His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but neither of us could understand a syllable. There were several of his priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured by their habits), who were commanded to address themselves to me; and I spoke to them in as many languages as I had the least smattering of, which were, High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca;[15] but all to no purpose. After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard, to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst; and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring-leaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my hands; which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forwards with the butt-ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them all on my right hand, put five of them into my coat-pocket; and as to the sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them out of fear, for, looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket; and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at court. [Illustration] Towards night, I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time the emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred beds, of the common measure, were brought in carriages and worked up in my house; an hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the breadth and length; and these were four double, which, however, kept me but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, which was of smooth stone. By the same computation, they provided me with sheets, blankets, and coverlets, which were tolerable enough for one who had been so long inured to hardships as I. As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious people to see me; so that the villages were almost emptied; and great neglect of tillage and household affairs must have ensued, if his imperial majesty had not provided, by several proclamations and orders of state, against this inconvenience. He directed that those who had already beheld me should return home, and not presume to come within fifty yards of my house without license from court; whereby the secretaries of state got considerable fees. In the meantime, the emperor held frequent councils, to debate what course should be taken with me; and I was afterwards assured by a particular friend, a person of great quality, who was as much in the secret as any, that the court was under many difficulties concerning me. They apprehended my breaking loose; that my diet would be very expensive, and might cause a famine. Sometimes they determined to starve me, or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon despatch me: but again they considered that the stench of so large a carcase might produce a plague in the metropolis, and probably spread through the whole kingdom. In the midst of these consultations, several officers of the army went to the door of the great council-chamber, and two of them being admitted, gave an account of my behavior to the six criminals above-mentioned, which made so favorable an impression in the breast of his majesty, and the whole board, in my behalf, that an imperial commission was issued out, obliging all the villages nine hundred yards round the city to deliver in, every morning, six beeves, forty sheep, and other victuals, for my sustenance; together with a proportionable quantity of bread and wine, and other liquors; for the due payment of which his majesty gave assignments upon his treasury. For this prince lives chiefly upon his own demesnes, seldom, except upon great occasions, raising any subsidies upon his subjects, who are bound to attend him in his wars at their own expense. An establishment was also made of six hundred persons, to be my domestics, who had board-wages allowed for their maintenance, and tents built for them very conveniently on each side of my door. It was likewise ordered that three hundred tailors should make me a suit of clothes, after the fashion of the country; that six of his majesty's greatest scholars should be employed to instruct me in their language; and lastly, that the emperor's horses, and those of the nobility and troops of guards, should be frequently exercised in my sight, to accustom themselves to me. All these orders were duly put in execution, and in about three weeks I made a great progress in learning their language; during which time the emperor frequently honored me with his visits, and was pleased to assist my masters in teaching me. We began already to converse together in some sort; and the first words I learnt were to express my desire that he would please give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees. His answer, as I could apprehend it, was, that this must be a work of time, not to be thought on without the advice of his council, and that first I must _lumos kelmin pesso desmar lon emposo_; that is, swear a peace with him and his kingdom. However, that I should be used with all kindness; and he advised me to acquire, by my patience and discreet behavior, the good opinion of himself and his subjects. He desired I would not take it ill, if he gave orders to certain proper officers to search me; for probably I might carry about me several weapons which must needs be dangerous things, if they answered the bulk of so prodigious a person. I said his majesty should be satisfied, for I was ready to strip myself and turn up my pockets before him. This I delivered, part in words, and part in signs. He replied, that by the laws of the kingdom, I must be searched by two of his officers; that he knew this could not be done without my consent and assistance; that he had so good an opinion of my generosity and justice, as to trust their persons in my hands; that whatever they took from me should be returned when I left the country, or paid for at the rate which I should set upon them. I took up the two officers in my hands, put them first into my coat-pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, except my two fobs and another secret pocket, which I had no mind should be searched, wherein I had some little necessaries that were of no consequence to any but myself. In one of my fobs there was a silver watch, and in the other a small quantity of gold in a purse. [Illustration: "THESE GENTLEMEN MADE AN EXACT INVENTORY OF EVERYTHING THEY SAW" P. 30.] These gentlemen having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact inventory of everything they saw; and, when they had done, desired I would set them down, that they might deliver it to the emperor. This inventory I afterwards translated into English, and is word for word as follows:-- _Imprimis_,[16] In the right coat-pocket of the great man-mountain (for so I interpret the words _quinbus flestrin_), after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth for your majesty's chief room of state. In the left pocket, we saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we the searchers were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us stepping into it, found himself up to the mid-leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces, set us both a sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a prodigious number of white thin substances folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures; which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left, there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, resembling the palisadoes before your majesty's court; wherewith we conjecture the man-mountain combs his head, for we did not always trouble him with questions, because we found it a great difficulty to make him understand us. In the large pocket on the right side of his middle cover (so I translate the word _ranfu-lo_, by which they meant my breeches), we saw a hollow pillar of iron, about the length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber, larger than the pillar; and upon one side of the pillar were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of. In the left pocket, another engine of the same kind. In the smaller pocket on the right side were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of different bulk; some of the white, which seemed to be silver, were so large and so heavy, that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket, were two black pillars irregularly shaped; we could not without difficulty reach the top of them, as we stood at the bottom of his pocket. One of them was covered, and seemed all of a piece; but at the upper end of the other, there appeared a white and round substance, about twice the bigness of our heads. Within each of these was enclosed a prodigious plate of steel, which, by our orders, we obliged him to show us, because we apprehended they might be dangerous engines. He took them out of their cases, and told us that in his own country his practice was to shave his beard with one of these, and to cut his meat with the other. There were two pockets which we could not enter: these he called his fobs. Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom. We directed him to draw out whatever was at the end of that chain, which appeared to be a globe, half silver, and half of some transparent metal; for on the transparent side we saw certain strange figures, circularly drawn, and thought we could touch them till we found our fingers stopped by that lucid substance.[17] He put this engine to our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill; and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly), that he seldom did anything without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life. From the left fob he took out a net almost large enough for a fisherman, but contrived to open and shut like a purse, and served him for the same use; we found therein several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold, must be of immense value. Having thus, in obedience to your majesty's commands, diligently searched all his pockets, we observed a girdle about his waist, made of the hide of some prodigious animal, from which, on the left side, hung a sword of the length of five men; and on the right, a bag or pouch, divided into two cells, each cell capable of holding three of your majesty's subjects. In one of these cells were several globes, or balls, of a most ponderous metal, about the bigness of our heads, and required a strong hand to lift them; the other cell contained a heap of certain black grains, but of no great bulk or weight, for we could hold about fifty of them in the palms of our hands. This is an exact inventory of what we found about the body of the man-mountain, who used us with great civility and due respect to your majesty's commission. Signed and sealed, on the fourth day of the eighty-ninth moon of your majesty's auspicious reign. CLEFRIN FRELOC. MARSI FRELOC. When this inventory was read over to the emperor, he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scimitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime, he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops (who then attended him) to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge; but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his majesty. He then desired me to draw my scimitar, which, although it had got some rust by the sea-water, was in most parts exceedingly bright. I did so, and immediately all the troops gave a shout between terror and surprise; for the sun shone clear, and the reflection dazzled their eyes, as I waved the scimitar to and fro in my hand. His majesty, who is a most magnanimous prince, was less daunted than I could expect; he ordered me to return it into the scabbard, and cast it on the ground as gently as I could, about six feet from the end of my chain. The next thing he demanded was one of the hollow iron pillars, by which he meant my pocket-pistols. I drew it out, and at his desire, as well as I could, expressed to him the use of it; and charging it only with powder, which, by the closeness of my pouch, happened to escape wetting in the sea (an inconvenience against which all prudent mariners take special care to provide), I first cautioned the emperor not to be afraid, and then let it off in the air. The astonishment here was much greater than at the sight of my scimitar. Hundreds fell down as if they had been struck dead; and even the emperor, although he stood his ground, could not recover himself in some time I delivered up both my pistols, in the same manner as I had done my scimitar, and then my pouch of powder and bullets, begging him that the former might be kept from fire, for it would kindle with the smallest spark, and blow up his imperial palace into the air. [Illustration] I likewise delivered up my watch, which the emperor was very curious to see, and commanded two of his tallest yeomen of the guards[18] to bear it on a pole upon their shoulders, as draymen in England do a barrel of ale. He was amazed at the continual noise it made and the motion of the minute-hand, which he could easily discern; for their sight is much more acute than ours. He asked the opinions of his learned men about it, which were various and remote, as the reader may well imagine without my repeating; although, indeed, I could not very perfectly understand them. I then gave up my silver and copper money, my purse, with nine large pieces of gold, and some smaller ones; my knife and razor, my comb and silver snuffbox, my handkerchief and journal-book. My scimitar, pistols, and pouch were conveyed in carriages to his majesty's stores; but the rest of my goods were returned to me. I had, as I before observed, one private pocket, which escaped their search, wherein there was a pair of spectacles (which I sometimes use for the weakness of mine eyes), a pocket perspective,[19] and some other little conveniences; which, being of no consequence to the emperor, I did not think myself bound in honor to discover; and I apprehended they might be lost or spoiled if I ventured them out of my possession. [Illustration]

part ii, Chapter II

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"A Description of the Farmer's Daughter. The Author carried to a Market-Town, and then to the Metropolis. The Particulars of his Journey. Gulliver is given into the care of the farmer's daughter, Glumdalclitch, who teaches him the language and treats him very well, like a child would care for a favorite doll. In fact, she keeps him in a doll's cradle, which she closes inside a drawer at night to keep him safe from the rats. As word of Gulliver spreads throughout the kingdom, the farmer begins to realize that there is profit to be made and takes Gulliver to the marketplace, where he performs shows for paying patrons. The show is so successful that the farmer decides to take Gulliver on a tour of the kingdom. Gulliver does ten shows a day, which makes him quite tired

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/3.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_3.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter iii

part ii, chapter iii

{"name": "part ii, Chapter III", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"The Author sent for to Court. The Queen buys him of his Master the Farmer, and presents him to the King. He disputes with his Majesty's great Scholars. An Apartment at Court provided for the Author. He is in high Favour with the Queen. He stands up for the Honour of his own Country. His Quarrels with the Queen's Dwarf. Having heard about the wondrous little creature that is making his way around the kingdom, the queen sends for him and his master to come to court. Gulliver immediately impresses the queen with his compliments and general manner, so she asks the farmer if he would be willing to sell Gulliver. The farmer, believing that Gulliver will die in about a month because he has lost so much weight from performing, quickly names a price. Gulliver is happy to live at court and be done with performing. He asks only that Glumdalclitch stay as well to continue taking care of him. Afterward the queen carries Gulliver to the king's chamber. The king at first believes that Gulliver is some sort of mechanical creature, but he eventually believes that Gulliver is just helpless. Gulliver tries to explain that where he is from, everything is proportionate to him. The queen has a small apartment built and new fine clothes tailored for Gulliver. She enjoys his company very much. Gulliver often comments that watching the Brobdingnag people eat or getting too close to their faces is quite repulsive. Gulliver and the king spend a great deal of time discussing politics. Gulliver explains how things work where he is from. The king laughs at English politics, which puts Gulliver off at first. Soon, however, Gulliver realizes that his adventures have begun to sway him to the same opinion; his perspective has begun to change. Gulliver finds an enemy in the queen's dwarf, who seems to be jealous of all the attention Gulliver is getting", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER III. THE AUTHOR DIVERTS THE EMPEROR AND HIS NOBILITY OF BOTH SEXES IN A VERY UNCOMMON MANNER. THE DIVERSIONS OF THE COURT OF LILLIPUT DESCRIBED. THE AUTHOR HAS HIS LIBERTY GRANTED HIM UPON CERTAIN CONDITIONS. My gentleness and good behavior had gained so far on the emperor and his court, and indeed upon the army and people in general, that I began to conceive hopes of getting my liberty in a short time, I took all possible methods to cultivate this favorable disposition. The natives came by degrees to be less apprehensive of any danger from me. I would sometimes lie down, and let five or six of them dance on my hand, and at last the boys and girls would venture to come and play at hide and seek in my hair. I had now made a good progress in understanding and speaking their language. The emperor had a mind, one day, to entertain me with one of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed upon a slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little. [Illustration] This diversion is only practised by those persons who are candidates for great employments and high favor at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens) five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty, and the court, with a dance on the rope, and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope, at least an inch higher than any lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the summersault several times together upon a trencher,[20] fixed on a rope, which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par. These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity! for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far that there is hardly one of them who hath not received a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured that a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would have infallibly broke his neck if one of the king's cushions, that accidentally lay on the ground, had not weakened the force of his fall. There is likewise another diversion, which is only shown before the emperor and empress and first minister, upon particular occasions. The emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads, of six inches long; one is purple, the other yellow, and the third white. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor hath a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favor. The ceremony is performed in his majesty's great chamber of state, where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the old or new world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backwards and forwards several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and his first minister the other: sometimes the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-colored silk; the yellow is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice about the middle; and you see few great persons round about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles. The horses of the army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. The riders would leap them over my hand as I held it on the ground; and one of the emperor's huntsmen, upon a large courser, took my foot, shoe and all, which was indeed a prodigious leap. I had the good fortune to divert the emperor one day after a very extraordinary manner. I desired he would order several sticks of two feet high, and the thickness of an ordinary cane, to be brought me; whereupon his majesty commanded the master of his woods to give directions accordingly; and the next morning six wood-men arrived with as many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each. I took nine of these sticks, and fixing them firmly in the ground in a quadrangular figure, two feet and a half square, I took four other sticks and tied them parallel at each corner, about two feet from the ground; then I fastened my handkerchief to the nine sticks that stood erect, and extended it on all sides, till it was as tight as the top of a drum; and the four parallel sticks, rising about five inches higher than the handkerchief, served as ledges on each side. When I had finished my work, I desired the emperor to let a troop of his best horse, twenty-four in number, come and exercise upon this plain. His majesty approved of the proposal, and I took them up one by one in my hands, ready mounted and armed, with the proper officers to exercise them. As soon as they got into order, they divided into two parties, performed mock skirmishes, discharged blunt arrows, drew their swords, fled and pursued, attacked and retired, and, in short, discovered the best military discipline I ever beheld. The parallel sticks secured them and their horses from falling over the stage: and the emperor was so much delighted that he ordered this entertainment to be repeated several days, and once was pleased to be lifted up and give the word of command; and, with great difficulty, persuaded even the empress herself to let me hold her in her close chair within two yards of the stage, from whence she was able to take a full view of the whole performance. It was my good fortune that no ill accident happened in these entertainments; only once a fiery horse, that belonged to one of the captains, pawing with his hoof, struck a hole in my handkerchief, and his foot slipping, he overthrew his rider and himself; but I immediately relieved them both, and covering the hole with one hand, I set down the troop with the other, in the same manner as I took them up. The horse that fell was strained in the left shoulder, but the rider got no hurt, and I repaired my handkerchief as well as I could; however, I would not trust to the strength of it any more in such dangerous enterprises. About two or three days before I was set at liberty, as I was entertaining the court with feats of this kind, there arrived an express to inform his majesty that some of his subjects riding near the place where I was first taken up, had seen a great black substance lying on the ground, very oddly shaped, extending its edges round as wide as his majesty's bed-chamber, and rising up in the middle as high as a man; that it was no living creature, as they had at first apprehended, for it lay on the grass without motion; and some of them had walked round it several times; that, by mounting upon each other's shoulders, they had got to the top, which was flat and even, and, stamping upon it, they found it was hollow within; that they humbly conceived it might be something belonging to the man-mountain; and if his majesty pleased, they would undertake to bring it with only five horses. [Illustration] I presently knew what they meant, and was glad at heart to receive this intelligence. It seems, upon my first reaching the shore after our shipwreck, I was in such confusion that, before I came to the place where I went to sleep, my hat, which I had fastened with a string to my head while I was rowing, and had stuck on all the time I was swimming, fell off after I came to land; the string, as I conjecture, breaking by some accident which I never observed, but thought my hat had been lost at sea. I intreated his imperial majesty to give orders it might be brought to me as soon as possible, describing to him the use and nature of it; and the next day the wagoners arrived with it, but not in a very good condition; they had bored two holes in the brim, within an inch and a half of the edge, and fastened two hooks in the holes; these hooks were tied by a long cord to the harness; and thus my hat was dragged along for above half an English mile; but the ground in that country being extremely smooth and level, it received less damage than I expected. Two days after this adventure, the emperor, having ordered that part of the army which quarters in and about his metropolis to be in readiness, took a fancy of diverting himself in a very singular manner. He desired I would stand like a colossus, with my legs as far asunder as I conveniently could. He then commanded his general (who was an old, experienced leader and a great patron of mine) to draw up the troops in close order and march under me; the foot by twenty-four abreast and the horse by sixteen, with drums beating, colors flying, and pikes advanced. This body consisted of three thousand foot and a thousand horse. I had sent so many memorials and petitions for my liberty, that his majesty at length mentioned the matter, first in the cabinet, and then in full council; where it was opposed by none, except Skyrris Bolgolam who was pleased, without any provocation, to be my mortal enemy. But it was carried against him by the whole board, and confirmed by the emperor. That minister was _galbet_, or admiral of the realm, very much in his master's confidence, and a person well versed in affairs, but of a morose and sour complexion. However, he was at length persuaded to comply; but prevailed, that the articles and conditions upon which I should be set free, and to which I must swear, should be drawn up by himself. These articles were brought to me by Skyrris Bolgolam in person, attended by two under-secretaries, and several persons of distinction. After they were read, I was demanded to swear to the performance of them, first in the manner of my own country, and afterwards in the method prescribed by their laws; which was, to hold my right foot in my left hand, and to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip of my right ear. But because the reader may be curious to have some idea of the style and manner of expression peculiar to that people, as well as to know the articles upon which I recovered my liberty, I have made a translation of the whole instrument, word for word, as near as I was able, which I here offer to the public. _Golbasto Momaren Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue_, Most Mighty Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five thousand _blustrugs_ (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; monarch of all monarchs, taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter. His most sublime majesty proposeth to the man-mountain, lately arrived at our celestial dominions, the following articles, which by a solemn oath he shall be obliged to perform. First. The man-mountain shall not depart from our dominions without our license under our great seal. Second. He shall not presume to come into our metropolis, without our express order, at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours warning to keep within doors. Third. The said man-mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn.[21] Fourth. As he walks the said roads, he shall take the utmost care not to trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses or carriages, nor take any of our subjects into his hands without their own consent. Fifth. If an express requires extraordinary despatch, the man-mountain shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and horse a six-days' journey once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our imperial presence. Sixth. He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us. Seventh. That the said man-mountain shall at his times of leisure be aiding and assisting to our workmen, in helping to raise certain great stones, towards covering the wall of the principal park, and other our royal buildings. Eighth. That the said man-mountain shall, in two moons time, deliver in an exact survey of the circumference of our dominions, by a computation of his own paces round the coast. Lastly. That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said man-mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724 of our subjects, with free access to our royal person, and other marks of our favor. Given at our palace at Belfaborac, the twelfth day of the ninety-first moon of our reign. I swore and subscribed to the articles with great cheerfulness and content, although some of them were not so honorable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the malice of Skyrris Bolgolam, the high admiral; whereupon my chains were immediately unlocked, and I was at full liberty. The emperor himself in person did me the honor to be by at the whole ceremony. I made my acknowledgments, by prostrating myself at his majesty's feet: but he commanded me to rise; and after many gracious expressions, which, to avoid the censure of vanity, I shall not repeat, he added, that he hoped I should prove a useful servant, and well deserve all the favors he had already conferred upon me, or might do for the future. The reader may please to observe, that, in the last article for the recovery of my liberty, the emperor stipulates to allow me a quantity of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724 Lilliputians. Some time after, asking a friend at court, how they came to fix on that determinate number, he told me, that his majesty's mathematicians having taken the height of my body by the help of a quadrant,[22] and finding it to exceed theirs in the proportion of twelve to one, they concluded, from the similarity of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1724 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was necessary to support that number of Lilliputians. By which the reader may conceive an idea of the ingenuity of that people, as well as the prudent and exact economy of so great a prince.

part ii, Chapter III

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"The Author sent for to Court. The Queen buys him of his Master the Farmer, and presents him to the King. He disputes with his Majesty's great Scholars. An Apartment at Court provided for the Author. He is in high Favour with the Queen. He stands up for the Honour of his own Country. His Quarrels with the Queen's Dwarf. Having heard about the wondrous little creature that is making his way around the kingdom, the queen sends for him and his master to come to court. Gulliver immediately impresses the queen with his compliments and general manner, so she asks the farmer if he would be willing to sell Gulliver. The farmer, believing that Gulliver will die in about a month because he has lost so much weight from performing, quickly names a price. Gulliver is happy to live at court and be done with performing. He asks only that Glumdalclitch stay as well to continue taking care of him. Afterward the queen carries Gulliver to the king's chamber. The king at first believes that Gulliver is some sort of mechanical creature, but he eventually believes that Gulliver is just helpless. Gulliver tries to explain that where he is from, everything is proportionate to him. The queen has a small apartment built and new fine clothes tailored for Gulliver. She enjoys his company very much. Gulliver often comments that watching the Brobdingnag people eat or getting too close to their faces is quite repulsive. Gulliver and the king spend a great deal of time discussing politics. Gulliver explains how things work where he is from. The king laughs at English politics, which puts Gulliver off at first. Soon, however, Gulliver realizes that his adventures have begun to sway him to the same opinion; his perspective has begun to change. Gulliver finds an enemy in the queen's dwarf, who seems to be jealous of all the attention Gulliver is getting

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/4.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_4.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter iv

part ii, chapter iv

{"name": "part ii, Chapter IV", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"The Country described. A Proposal for correcting modern Maps. The King's Palace, and some Account of the Metropolis. The Author's way of travelling. The chief Temple described. Gulliver spends a great deal of time describing the landscape of Brobdingnag, the palace that he now lives in and his manner of traveling in a small traveling box designed especially for him. He also sees and describes the largest temple in Brobdingnag, which he does not find impressive in its size", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER IV. MILENDO, THE METROPOLIS OF LILLIPUT, DESCRIBED TOGETHER WITH THE EMPEROR'S PALACE. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND A PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, CONCERNING THE AFFAIRS OF THAT EMPIRE. THE AUTHOR OFFERS TO SERVE THE EMPEROR IN HIS WARS. The first request I made, after I had obtained my liberty, was, that I might have license to see Milendo, the metropolis; which the emperor easily granted me, but with a special charge to do no hurt, either to the inhabitants or their houses. The people had notice, by proclamation, of my design to visit the town. The wall, which encompassed it, is two feet and a half high, and at least eleven inches broad, so that a coach and horses may be driven very safely round it; and it is flanked with strong towers at ten feet distance. I stept over the great western gate, and passed very gently, and sideling, through the two principal streets, only in my short waistcoat, for fear of damaging the roofs and eaves of the houses with the skirts[23] of my coat. I walked with the utmost circumspection, to avoid treading on any stragglers who might remain in the streets; although the orders were very strict, that all people should keep in their houses at their own peril. The garret-windows and tops of houses were so crowded with spectators, that I thought in all my travels I had not seen a more populous place. The city is an exact square, each side of the wall being five hundred feet long. The two great streets, which run across and divide it into four quarters, are five feet wide. The lanes and alleys, which I could not enter, but only viewed them as I passed, are from twelve to eighteen inches. The town is capable of holding five hundred thousand souls; the houses are from three to five stories; the shops and markets well provided. The emperor's palace is in the centre of the city, where the two great streets meet. It is enclosed by a wall of two foot high, and twenty foot distant from the buildings. I had his majesty's permission to step over this wall; and the space being so wide between that and the palace, I could easily view it on every side. The outward court is a square of forty feet, and includes two other courts; in the inmost are the royal apartments, which I was very desirous to see, but found it extremely difficult; for the great gates from one square into another were but eighteen inches high, and seven inches wide. Now the buildings of the outer court were at least five feet high, and it was impossible for me to stride over them without infinite damage to the pile, though the walls were strongly built of hewn stone, and four inches thick. At the same time, the emperor had a great desire that I should see the magnificence of his palace; but this I was not able to do till three days after, which I spent in cutting down, with my knife, some of the largest trees in the royal park, about an hundred yards distance from the city. Of these trees I made two stools, each about three feet high, and strong enough to bear my weight. [Illustration: "HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY WAS PLEASED TO SMILE VERY GRACIOUSLY UPON ME" P. 50.] The people having received notice a second time, I went again through the city to the palace, with my two stools in my hands. When I came to the side of the outer court, I stood upon one stool, and took the other in my hand; this I lifted over the roof, and gently set it down on the space between the first and second court, which was eight feet wide. I then stept over the building very conveniently, from one stool to the other, and drew up the first after me with a hooked stick. By this contrivance I got into the inmost court; and, lying down upon my side, I applied my face to the windows of the middle stories, which were left open on purpose, and discovered the most splendid apartments that can be imagined. There I saw the empress and the young princes in their several lodgings, with their chief attendants about them. Her imperial majesty was pleased to smile very graciously upon me, and gave me out of the window her hand to kiss. But I shall not anticipate the reader with farther descriptions of this kind, because I reserve them for a greater work, which is now almost ready for the press, containing a general description of this empire, from its first erection, through a long series of princes, with a particular account of their wars and politics, laws, learning, and religion, their plants and animals, their peculiar manners and customs, with other matters very curious and useful; my chief design, at present, being only to relate such events and transactions as happened to the public, or to myself, during a residence of about nine months in that empire. One morning, about a fortnight after I had obtained my liberty, Reldresal, principal secretary (as they style him) for private affairs, came to my house, attended only by one servant. He ordered his coach to wait at a distance, and desired I would give him an hour's audience; which I readily consented to, on account of his quality and personal merits, as well as of the many good offices he had done me during my solicitations at court. I offered to lie down, that he might the more conveniently reach my ear; but he chose rather to let me hold him in my hand during our conversation. He began with compliments on my liberty; said he might pretend to some merit in it. But however, added, that if it had not been for the present situation of things at court, perhaps I might not have obtained it so soon. For, said he, as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labor under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad. As to the first, you are to understand, that, for above seventy moons past, there have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of _Tramecksan_ and _Slamecksan_, from the high and low heels of their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves. It is alleged, indeed, that the high heels are most agreeable to our ancient constitution; but, however this may be, his majesty hath determined to make use only of low heels in the administration of the government, and all offices in the gift of the crown, as you cannot but observe: and particularly, that his majesty's imperial heels are lower, at least by a _drurr_, than any of his court (_drurr_ is a measure about the fourteenth part of an inch). The animosities between these two parties run so high, that they will neither eat nor drink nor talk with each other. We compute the _Tramecksan_, or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side. We apprehend his imperial highness, the heir to the crown, to have some tendency towards the high heels; at least, we can plainly discover that one of his heels is higher than the other, which gives him a hobble in his gait. Now, in the midst of these intestine disquiets, we are threatened with an invasion from the island of Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his majesty. For, as to what we have heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world, inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon or one of the stars, because it is certain, that an hundred mortals of your bulk would, in a short time, destroy all the fruits and cattle of his majesty's dominions. Besides, our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six-and-thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion: It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty's grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account, wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire. It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy, but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable, by law, of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the Emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate, by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran)[24] This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end. And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience, or, at least, in the power of the chief magistrate to determine. Now, the Big-endian exiles have found so much credit in the emperor of Blefuscu's court, and so much private assistance and encouragement from their party here at home, that a bloody war hath been carried on between the two empires for six-and-thirty moons, with various success; during which time we have lost forty capital ships, and a much greater number of smaller vessels, together with thirty thousand of our best seamen and soldiers; and the damage received by the enemy is reckoned to be somewhat greater than ours. However, they have now equipped a numerous fleet, and are just preparing to make a descent upon us; and his imperial majesty, placing great confidence in your valor and strength, hath commanded me to lay this account of his affairs before you. [Illustration] [Illustration] I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to the emperor, and to let him know that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders.

part ii, Chapter IV

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"The Country described. A Proposal for correcting modern Maps. The King's Palace, and some Account of the Metropolis. The Author's way of travelling. The chief Temple described. Gulliver spends a great deal of time describing the landscape of Brobdingnag, the palace that he now lives in and his manner of traveling in a small traveling box designed especially for him. He also sees and describes the largest temple in Brobdingnag, which he does not find impressive in its size

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/5.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_5.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter v

part ii, chapter v

{"name": "part ii, Chapter V", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"Several Adventures that happened to the Author. The Execution of a Criminal. The Author shews his Skill in Navigation. Serving in Brobdingnag proves difficult for Gulliver. He experiences a series of dangers because of his small size-and because the dwarf relishes in making Gulliver's life difficult. The ladies at court treat Gulliver like a toy, dressing and undressing him and undressing themselves in front of him. Gulliver again mentions how offensive he finds the skin and smell of the Brobdingnagians. He remembers the Lilliputians' similar reaction to his smell, which he did not understand at the time. Gulliver nearly drowns when a toad jumps onto the boat the queen has had made for him. He is also carried to the top of the palace by a monkey and narrowly survives. The monkey is killed, and it is declared that monkeys will no longer be allowed in the palace", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER V. THE AUTHOR, BY AN EXTRAORDINARY STRATAGEM, PREVENTS AN INVASION. A HIGH TITLE OF HONOR IS CONFERRED UPON HIM. AMBASSADORS ARRIVE FROM THE EMPEROR OF BLEFUSCU, AND SUE FOR PEACE. THE EMPRESS'S APARTMENT ON FIRE, BY ACCIDENT; THE AUTHOR INSTRUMENTAL IN SAVING THE REST OF THE PALACE. The empire of Blefuscu is an island, situate to the north northeast of Lilliput, from whence it is parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet seen it; and upon this notice of an intended invasion, I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me, all intercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon the pain of death, and an embargo[25] laid by our emperor upon all vessels whatsoever. I communicated to his majesty a project I had formed, of seizing the enemy's whole fleet; which, as our scouts assured us, lay at anchor in the harbor, ready to sail with the first fair wind. I consulted the most experienced seamen upon the depth of the channel, which they had often plumbed; who told me, that in the middle, at high water, it was seventy _glumgluffs_ deep, which is about six feet of European measure; and the rest of it fifty _glumgluffs_ at most. I walked towards the northeast coast, over against Blefuscu; where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective glass, and viewed the enemy's fleet at anchor, consisting of about fifty men-of-war, and a great number of transports; I then came back to my house, and gave orders (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting needle. I trebled the cable, to make it stronger; and, for the same reason, I twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the northeast coast, and putting off my coat, shoes, and stockings, walked into the sea in my leathern jerkin, about half an hour before high-water. I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground; I arrived at the fleet in less than half an hour. The enemy were so frightened, when they saw me, that they leaped out of their ships, and swam to shore, where there could not be fewer than thirty thousand souls: I then took my tackling, and fastening a hook to the hole at the prow of each, I tied all the cords together at the end. While I was thus employed, the enemy discharged several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face; and, besides the excessive smart, gave me much disturbance in my work. My greatest apprehension was for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I kept, among other little necessaries, a pair of spectacles, in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the emperor's searchers. These I took out, and fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and thus armed, went on boldly with my work, in spite of the enemy's arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other effect, farther than a little to discompose them.[26] I had now fastened all the hooks, and, taking the knot in my hand, began to pull: but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors; so that the boldest part of my enterprise remained. I therefore let go the cord, and, leaving the hooks fixed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened the anchors, receiving above two hundred shots in my face and hands; then I took up the knotted end of the cables, to which my hooks were tied, and, with great ease, drew fifty of the enemy's largest men-of-war after me. The Blefuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended, were at first confounded with astonishment. They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift, or fall foul on each other: but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair as it is almost impossible to describe or conceive. When I had got out of danger, I stopped awhile to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face: and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned. I then took off my spectacles, and waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput. The emperor and his whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet more in pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in an hostile manner: but he was soon eased of his fears; for the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing; and holding up the end of the cable, by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, Long live the most puissant[27] emperor of Lilliput! This great prince received me at my landing, with all possible encomiums, and created me a _nardac_ upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor among them. His majesty desired I would take some other opportunity of bringing all the rest of his enemy's ships into his ports. And so immeasurable is the ambition of princes, that he seemed to think of nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and governing it by viceroy; of destroying the Big-endian exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs, by which he would remain the sole monarch of the whole world. But I endeavored to divert him from this design, by many arguments, drawn from the topics of policy, as well as justice. And I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery. And when the matter was debated in council, the wisest part of the ministry were of my opinion. [Illustration: "AND CREATED ME A _NARDAC_ UPON THE SPOT." P. 58.] This open, bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes and politics of his imperial majesty, that he could never forgive me; he mentioned it, in a very artful manner, at council, where, I was told, that some of the wisest appeared, at least by their silence, to be of my opinion; but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions, which by a side-wind reflected on me. And, from this time began an intrigue between his majesty and a junto[28] of ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. About three weeks after this exploit, there arrived a solemn embassy from Blefuscu, with humble offers of peace; which was soon concluded, upon conditions very advantageous to our emperor, wherewith I shall not trouble the reader. There were six ambassadors, with a train of about five hundred persons; and their entry was very magnificent, suitable to the grandeur of their master, and the importance of their business. When their treaty was finished, wherein I did them several good offices, by the credit I now had, or at least appeared to have at court, their excellencies, who were privately told how much I had been their friend, made me a visit in form. They began with many compliments upon my valor and generosity, invited me to that kingdom, in the emperor their master's name, and desired me to show some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had heard so many wonders; wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble the reader with the particulars. [Illustration] When I had for some time entertained their Excellencies, to their infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the honor to present my most humble respects to the emperor their master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend, before I returned to my own country. Accordingly, the next time I had the honor to see our emperor, I desired his general license to wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could plainly perceive, in a very cold manner; but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection, from which, I am sure, my heart was wholly free. And this was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers. It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me by an interpreter, the languages of both empires differing as much from each other as any two in Europe, and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of its own tongue, with an avowed contempt for that of its neighbor; yet our emperor, standing upon the advantage he had got by the seizure of their fleet, obliged them to deliver their credentials, and make their speech in the Lilliputian tongue. And it must be confessed, that, from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both realms; from the continual reception of exiles, which is mutual among them; and from the custom in each empire, to send their young nobility, and richer gentry, to the other, in order to polish themselves, by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners; there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or, seamen, who dwell in the maritime parts, but what can hold conversation in both tongues, as I found some weeks after, when I went to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu, which, in the midst of great misfortunes, through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in its proper place. The reader may remember, that when I signed those articles, upon which I recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of their being too servile; neither could anything but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit. But, being now a _nardac_ of the highest rank in that empire, such offices were looked upon as below my dignity, and the emperor, to do him justice, never once mentioned them to me. However, it was not long before I had an opportunity of doing his majesty, at least as I then thought, a most signal service. I was alarmed at midnight with the cries of many hundred people at my door, by which, being suddenly awaked, I was in some kind of terror. I heard the word _burglum_ repeated incessantly. Several of the emperor's court, making their way through the crowd, entreated me to come immediately to the palace, where her imperial majesty's apartment was on fire, by the carelessness of a maid of honor, who fell asleep while she was reading a romance. I got up in an instant; and orders being given to clear the way before me, and it being likewise a moonshine night, I made a shift to get to the palace, without trampling on any of the people. I found they had already applied ladders to the walls of the apartment, and were well provided with buckets, but the water was at some distance. These buckets were about the size of a large thimble, and the poor people supplied me with them as fast as they could; but the flame was so violent that they did little good. I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my leathern jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable, and this magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if, by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient by which in three minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from destruction. [Illustration] It was now daylight, and I returned to my house, without waiting to congratulate with the emperor; because, although I had done a very eminent piece of service, yet I could not tell how his majesty might resent the manner by which I had performed it: for, by the fundamental laws of the realm, it is capital in any man, of what quality soever, to even touch the empress or the royal princesses without invitation. But I was a little comforted by a message from his majesty, that he would give orders to the grand justiciary for passing my pardon in form, which, however, I could not obtain. And I was privately assured that the empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of me, and, in the presence of her chief confidants, could not forbear vowing revenge.

part ii, Chapter V

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"Several Adventures that happened to the Author. The Execution of a Criminal. The Author shews his Skill in Navigation. Serving in Brobdingnag proves difficult for Gulliver. He experiences a series of dangers because of his small size-and because the dwarf relishes in making Gulliver's life difficult. The ladies at court treat Gulliver like a toy, dressing and undressing him and undressing themselves in front of him. Gulliver again mentions how offensive he finds the skin and smell of the Brobdingnagians. He remembers the Lilliputians' similar reaction to his smell, which he did not understand at the time. Gulliver nearly drowns when a toad jumps onto the boat the queen has had made for him. He is also carried to the top of the palace by a monkey and narrowly survives. The monkey is killed, and it is declared that monkeys will no longer be allowed in the palace

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/6.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_6.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter vi

part ii, chapter vi

{"name": "part ii, Chapter VI", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"Several Contrivances of the Author to please the King and Queen. He shews his Skill in Musick. The King enquires into the State of Europe, which the Author relates to him. The King's Observations thereon. Gulliver salvages several of the king's hairs from his shaving cream and makes himself a comb. He then makes the seat of a chair from the queen's hair but refuses to sit on it because doing so would be insulting to her. He also makes Glumdalclitch a small purse. Gulliver spends the evening at a concert in Brobdingnag. For him the music is so loud that he cannot enjoy it unless his traveling box is brought as far away as possible and all of the windows and doors are closed. Gulliver often goes to see the king, who requests a detailed description of the government of England, which Gulliver relates. The king asks him many questions, challenging various aspects of the government and having particular difficulty with England's violent past. In the end the king concludes that the English are well below the Brobdingnagians, calling them \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER VI. OF THE INHABITANTS OF LILLIPUT; THEIR LEARNING, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS; THE MANNER OF EDUCATING THEIR CHILDREN. THE AUTHOR'S WAY OF LIVING IN THAT COUNTRY. Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a particular treatise, yet, in the meantime, I am content to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and a half, more or less; their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards, till you come to the smallest, which, to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature hath adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view; they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And, to show the sharpness of their sight, towards objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling[29] a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible silk. Their tallest trees are about seven feet high; I mean some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the reader's imagination. I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many ages, hath flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at the resurrection, be found ready, standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar. There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and, if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification. It is only to be wished they were as well executed. The first I shall mention relates to informers. All crimes against the state are punished here with the utmost severity; but, if the person accused maketh his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and, out of his goods, or lands, the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he hath been at in making his defence, or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him some public mark of his favor, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city. They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal, who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order, and run away with, and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me, to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and, truly, I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed. Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof that he hath strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three moons, hath a claim to certain privileges, according to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable sum of out of a fund appropriated for that use; he likewise acquires the title of _snillpall_, or _legal_, which is added to his name, but doth not descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify circumspection, with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheath in her left, to show she was more disposed to reward than to punish. In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they believe that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age; but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by experience, and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequences to the public weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions. In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the authority under which he acts. In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original institutions, and not the most scandalous corruptions into which these people are fallen, by the degenerate nature of man. For, as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favor and distinction by leaping over sticks, and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor, now reigning, and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and faction. Ingratitude is, among them, a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live. Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours. Their opinion is, that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their own children; and, therefore, they have, in every town, public nurseries, where all parents, except cottagers and laborers, are obliged to send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of docility. These schools are of several kinds, suited to different qualities, and to both sexes. They have certain professors, well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the rank of their parents, and their own capacities as well as inclinations. I shall first say something of the male nurseries, and then of the female. The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth are provided with grave and learned professors, and their several deputies. The clothes and food of the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in the principles of honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their country; they are always employed in some business, except in the times of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours for diversions, consisting of bodily exercises. They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendants, who are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial offices. They are never suffered to converse with servants, but go together in smaller or greater numbers to take their diversions, and always in the presence of a professor, or one of his deputies; whereby they avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice, to which our children are subject. Their parents are suffered to see them only twice a year; the visit to last but an hour; they are allowed to kiss the child at meeting and parting; but a professor, who always stands by on those occasions, will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or bring any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like. The pension from each family, for the education and entertainment of a child, upon failure of due payment, is levied by the emperor's officers. The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen, merchants, traders, and handicrafts, are managed proportionally after the same manner; only those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old, whereas those persons of quality continue in their exercises till fifteen, which answers to twenty-one with us; but the confinement is gradually lessened for the last three years. In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are educated much like the males, only they are dressed by orderly servants of their own sex; but always in the presence of a professor or deputy, till they come to dress themselves, which is at five years old. And if it be found that these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories, or the common follies practised by the chambermaids among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of the country. Thus, the young ladies there are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education, made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the women were not altogether so robust, and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is that, among people of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young. When the girls are twelve years old, which among them is the marriageable age, their parents or guardians take them home, with great expressions of gratitude to the professors, and seldom without tears of the young lady and her companions. In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex and their several degrees; those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept to eleven. The meaner[30] families who have children at these nurseries are obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their gettings, to be a portion[31] for the child; and, therefore, all parents are limited in their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be more unjust than for people to leave the burden of supporting their children on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry and the most exact justice. The cottagers and laborers keep their children at home, their business being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their education is of little consequence to the public; but the old and diseased among them are supported by hospitals; for begging is a trade unknown in this empire. And here it may perhaps divert the curious reader to give some account of my domestic,[32] and my manner of living in this country, during a residence of nine months and thirteen days. Having a head for mechanics, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made for myself a table and chair, convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make me shirts, and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a piece. The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended that each held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more; for, by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my coat; but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs would not have been able to hold them), they looked like the patchwork made by the ladies in England, only that mine were all of a color. [Illustration: "THREE HUNDRED TAILORS WERE EMPLOYED TO MAKE ME CLOTHES" P. 74.] I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little convenient huts built about my house, where they and their families lived, and prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took up twenty waiters in my hand, and placed them on the table; an hundred more attended below on the ground, some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and other liquors, flung on their shoulders; all of which the waiters above drew up, as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as we draw the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a good mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable draught. Their mutton yields to ours, but their beef is excellent, I have had a sirloin so large that I have been forced to make three bites of it; but this is rare. My servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones and all, as in our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkeys I usually eat at a mouthful, and I must confess they far exceed ours. Of their smaller fowl, I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife. One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living, desired that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of the blood of both sexes, might have the happiness, as he was pleased to call it, of dining with me. They came accordingly, and I placed them in chairs of state upon my table, just over against me, with their guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended there likewise, with his white staff; and I observed he often looked on me with a sour countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but eat more than usual, in honor to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with admiration. I have some private reasons to believe that this visit from his majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill offices to his master. That minister had always been my secret enemy, though he outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the moroseness of his nature. He represented to the emperor the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that exchequer bills[33] would not circulate under nine per cent, below par; that I had cost his majesty above a million and a half of _sprugs_ (their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle); and, upon the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take the first fair occasion of dismissing me. [Illustration: "THE HAPPINESS ... OF DINING WITH ME." P. 76.] [Illustration] [Illustration]

part ii, Chapter VI

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"Several Contrivances of the Author to please the King and Queen. He shews his Skill in Musick. The King enquires into the State of Europe, which the Author relates to him. The King's Observations thereon. Gulliver salvages several of the king's hairs from his shaving cream and makes himself a comb. He then makes the seat of a chair from the queen's hair but refuses to sit on it because doing so would be insulting to her. He also makes Glumdalclitch a small purse. Gulliver spends the evening at a concert in Brobdingnag. For him the music is so loud that he cannot enjoy it unless his traveling box is brought as far away as possible and all of the windows and doors are closed. Gulliver often goes to see the king, who requests a detailed description of the government of England, which Gulliver relates. The king asks him many questions, challenging various aspects of the government and having particular difficulty with England's violent past. In the end the king concludes that the English are well below the Brobdingnagians, calling them "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/7.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_7.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter vii

part ii, chapter vii

{"name": "part ii, Chapter VII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"The Author's Love of his Country. He makes a Proposal of much Advantage to the King, which is rejected. The King's great Ignorance in Politicks. The Learning of that Country very imperfect and confined. Their Laws, and military Affairs, and Parties in the State. Gulliver is offended by the manner in which the king has dismissed the English as a lowly society. He tries to impress the king by telling him about some of the many great inventions of England, beginning with gunpowder. Gulliver goes into great detail about the power and effect of gunpowder and what the king could accomplish with it, saying that he could easily control everyone in Brobdingnag with gunpowder. The king is \"struck with Horror\" and disgusted by Gulliver's proposals. He tells Gulliver that if he values his life, he should never mention gunpowder again. Gulliver cannot believe that the king would reject such an immense opportunity. Gulliver then discusses the general ignorance of the Brobdingnag people, including their simple laws and practices", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER VII. THE AUTHOR, BEING INFORMED OF A DESIGN TO ACCUSE HIM OF HIGH TREASON, MAKES HIS ESCAPE TO BLEFUSCU. HIS RECEPTION THERE. Before I proceed to give an account of my leaving this kingdom, it may be proper to inform the reader of a private intrigue which had been for two months forming against me. I had been hitherto all my life a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but never expected to have found such terrible effects of them in so remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe. When I was just preparing to pay my attendance on the emperor of Blefuscu, a considerable person at court (to whom I had been very serviceable, at a time when he lay under the highest displeasure of his imperial majesty) came to my house very privately at night, in a close chair,[34] and without sending his name, desired admittance. The chairmen were dismissed; I put the chair, with his lordship in it, into my coat-pocket; and, giving orders to a trusty servant to say I was indisposed and gone to sleep, I fastened the door of my house, placed the chair on the table, according to my usual custom, and sat down by it. After the common salutations were over, observing his lordship's countenance full of concern, and inquiring into the reason, he desired I would hear him with patience, in a matter that highly concerned my honor and my life. His speech was to the following effect, for I took notes of it as soon as he left me:-- You are to know, said he, that several committees of council have been lately called in the most private manner on your account; and it is but two days since his majesty came to a full resolution. You are very sensible that Skyrris Bolgolam (_galbet_ or high-admiral) hath been your mortal enemy almost ever since your arrival: his original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory, as admiral, is much obscured. This lord, in conjunction with Flimnap the high treasurer, whose enmity against you is notorious, Limtoc the general, Lalcon the chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand justiciary, have prepared articles of impeachment against you, for treason, and other capital crimes. This preface made me so impatient, being conscious of my own merits and innocence, that I was going to interrupt; when he entreated me to be silent, and thus proceeded. [Illustration: "HE DESIRED I WOULD HEAR HIM WITH PATIENCE." P. 80.] Out of gratitude for the favors you have done for me, I procured information of the whole proceedings, and a copy of the articles; wherein I venture my head for your service. ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST QUINBUS FLESTRIN, THE MAN-MOUNTAIN. ARTICLE I. Whereas, by a statute made in the reign of his Imperial Majesty Calin Deffar Plune, it is enacted, That whoever shall lay hands upon the empress, or upon any of the royal children, shall be liable to the pains and penalties of high treason. Notwithstanding, the said Quinbus Flestrin, in open breach of the said law, under color of extinguishing the fire kindled in the apartment of his Majesty's most dear imperial consort, did maliciously, and traitorously, pull her by the arms, and lift her high in the air in both his hands, against the statute in that case provided, &c., against the duty, &c. ARTICLE II. That the said Quinbus Flestrin, having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the royal port, and being afterwards commanded by his imperial majesty to seize all the other ships of the said empire of Blefuscu, and reduce that empire to a province, to be governed by a viceroy from hence, and to destroy and put to death, not only all the Big-endian exiles, but likewise all the people of that empire who would not immediately forsake the Big-endian heresy. He, the said Flestrin, like a false traitor against his most auspicious, serene, imperial majesty, did petition to be excused from the said service, upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people. ARTICLE III. That, whereas certain ambassadors arrived from the court of Blefuscu, to sue for peace in his majesty's court; he, the said Flestrin, did, like a false traitor, aid, abet, comfort, and divert the said ambassadors, although he knew them to be servants to a prince who was lately an open enemy to his imperial majesty, and in open war against his said majesty. ARTICLE IV. That the said Quinbus Flestrin, contrary to the duty of a faithful subject, is now preparing to make a voyage to the court and empire of Blefuscu, for which he hath received only verbal license from his imperial majesty; and under color of the said license, doth falsely and traitorously intend to take the said voyage, and thereby to aid, comfort, and abet the emperor of Blefuscu, so late an enemy, and in open war with his imperial majesty aforesaid. There are some other articles, but these are the most important, of which I have read you an abstract. In the several debates upon this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity, often urging the services you had done him, and endeavoring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire on your house at night; and the general was to attend, with twenty thousand men armed with poisoned arrows, to shoot you on the face and hands. Some of your servants were to have private orders to strew a poisonous juice on your shirts and sheets, which would soon make you tear your own flesh, and die in the utmost torture. The general came into the same opinion; so that for a long time there was a majority against you: but his majesty resolving, if possible, to spare your life, at last brought off the chamberlain. Upon this incident, Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, who always approved himself your true friend, was commanded by the emperor to deliver his opinion, which he accordingly did; and therein justified the good thoughts you have of him. He allowed your crimes to be great, but that still there was room for mercy, the most commendable virtue in a prince, and for which his majesty was so justly celebrated. He said, the friendship between you and him was so well known to the world, that perhaps the most honorable board might think him partial; however, in obedience to the command he had received, he would freely offer his sentiments; that if his majesty, in consideration of your services, and pursuant to his own merciful disposition, would please to spare your life, and only give orders to put out both your eyes, he humbly conceived that, by this expedient, justice might in some measure be satisfied, and all the world would applaud the lenity of the emperor, as well as the fair and generous proceedings of those who have the honor to be his counsellors: that the loss of your eyes would be no impediment to your bodily strength, by which you might still be useful to his majesty: that blindness is an addition to courage, by concealing dangers from us: that the fear you had for your eyes was the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy's fleet: and it would be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the ministers, since the greatest princes do no more. [Illustration] This proposal was received with the utmost disapprobation by the whole board. Bolgolam, the admiral, could not preserve his temper, but rising up in fury, said he wondered how the secretary durst presume to give his opinion for preserving the life of a traitor: that the services you had performed were, by all true reasons of state, the great aggravation of your crimes: that you, who extinguished the fire in that unprincipled manner, might at another time inundate and drown the whole palace; and the same strength, which enabled you to bring over the enemy's fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back: that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death. The treasurer was of the same opinion. He showed to what straits his majesty's revenue was reduced, by the charge of maintaining you, which would soon grow insupportable. That the secretary's expedient of putting out your eyes was so far from being a remedy against this evil, that it would probably increase it, as is manifest from the common practice of blinding some sort of fowls, after which they fed the faster, and grew sooner fat. That his sacred majesty, and the council, who are your judges, were to their own consciences fully convinced of your guilt, which was a sufficient argument to condemn you to death without the formal proofs required by the strict letter of the law. But his imperial majesty, fully determined against capital punishment, was graciously pleaded to say, that since the council thought the loss of your eyes too easy a censure, some other might be inflicted hereafter. And your friend, the secretary, humbly desiring to be heard again, in answer to what the treasurer had objected concerning the great charge his majesty was at in maintaining you, said that his excellency, who had the sole disposal of the emperor's revenue, might easily provide against that evil, by gradually lessening your establishment; by which, for want of sufficient food, you would grow weak and faint, and lose your appetite, and consume in a few months; neither would the stench of your carcase be then so dangerous when it should become more than half diminished; and, immediately upon your death, five or six thousand of his majesty's subjects might in two or three days cut your flesh from your bones, take it away by cart-loads, and bury it in distant parts, to prevent infection, leaving the skeleton as a monument of admiration to posterity. Thus, by the great friendship of the secretary, the whole affair was compromised. It was strictly enjoined that the project of starving you by degrees should be kept a secret, but the sentence of putting out your eyes was entered on the books, none dissenting except Bolgolam, the admiral, who, being a creature of the empress, was perpetually instigated by her majesty to insist upon your death, she having borne perpetual malice against you, on account of that illegal method you took to remove her and her children the night of the fire. In three days, your friend the secretary will be directed to come to your house and read before you the articles of impeachment; and then to signify the great lenity and favor of his majesty and council, whereby you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes, which his majesty doth not question you will gratefully and humbly submit to; and twenty of his majesty's surgeons will attend, in order to see the operation well performed, by discharging very sharp-pointed arrows into the balls of your eyes as you lie on the ground. I leave to your prudence what measures you will take; and, to avoid suspicion, I must immediately return, in as private a manner as I came. His lordship did so, and I remained alone, under many doubts and perplexities of mind. It was a custom, introduced by this prince and his ministry (very different, as I have been assured, from the practices of former times), that after the court had decreed any cruel execution either to gratify the monarch's resentment or the malice of a favorite, the emperor always made a speech to his whole council, expressing his great lenity and tenderness, as qualities known and confessed by all the world. This speech was immediately published through the kingdom; nor did anything terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty's mercy; because it was observed that, the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent. Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been designed for a courtier, either by my birth or education, I was so ill a judge of things that I could not discover the lenity and favor of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather to be rigorous than gentle, I sometimes thought of standing my trial; for although I could not deny the facts alleged in the several articles, yet I hoped they would admit of some extenuation. But having in my life perused many state-trials, which I ever observed to terminate as the judges thought fit to direct, I durst not rely on so dangerous a decision, in so critical a juncture, and against such powerful enemies. Once I was strongly bent upon resistance, for, while I had liberty, the whole strength of that empire could hardly subdue me, and I might easily with stones pelt the metropolis to pieces; but I soon rejected that project with horror, by remembering the oath I had made to the emperor, the favors I received from him, and the high title of _nardac_ he conferred upon me. Neither had I so soon learned the gratitude of courtiers as to persuade myself that his majesty's present seventies acquitted me of all past obligations. At last I fixed upon a resolution, for which it is probable I may incur some censure, and not unjustly; for I confess I owe the preserving mine eyes, and consequently my liberty, to my own great rashness and want of experience; because if I had then known the nature of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should with great alacrity and readiness have submitted to so easy a punishment. But, hurried on by the precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial majesty's license to pay my attendance upon the emperor of Blefuscu, I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that morning for Blefuscu pursuant to the leave I had got; and, without waiting for an answer, I went to that side of the island where our fleet lay. I seized a large man-of-war, tied a cable to the prow, and lifting up the anchors, I stript myself, put my clothes (together with my coverlet, which I carried under my arm) into the vessel, and drawing it after me, between wading and swimming arrived at the royal port of Blefuscu, where the people had long expected me; they lent me two guides to direct me to the capital city, which is of the same name. I held them in my hands until I came within two hundred yards of the gate, and desired them to signify my arrival to one of the secretaries, and let him know I there waited his majesty's command. I had an answer in about an hour, that his majesty, attended by the royal family and great officers of the court, was coming out to receive me. I advanced a hundred yards. The emperor and his train alighted from their horses, the empress and ladies from their coaches, and I did not perceive they were in any fright or concern. I lay on the ground to kiss his majesty's and the empress's hand. [Illustration] I told his majesty that I was come, according to my promise, and with the license of the emperor, my master, to have the honor of seeing so mighty a monarch, and to offer him any service in my power consistent with my duty to my own prince, not mentioning a word of my disgrace, because I had hitherto no regular information of it, and might suppose myself wholly ignorant of any such design; neither could I reasonably conceive that the emperor would discover the secret while I was out of his power, wherein however it soon appeared I was deceived. I shall not trouble the reader with the particular account of my reception at this court, which was suitable to the generosity of so great a prince; nor of the difficulties I was in for want of a house and bed, being forced to lie on the ground, wrapped up in my coverlet. [Illustration]

part ii, Chapter VII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"The Author's Love of his Country. He makes a Proposal of much Advantage to the King, which is rejected. The King's great Ignorance in Politicks. The Learning of that Country very imperfect and confined. Their Laws, and military Affairs, and Parties in the State. Gulliver is offended by the manner in which the king has dismissed the English as a lowly society. He tries to impress the king by telling him about some of the many great inventions of England, beginning with gunpowder. Gulliver goes into great detail about the power and effect of gunpowder and what the king could accomplish with it, saying that he could easily control everyone in Brobdingnag with gunpowder. The king is "struck with Horror" and disgusted by Gulliver's proposals. He tells Gulliver that if he values his life, he should never mention gunpowder again. Gulliver cannot believe that the king would reject such an immense opportunity. Gulliver then discusses the general ignorance of the Brobdingnag people, including their simple laws and practices

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/8.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_8.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part i.chapter viii

part ii, chapter viii

{"name": "part ii, Chapter VIII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag", "summary": "\"The King and Queen make a Progress to the Frontiers. The Author attends them. The manner in which he leaves the Country very particularly related. He returns to England. Gulliver has been in Brobdingnag for two years and strongly feels that it is time to leave. He is basically being treated as a pet. But the royal family does not want to part with him. Coincidentally, on a trip to the seashore, a giant eagle picks up Gulliver's traveling box and flies off with him. Realizing that the box is not edible, the eagle drops it into the sea. After some time the box is picked up by a passing ship of Gulliver's normal proportions. Gulliver finds it very difficult to adjust to the size of things back in England. He feels much larger than the others", "analysis": "Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be \"the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.\" Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means."}

CHAPTER VIII. THE AUTHOR, BY A LUCKY ACCIDENT, FINDS MEANS TO LEAVE BLEFUSCU, AND AFTER SOME DIFFICULTIES, RETURNS SAFE TO HIS NATIVE COUNTRY. Three days after my arrival, walking out of curiosity to the northeast coast of the island, I observed, about half a league off in the sea, somewhat that looked like a boat overturned. I pulled off my shoes and stockings, and wading two or three hundred yards, I found the object to approach nearer by force of the tide; and then plainly saw it to be a real boat, which I supposed might by some tempest have been driven from a ship: whereupon I returned immediately towards the city, and desired his imperial majesty to lend me twenty of the tallest vessels he had left after the loss of his fleet, and three thousand seamen under the command of his vice-admiral. This fleet sailed round, while I went back the shortest way to the coast, where I first discovered the boat. I found the tide had driven it still nearer. The seamen were all provided with cordage, which I had beforehand twisted to a sufficient strength. When the ships came up, I stripped myself, and waded till I came within a hundred yards of the boat, after which I was forced to swim till I got up to it. The seamen threw me the end of the cord, which I fastened to a hole in the forepart of the boat, and the other end to a man-of-war. But I found all my labor to little purpose; for, being out of my depth, I was not able to work. In this necessity, I was forced to swim behind, and push the boat forwards as often as I could with one of my hands, and, the tide favoring me, I advanced so far, that I could just hold up my chin and feel the ground. I rested two or three minutes, and then gave the boat another shove, and so on till the sea was no higher than my arm-pits; and now, the most laborious part being over, I took out my other cables, which were stowed in one of the ships, and fastened them first to the boat, and then to nine of the vessels which attended me; the wind being favorable, the seamen towed, and I shoved, till we arrived within forty yards of the shore, and waiting till the tide was out, I got dry to the boat, and, by the assistance of two thousand men, with ropes and engines, I made a shift to turn it on its bottom, and found it was but little damaged. I shall not trouble the reader with the difficulties I was under, by the help of certain paddles, which cost me ten days making, to get my boat to the royal port of Blefuscu, where a mighty concourse of people appeared upon my arrival, full of wonder at the sight of so prodigious a vessel. I told the emperor that my good fortune had thrown this boat in my way, to carry me to some place from whence I might return into my native country, and begged his majesty's orders for getting materials to fit it up, together with his license to depart, which, after some kind expostulation, he was pleased to grant. I did very much wonder, in all this time, not to have heard of any express relating to me from our emperor to the court of Blefuscu. But I was afterwards given privately to understand that his imperial majesty, never imagining I had the least notice of his designs, believed I was only gone to Blefuscu in performance of my promise according to the license he had given me, which was well known at our court, and would return in a few days when the ceremony was ended. But he was at last in pain at my long absence; and, after consulting with the treasurer and the rest of that cabal,[35] a person of quality was despatched with the copy of the articles against me. This envoy had instructions to represent to the monarch of Blefuscu the great lenity of his master, who was content to punish me no farther than the loss of mine eyes; that I had fled from justice, and, if I did not return in two hours, I should be deprived of my title of _nardac_ and declared a traitor. The envoy farther added that, in order to maintain the peace and amity between both empires, his master expected that his brother of Blefuscu would give orders to have me sent back to Lilliput, bound hand and foot, to be punished as a traitor. The emperor of Blefuscu, having taken three days to consult, returned an answer consisting of many civilities and excuses. He said that, as for sending me bound, his brother knew it was impossible. That, although I had deprived him of his fleet, yet he owed great obligations to me for many good offices I had done him in making the peace. That, however, both their majesties would soon be made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped in a few weeks both empires would be freed from so insupportable an incumbrance. With this answer the envoy returned to Lilliput, and the monarch of Blefuscu related to me all that had passed; offering me at the same time (but under the strictest confidence) his gracious protection if I would continue in his service; wherein, although I believed him sincere, yet I resolved never more to put any confidence in princes or ministers where I could possibly avoid it; and, therefore, with all due acknowledgments for his favorable intentions, I humbly begged to be excused. I told him that, since fortune, whether good or evil, had thrown a vessel in my way, I was resolved to venture myself in the ocean, rather than be an occasion of difference between two such mighty monarchs. Neither did I find the emperor at all displeased; and I discovered, by a certain accident, that he was very glad of my resolution, and so were most of his ministers. These considerations moved me to hasten my departure somewhat sooner than I intended; to which the court, impatient to have me gone, very readily contributed. Five hundred workmen were employed to make two sails to my boat, according to my directions, by quilting thirteen folds of their strongest linen together. I was at the pains of making ropes and cables, by twisting ten, twenty, or thirty of the thickest and strongest of theirs. A great stone, that I happened to find after a long search by the sea-shore, served me for an anchor. I had the tallow of three hundred cows for greasing my boat, and other uses. I was at incredible pains in cutting down some of the largest timber-trees for oars and masts, wherein I was, however, much assisted by his majesty's ship-carpenters, who helped me in smoothing them after I had done the rough work. In about a month, when all was prepared, I sent to receive his majesty's commands, and to take my leave. The emperor and royal family came out of the palace. I lay down on my face to kiss his hand, which he very graciously gave me; so did the empress and young princes of the blood. His majesty presented me with fifty purses of two hundred _sprugs_ a-piece, together with his picture at full length, which I put immediately into one of my gloves, to keep it from being hurt. The ceremonies at my departure were too many to trouble the reader with at this time. [Illustration: "I SET SAIL AT SIX IN THE MORNING" P. 98.] I stored the boat with the carcases of a hundred oxen, and three hundred sheep, with bread and drink proportionable, and as much meat ready dressed as four hundred cooks could provide. I took with me six cows and two bulls alive, with as many ewes and lambs, intending to carry them into my own country, and propagate the breed. And to feed them on board, I had a good bundle of hay and a bag of corn. I would gladly have taken a dozen of the natives, but this was a thing the emperor would by no means permit; and, besides a diligent search into my pockets, his majesty engaged my honor not to carry away any of his subjects, although with their own consent and desire. Having thus prepared all things as well as I was able, I set sail on the twenty-fourth day of September, 1701, at six in the morning; and, when I had gone about four leagues to the northward, the wind being at southeast, at six in the evening I descried a small island about half a league to the northwest I advanced forward, and cast anchor on the lee side[36] of the island, which seemed to be uninhabited. I then took some refreshment, and went to my rest. I slept well, and, as I conjecture, at least six hours, for I found the day broke two hours after I awaked. It was a clear night. I ate my breakfast before the sun was up; and heaving anchor, the wind being favorable, I steered the same course that I had done the day before, wherein I was directed by my pocket-compass. My intention was to reach, if possible, one of those islands, which, I had reason to believe, lay to the northeast of Van Diemen's Land. I discovered nothing all that day; but upon the next, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when I had, by my computation, made twenty-four leagues from Blefuscu, I descried a sail steering to the southeast: my course was due east. I hailed her, but could get no answer; yet I found I gained upon her, for the wind slackened. I made all the sail I could, and in half-an-hour she spied me, then hung out her ancient,[37] and discharged a gun. It is not easy to express the joy I was in, upon the unexpected hope of once more seeing my beloved country, and the dear pledges I left in it. The ship slackened her sails, and I came up with her, between five and six in the evening, September twenty-sixth; but my heart leaped within me to see her English colors. I put my cows and sheep into my coat-pockets, and got on board with all my little cargo of provisions. The vessel was an English merchantman returning from Japan by the North and South Seas; the captain, Mr. John Biddle, of Deptford, a very civil man and an excellent sailor. We were now in the latitude of 30 degrees south. There were about fifty men in the ship; and here I met an old comrade of mine, one Peter Williams, who gave me a good character to the captain. This gentleman treated me with kindness, and desired I would let him know what place I came from last, and whither I was bound; which I did in few words, but he thought I was raving, and that the dangers I had underwent had disturbed my head; whereupon I took my black cattle and sheep out of my pocket, which, after great astonishment, clearly convinced him of my veracity. I then showed him the gold given me by the emperor of Blefuscu, together with his majesty's picture at full length, and some other rareties of that country. I gave him two purses of two hundred _sprugs_ each, and promised, when we arrived in England, to make him a present of a cow and a sheep. [Illustration] I shall not trouble the reader with a particular account of this voyage, which was very prosperous for the most part. We arrived in the Downs[38] on the thirteenth of April, 1702. I had only one misfortune, that the rats on board carried away one of my sheep; I found her bones in a hole, picked clean from the flesh. I got the rest of my cattle safe ashore, and set them a-grazing in a bowling-green at Greenwich, where the fineness of the grass made them feed very heartily, though I had always feared the contrary: neither could I possibly have preserved them in so long a voyage, if the captain had not allowed me some of his best biscuits, which, rubbed to powder, and mingled with water, was their constant food. The short time I continued in England, I made a considerable profit by showing my cattle to many persons of quality and others: and before I began my second voyage I sold them for six hundred pounds. Since my last return, I find the breed is considerably increased, especially the sheep, which I hope will prove much to the advantage of the woollen manufacture, by the fineness of the fleeces. [Illustration] I stayed but two months with my wife and family; for my insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries would suffer me to continue no longer. I left fifteen hundred pounds with my wife and fixed her in a good house at Redriff. My remaining stock I carried with me, part in money, and part in goods, in hopes to improve my fortune. My eldest uncle, John, had left me an estate in land, near Epping, of about thirty pounds a year; and I had a long lease of the "Black Bull[39]," in Fetter Lane, which yielded me as much more: so that I was not in any danger of leaving my family upon the parish. My son Johnny, named so after his uncle, was at the grammar-school, and a towardly[40] child. My daughter Betty (who is now well married, and has children), was then at her needlework. I took leave of my wife and boy and girl, with tears on both sides, and went on board the "Adventure," a merchant ship of three hundred tons, bound for Surat, Captain John Nicholas, of Liverpool, commander. But my account of this voyage must be referred to the second part of my travels. THE END OF THE FIRST PART. [Illustration: "THEY CONCLUDED ... THAT I WAS ONLY _Relplum Scalcath_," P. 37.] [Illustration] TRAVELS. * * * * *

part ii, Chapter VIII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417013424/https://www.gradesaver.com/gullivers-travels/study-guide/summary-part-ii-a-voyage-to-brobdingnag

"The King and Queen make a Progress to the Frontiers. The Author attends them. The manner in which he leaves the Country very particularly related. He returns to England. Gulliver has been in Brobdingnag for two years and strongly feels that it is time to leave. He is basically being treated as a pet. But the royal family does not want to part with him. Coincidentally, on a trip to the seashore, a giant eagle picks up Gulliver's traveling box and flies off with him. Realizing that the box is not edible, the eagle drops it into the sea. After some time the box is picked up by a passing ship of Gulliver's normal proportions. Gulliver finds it very difficult to adjust to the size of things back in England. He feels much larger than the others

Whatever Gulliver did not gain in perspective during his time in Lilliput, he gains in Brobdingnag. His time here not only gives Gulliver an understanding of what it is like to be powerless, but it also shows Gulliver how the Lilliputians must have felt when near him. Of course this situation is even more intimidating because here there are many giants, while in Lilliput he was the only one. This is how a Lilliputian would feel in England. The differences Gulliver experiences between the two islands are heightened because of the close proximity of the trips. Gulliver feels even smaller in Brobdingnag than he would have felt if he had never journeyed to Lilliput. Gulliver's newfound understanding of perspective helps him to feel powerless more profoundly-first for himself, when he curls up and rather pathetically hopes to die, and then for others, especially for the Lilliputians he left behind. As his fear rises, he becomes more and more emotional, eventually becoming so overwhelmed that he gives up, curling up into the fetal position. Once Gulliver is brought to the farmer's house, many challenges await him because of his lack of power in this land. A mere baby threatens his life, as do two common rats. Gulliver is able to fight them off in a seemingly heroic fashion, but it is clear that he could have lost the fight. Gulliver is also surprised by the aesthetic differences of the world from this new perspective. The nurse's breast is disgusting to him because he can clearly see every deformity and blemish. He imagines what the Lilliputians thought of his physicality. In these chapters we again see Gulliver as less than heroic. Just as in Lilliput, when Gulliver did not fight against his captivity , here Gulliver does nothing to try to avoid being captured. He waits until he is about to be stepped on before taking any action at all. And he only begs for mercy from the giant Brobdingnags. Gulliver relies on the protection of a young girl who tucks him into a doll's cradle at night. Gulliver survives and thrives only partly on the basis of his good manners. For the most part, he is a pet and a curiosity. Gulliver's compliance continues when he is required to perform so that the farmer can earn money. Gulliver becomes drastically emaciated, but he never resists what he is being told to do. In fact, readers do not really learn that Gulliver hated his task until he is out of danger and complains to the queen of Brobdingnag. Once Gulliver is seemingly safe at the court and has gained favor with the queen, he remains a plaything with very little respect, especially from the ladies at court. As a tiny person in the Brobdingnag world, Gulliver endures several trials that a larger person would never have to suffer. This again reminds the reader of the importance of physical strength as well as intellectual strength. Even when combat is not an issue, a large stature intimidates one's opponent. As a tiny person, Gulliver is left to the whims of those around him. In the fifth chapter, for instance, Gulliver is captured by a small monkey that would have been a minor threat in England. The overreaction of the queen and the rest of the government to this incident sheds important light on the Brobdingnag government. It seems that this government is rash. The killing of the monkey also shows that Gulliver has more status in the court than that of a toy or an animal. His nemesis is the dwarf, who used to be the small man in court. The king and Gulliver have long conversations about politics, but the king never really considers Gulliver's opinions on important matters. Being small, Gulliver is considered petty, and the idea of gaining power through gunpowder is anathema to the king. Through Gulliver's discussions with the king, the reader learns that perspective extends beyond size to opinion. After several days of discussing the governments of England and Brobdingnag, the king declares the English to be "the most pernicious Race of Little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth." Again Gulliver's Travels brings light to the fact that people from different backgrounds often have different opinions on the same subjects, even though people tend to follow similar patterns. Gulliver finds that each people prefers its own ways, but a traveler who spends a long time elsewhere might come to prefer the foreigners' ways over his own. Experience, thought, and tradition are important considerations in making this choice. As for gunpowder, for Gulliver , gunpowder represents the height of achievement primarily because of the power it has provided. The Brobdingnag king, however, is not corrupted by power. He is able to see that the negative effects of gunpowder would far outweigh the positive ones in his society. He might be right that Gulliver is narrow-minded, but his tirade on the general stupidity of the Brobdingnags takes the opposite point of view. Still, on this issue he is unable to see his own faults or those of his society. It is up to Swift to show us, through Gulliver's tale, what Gulliver's insistence on gunpowder means.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Gulliver's Travels/section_9_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 2

part 2, chapter 2

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-2", "summary": "Gulliver's mistress has a 9-year old daughter who sews well and is generally really smart. She makes Gulliver some clothes and also starts teaching him the Brobdingnagian language. Gulliver calls this girl Glumdalclitch, his little nurse, and she names him Grildrig. Rumors are spreading through the whole area that the farmer, Gulliver's master, has found a strange little creature that seems to imitate human beings perfectly. One of the master's neighbors comes by and suggests that he would make a huge profit by showing Gulliver at the local market for a fee. The next market day, Gulliver's master follows this guy's advice and starts advertising for people to come and see his tiny human. Gulliver does tricks and repeats what phrases he knows of the Brobdingnagian language for the entertainment of local audiences. After a long day of these performances, Gulliver's master promises to bring him back the next market day. Gulliver is so profitable that his master decides to take him on a tour of the cities of the kingdom. Gulliver travels under the care of Glumdalclitch. She knows how much it tires Gulliver to be displayed at markets like this, so Glumdalclitch often complains to her father of her own exhaustion to get him to travel slowly. After ten weeks of travel and eighteen different large towns, Gulliver's master, Glumdalclitch, and Gulliver himself all arrive at the central city, Lorbrulgrud. Gulliver's master rents a large room and sets up a stage for Gulliver's performances.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER II. A DESCRIPTION OF THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER. THE AUTHOR CARRIED TO A MARKET-TOWN, AND THEN TO THE METROPOLIS. THE PARTICULARS OF THIS JOURNEY. My mistress had a daughter of nine years old, a child of toward parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby. Her mother and she contrived to fit up the baby's cradle for me against night. The cradle was put into a small drawer cabinet, and the drawer placed upon a hanging shelf for fear of the rats. This was my bed all the time I stayed with these people, though made more convenient by degrees, as I began to learn their language and make my wants known. She made me seven shirts, and some other linen, of as fine cloth as could be got, which indeed was coarser than sackcloth; and these she constantly washed for me with her own hands. She was likewise my school-mistress, to teach me the language. When I pointed to anything, she told me the name of it in her own tongue, so that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to. She was very good-natured, and not above forty feet high, being little for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, which the family took up, and afterwards the whole kingdom. The word imports what the Latins call _nanunculus_, the Italians _homunceletino_, and the English _mannikin_. To her I chiefly owe my preservation in that country. We never parted while I was there; I called her my Glumdalclitch, or little nurse; and should be guilty of great ingratitude if I omitted this honorable mention of her care and affection towards me, which I heartily wish it lay in my power to requite as she deserves. It now began to be known and talked of in the neighborhood, that my master had found a strange animal in the field, about the bigness of a _splacnuck_, but exactly shaped in every part like a human creature; which it likewise imitated in all its actions, seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already learned several words of theirs, went erect upon two legs, was tame and gentle, would come when it was called, do whatever it was bid, had the finest limbs in the world, and a complexion fairer than a nobleman's daughter of three years old. Another farmer, who lived hard by, and was a particular friend of my master, came on a visit on purpose to inquire into the truth of this story. I was immediately produced and placed upon a table, where I walked as I was commanded, drew my hanger, put it up again, made my reverence to my master's guest, asked him in his own language how he did, and told him _he was welcome_, just as my little nurse had instructed me. This man, who was old and dim-sighted, put on his spectacles to behold me better, at which I could not forbear laughing very heartily, for his eyes appeared like the full moon shining into a chamber at two windows. Our people, who discovered the cause of my mirth, bore me company in laughing, at which the old fellow was fool enough to be angry and out of countenance. He had the character of a great miser; and, to my misfortune, he well deserved it by the cursed advice he gave my master, to show me as a sight upon a market-day in the next town, which was half an hour's riding, about two-and-twenty miles from our house. I guessed there was some mischief contriving, when I observed my master and his friend whispering long together, sometimes pointing at me; and my fears made me fancy that I overheard and understood some of their words. [Illustration: "I CALLED HER MY GLUMDALCLITCH." P. 22.] But the next morning, Glumdalclitch, my little nurse, told me the whole matter, which she had cunningly picked out from her mother. The poor girl laid me on her bosom, and fell a-weeping with shame and grief. She apprehended some mischief would happen to me from rude vulgar folks, who might squeeze me to death, or break one of my limbs by taking me in their hands. She had also observed how modest I was in my nature, how nicely I regarded my honor, and what an indignity conceive it to be exposed for money, as a public spectacle, to the meanest of the people. She said her papa and mamma had promised that Grildrig should be hers, but now she found they meant to serve her as they did last year when they pretended to give her a lamb, and yet as soon as it was fat sold it to a butcher. For my own part I may truly affirm that I was less concerned than my nurse. I had a strong hope, which left me, that I should one day recover my liberty; to the ignominy of being carried about for a monster, I considered myself to be a perfect stranger in the country, and that such a misfortune could never be charged upon me as a reproach if ever I should return to England; since the king of Great Britain himself, in my condition, must have undergone the same distress. My master, pursuant to the advice of his friend, carried me in a box the next market-day, to the neighboring town, and took along with him his little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion[48] behind him. The box was close on every side, with a little door for me to go in and out, and a few gimlet holes to let in air. The girl had been so careful as to put the quilt of her baby's bed into it, for me to lie down on. However, I was terribly shaken and discomposed in this journey, though it were but of half an hour. For the horse went about forty feet at every step, and trotted so high that the agitation was equal to the rising and falling of a ship in a great storm, but much more frequent; our journey was somewhat farther than from London to St. Alban's. My master alighted at an inn which he used to frequent; and after consulting a while with the innkeeper and making some necessary preparations, he hired the _grultrud_, or crier, to give notice through the town, of a strange creature to be seen at the sign of the Green Eagle, not so big as a _splacnuck_ (an animal in that country, very finely shaped, about six feet long), and in every part of the body resembling a human creature, could speak several words, and perform a hundred diverting tricks. I was placed upon a table in the largest room of the inn, which might be near three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on a low stool close to the table, to take care of me, and direct what I should do. My master, to avoid a crowd, would suffer only thirty people at a time to see me. I walked about on the table as the girl commanded. She asked me questions, as far as she knew my understanding of the language reached, and I answered them as loud as I could. I turned about several times to the company, paid my humble respects, said they were welcome, and used some other speeches I had been taught. I took a thimble filled with liquor, which Glumdalclitch had given me for a cup, and drank their health. I drew out my hanger, and flourished with it, after the manner of fencers in England. My nurse gave me part of a straw, which I exercised as a pike, having learnt the art in my youth. I was that day shown to twelve sets of company, and as often forced to act over again the same fopperies, till I was half dead with weariness and vexation. For those who had seen me made such wonderful reports, that the people were ready to break down the doors to come in. My master, for his own interest, would not suffer any one to touch me except my nurse, and, to prevent danger, benches were set round the table at such a distance as to put me out of everybody's reach. However, an unlucky school-boy aimed a hazel-nut directly at my head, which very narrowly missed me: otherwise, it came with so much violence, that it would have infallibly knocked out my brains, for it was almost as large as a small pumpion,[49] but I had the satisfaction to see the young rogue well beaten, and turned out of the room. [Illustration: "FLOURISHED IT AFTER THE MANNER OF FENCERS IN ENGLAND." P. 26.] My master gave public notice that he would show me again the next market-day, and in the meantime he prepared a more convenient vehicle for me, which he had reason enough to do; for I was so tired with my first journey, and with entertaining company for eight hours together, that I could hardly stand upon my legs or speak a word. It was at least three days before I recovered my strength; and that I might have no rest at home, all the neighboring gentleman, from a hundred miles round, hearing of my fame, came to see me at my master's own house. There could not be fewer than thirty persons with their wives and children (for the country was very populous); and my master demanded the rate of a full room whenever he showed me at home, although it were only to a single family; so that for some time I had but little ease every day of the week (except Wednesday which is their Sabbath), although I was not carried to the town. My master, finding how profitable I was like to be, resolved to carry me to the most considerable cities of the kingdom. Having, therefore, provided himself with all things necessary for a long journey, and settled his affairs at home, he took leave of his wife, and upon the seventeenth of August, 1703, about two months after my arrival, we set out for the metropolis, situated the middle of that empire, and about three thousand miles distance from our house. My master made his daughter Glumdalclitch ride behind him. She carried me on her lap, in a box tied about her waist. The girl had lined it on all sides with the softest cloth she could get, well quilted underneath, furnished it with her baby's bed, provided me with linen and other necessaries, and made everything as conveniently as she could. We had no other company but a boy of the house, who rode after us with the luggage. My master's design was to show me in all the towns by the way, and to step out of the road for fifty or a hundred miles, to any village, or person of quality's house, where he might expect custom. We made easy journeys of not above seven or eight score miles a day; for Glumdalclitch, on purpose to spare me, complained she was tired with the trotting of the horse. She often took me out of my box at my own desire, to give me air and show me the country, but always held me fast by a leading-string. We passed over five or six rivers, many degrees broader and deeper than the Nile or the Ganges; and there was hardly a rivulet so small as the Thames at London Bridge. We were ten weeks in our journey, and I was shown in eighteen large towns, besides many villages and private families. [Illustration] On the twenty-sixth of October we arrived at the metropolis, called in their language, _Lorbrulgrud_, or Pride of the Universe. My master took a lodging in the principal street of the city, not far from the royal palace, and put out bills in the usual form, containing an exact description of my person and parts.[50] He hired a large room between three and four hundred feet wide. He provided a table sixty feet in diameter, upon which I was to act my part, and palisadoed it round three feet from the edge, and as many high, to prevent my falling over. I was shown ten times a day, to the wonder and satisfaction of all people. I could now speak the language tolerably well, and perfectly understood every word that was spoken to me. Besides, I had learned their alphabet, and could make a shift to explain a sentence here and there; for Glumdalclitch had been my instructor while we were at home, and at leisure hours during our journey. She carried a little book in her pocket, not much larger than a Sanson's Atlas;[51] it was a common treatise for the use of young girls, giving a short account of their religion; out of this she taught me my letters, and interpreted the words.

Part 2, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-2

Gulliver's mistress has a 9-year old daughter who sews well and is generally really smart. She makes Gulliver some clothes and also starts teaching him the Brobdingnagian language. Gulliver calls this girl Glumdalclitch, his little nurse, and she names him Grildrig. Rumors are spreading through the whole area that the farmer, Gulliver's master, has found a strange little creature that seems to imitate human beings perfectly. One of the master's neighbors comes by and suggests that he would make a huge profit by showing Gulliver at the local market for a fee. The next market day, Gulliver's master follows this guy's advice and starts advertising for people to come and see his tiny human. Gulliver does tricks and repeats what phrases he knows of the Brobdingnagian language for the entertainment of local audiences. After a long day of these performances, Gulliver's master promises to bring him back the next market day. Gulliver is so profitable that his master decides to take him on a tour of the cities of the kingdom. Gulliver travels under the care of Glumdalclitch. She knows how much it tires Gulliver to be displayed at markets like this, so Glumdalclitch often complains to her father of her own exhaustion to get him to travel slowly. After ten weeks of travel and eighteen different large towns, Gulliver's master, Glumdalclitch, and Gulliver himself all arrive at the central city, Lorbrulgrud. Gulliver's master rents a large room and sets up a stage for Gulliver's performances.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Gulliver's Travels/section_11_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 4

part 2, chapter 4

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-4", "summary": "The island is 6,000 miles long and between 3,000 and 5,000 miles wide. It's a whole continent right smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, between California and Japan. The kingdom of Brobdingnag sits at the southern end of the island, surrounded on three sides by ocean and on one side by impassable mountains. The country has 51 cities, the largest of which is Lorbrulgrud. The king's palace in Lorbrulgrud is a mass of buildings about 7 miles around. Glumdalclitch takes Gulliver on frequent outings into the city, accompanied by her governess . When Gulliver goes on these outings, he is placed in a special box for travel, with windows on three sides to allow him to look out. Whenever they travel through the city, passersby always stop to look at Gulliver - he has become very famous. Gulliver and Glumdalclitch go out to see the primary temple of the city, which is both beautiful and 3,000 feet in height - about three-fifths of a mile. Believe it or not, Gulliver is disappointed - he expected the temple to be taller. Gulliver tells us that the king's kitchen is also amazing: it's 600 feet high . Gulliver is also most impressed by the sight of the Brobdingnagian King's military guard on parade, in detachments of 500. The horses are, of course, enormous - around 60 feet high.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER IV. THE COUNTRY DESCRIBED. A PROPOSAL FOR CORRECTING MODERN MAPS. THE KING'S PALACE, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE METROPOLIS. THE AUTHOR'S WAY OF TRAVELLING. THE CHIEF TEMPLE DESCRIBED. I now intend to give the reader a short description of this country, as far as I travelled in it, which was not above two thousand miles round Lorbrulgrud, the metropolis. For the queen, whom I always attended, never went farther when she accompanied the king in his progresses, and there staid till his majesty returned from viewing his frontiers. The whole extent of this prince's dominions reacheth about six thousand miles in length, and from three to five in breadth. From whence I cannot but conclude, that our geographers of Europe are in a great error, by supposing nothing but sea between Japan and California; for it was ever my opinion, that there must be a balance of earth to counterpoise the great continent of Tartary; and therefore they ought to correct their maps and charts, by joining this vast tract of land to the northwest parts of America, wherein I shall be ready to lend them my assistance. The kingdom is a peninsula, terminated to the northeast by a ridge of mountains, thirty miles high, which are altogether impassable, by reason of the volcanoes upon the tops: neither do the most learned know what sort of mortals inhabit beyond those mountains, or whether they be inhabited at all. On the three other sides it is bounded by the ocean. There is not one sea-port in the whole kingdom, and those parts of the coasts into which the rivers issue, are so full of pointed rocks, and the sea generally so rough, that there is no venturing with the smallest of their boats; so that these people are wholly excluded from any commerce with the rest of the world. But the large rivers are full of vessels, and abound with excellent fish, for they seldom get any from the sea, because the sea-fish are of the same size with those in Europe, and consequently not worth catching, whereby it is manifest, that nature, in the production of plants and animals of so extraordinary a bulk, is wholly confined to this continent, of which I leave the reasons to be determined by philosophers. However, now and then, they take a whale, that happens to be dashed against the rocks, which the common people feed on heartily. These whales I have known so large, that a man could hardly carry one upon his shoulders; and sometimes, for curiosity, they are brought in hampers to Lorbrulgrud: I saw one of them in a dish at the king's table, which passed for a rarity, but I did not observe he was fond of it; for I think indeed the bigness disgusted him, although I have seen one somewhat larger in Greenland. The country is well inhabited, for it contains fifty-one cities, near a hundred walled towns, and a great number of villages. To satisfy my curious reader, it may be sufficient to describe Lorbrulgrud. This city stands upon almost two equal parts on each side the river that passes through. It contains above eighty thousand houses, and about six hundred thousand inhabitants. It is in length three _glomglungs_ (which make about fifty-four English miles) and two and a half in breadth, as I measured it myself in the royal map made by the king's order, which was laid on the ground on purpose for me, and extended a hundred feet: I paced the diameter and circumference several times barefoot, and, computing by the scale, measured it pretty exactly. The king's palace is no regular edifice, but a heap of buildings, about seven miles round: the chief rooms are generally two hundred and forty feet high, and broad and long in proportion. A coach was allowed to Glumdalclitch and me, wherein her governess frequently took her out to see the town, or go among the shops; and I was always of the party, carried in my box; although the girl, at my own desire, would often take me out, and hold me in her hand, that I might more conveniently view the houses and the people as we passed along the streets, I reckoned our coach to be about the square of Westminster-hall, but not altogether so high: however, I cannot be very exact. Besides the large box in which I was usually carried, the queen ordered a smaller one to be made for me, of about twelve feet square and ten high, for the convenience of travelling, because the other was somewhat too large for Glumdalclitch's lap, and cumbersome in the coach. It was made by the same artist, whom I directed in the whole contrivance. This travelling closet was an exact square,[64] with a window in the middle of three of the squares, and each window was latticed with iron wire on the outside, to prevent accidents in long journeys. On the fourth side, which had no window, two strong staples were fixed, through which the person who carried me, when I had a mind to be on horseback, put a leathern belt, and buckled it about his waist. This was always the office of some grave, trusty servant, in whom I could confide, whether I attended the king and queen in their progresses, or were disposed to see the gardens, or pay a visit to some great lady or minister of state in the court; for I soon began to be known and esteemed among the greatest officers, I suppose more on account of their majesties' favor than any merit of my own. In journeys, when I was weary of the coach, a servant on horseback would buckle on my box, and place it upon a cushion before him; and there I had a full prospect of the country on three sides from my three windows. I had in this closet a field-bed, and a hammock hung from the ceiling, two chairs and a table, neatly screwed to the floor, to prevent being tossed about by the agitation of the horse or the coach. And having been long used to sea voyages, those motions, although sometimes very violent, did not much discompose me. Whenever I had a mind to see the town, it was always in my travelling closet, which Glumdalclitch held in her lap, in a kind of open sedan, after the fashion of the country, borne by four men, and attended by two others in the queen's livery. The people, who had often heard of me, were very curious to crowd about the sedan, and the girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop, and to take me in her hand, that I might be more conveniently seen. I was very desirous to see the chief temple, and particularly the tower belonging to it, which is reckoned the highest in the kingdom. Accordingly, one day my nurse carried me thither, but I must truly say I came back disappointed; for the height is not above three thousand feet, reckoning from the ground to the highest pinnacle top; which, allowing for the difference between the size of those people and us in Europe, is no great matter for admiration, nor at all equal in proportion (if I rightly remember) to Salisbury steeple.[65] But, not to detract from a nation, to which during my life I shall acknowledge myself extremely obliged, it must be allowed that whatever this famous tower wants in height is amply made up in beauty and strength. For the walls are nearly a hundred feet thick, built of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet square, and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and emperors, cut in marble larger than life, placed in their several niches. I measured a little finger which had fallen down from one of these statues, and lay unperceived among some rubbish, and found it exactly four feet and an inch in length. Glumdalclitch wrapped it up in her handkerchief and carried it home in her pocket, to keep among other trinkets, of which the girl was very fond, as children at her age usually are. The king's kitchen is indeed a noble building, vaulted at top, and about six hundred feet high. The great oven is not so wide by ten paces as the cupola at St. Paul's, for I measured the latter on purpose after my return. But if I should describe the kitchen-grate, the prodigious pots and kettles, the joints of meat turning on the spits, with many other particulars, perhaps I should be hardly believed; at least, a severe critic would be apt to think I enlarged a little, as travellers are often suspected to do. To avoid which censure, I fear I have run too much into the other extreme; and that if this treatise should happen to be translated into the language of Brobdingnag (which is the general name of that kingdom) and transmitted thither, the king and his people would have reason to complain that I had done them an injury, by a false and diminutive representation. His majesty seldom keeps above six hundred horses in his stables: they are generally from fifty-four to sixty feet high. But when he goes abroad on solemn days, he is attended for state by a militia guard of five hundred horse, which indeed I thought was the most splendid sight that could be ever beheld, till I saw part of his army in battalia,[66] whereof I shall find another occasion to speak. [Illustration]

Part 2, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-4

The island is 6,000 miles long and between 3,000 and 5,000 miles wide. It's a whole continent right smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, between California and Japan. The kingdom of Brobdingnag sits at the southern end of the island, surrounded on three sides by ocean and on one side by impassable mountains. The country has 51 cities, the largest of which is Lorbrulgrud. The king's palace in Lorbrulgrud is a mass of buildings about 7 miles around. Glumdalclitch takes Gulliver on frequent outings into the city, accompanied by her governess . When Gulliver goes on these outings, he is placed in a special box for travel, with windows on three sides to allow him to look out. Whenever they travel through the city, passersby always stop to look at Gulliver - he has become very famous. Gulliver and Glumdalclitch go out to see the primary temple of the city, which is both beautiful and 3,000 feet in height - about three-fifths of a mile. Believe it or not, Gulliver is disappointed - he expected the temple to be taller. Gulliver tells us that the king's kitchen is also amazing: it's 600 feet high . Gulliver is also most impressed by the sight of the Brobdingnagian King's military guard on parade, in detachments of 500. The horses are, of course, enormous - around 60 feet high.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Gulliver's Travels/section_14_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 7

part 2, chapter 7

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-7", "summary": "Gulliver sits and listens to the King's intense criticism of England. He keeps quiet because it would be ungrateful of him to contradict the King, his benefactor. He also reassures us that we should forgive the Brobdingnagian King for his criticism of England - how could the King know better, when his own country is so remote from all other nations of the world? To prove how ignorant and foolish the King is, Gulliver tells us, the readers, that he offered to show the King how to make gunpowder to subdue his enemies. The Brobdingnagian King listens to Gulliver's description of guns and is totally horrified. He makes Gulliver promise never even to mention these weapons to him again. Gulliver exclaims to the reader about the foolishness of the Brobdingnagian King, who has let this great opportunity for power slip through his fingers. Gulliver also criticizes Brobdingnagian education, which focuses on practical applications of knowledge rather than on abstract mysteries. No law in Brobdingnag can be longer than 20 words. They also don't have very many books. He comments on the clarity of their writing style: they never use too many words, and everything appears in simple language. The King's army is well-disciplined because all of its soldiers are farmers and tradesmen who serve under their own landlords and chief citizens. Gulliver wonders why the King bothers to have armies at all if there are no other countries nearby. It turns out that Brobdingnag has had a number of civil wars between nobles, who want power, the people, who want freedom, and the king, who wants total authority. In the aftermath of these civil wars, all three of these - the nobles, the people, and the king - have agreed that they need a militia to keep the peace.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER VII THE AUTHOR'S LOVE OF HIS COUNTRY. HE MAKES A PROPOSAL OF MUCH ADVANTAGE TO THE KING, WHICH IS REJECTED. THE KING'S GREAT IGNORANCE IN POLITICS. THE LEARNING OF THAT COUNTRY VERY IMPERFECT AND CONFINED. THE LAWS, AND MILITARY AFFAIRS, AND PARTIES IN THE STATE. Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover my resentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced to rest with patience, while my noble and beloved country was so injuriously treated. I am as heartily sorry as any of my readers can possibly be, that such an occasion was given: but this prince happened to be so curious and inquisitive upon every particular, that it could not consist either with gratitude or good manners, to refuse giving him what satisfaction I was able. Yet this much I may be allowed to say, in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis[79] with so much justice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light. This was my sincere endeavor, in those many discourses I had with that monarch, although it unfortunately failed of success. But great allowances should be given to a king who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world, and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted. And it would be hard indeed, if so remote a prince's notions of virtue and vice were to be offered as a standard for all mankind. To confirm what I have now said, and farther to show the miserable effects of a confined education, I shall here insert a passage which will hardly obtain belief. In hopes to ingratiate myself farther into his majesty's favor, I told him of an invention discovered between three and four hundred years ago, to make a certain powder into a heap, on which the smallest spark of fire falling would kindle the whole in a moment, although it were as big as a mountain, and make it all fly up in the air together with a noise and agitation greater than thunder. That a proper quantity of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass or iron, according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead with such violence and speed as nothing was able to sustain its force. That the largest balls thus discharged would not only destroy whole ranks of an army at once, but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink down ships with a thousand men in each to the bottom of the sea; and, when linked together by a chain, would cut through masts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all waste before them. That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near. That I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workman how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to be above a hundred feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole metropolis if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute commands. This I humbly offered to his majesty as a small tribute of acknowledgment, in return for so many marks that I had received of his royal favor and protection. The king was struck with horror at the description I had given him of those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. He was amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I (these were his expressions), could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation, which I had painted, as the common effects of those destructive machines, whereof, he said, some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for himself, he protested, that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom than be privy to such a secret, which he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any more. A strange effect of narrow principles and short views! that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents for government, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands, that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do I say this with the least intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whose character I am sensible will on this account be very much lessened in the opinion of an English reader; but I take this defect among them to have arisen from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a science, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I remember very well, in a discourse one day with the king, when I happened to say there were several thousand books among us, written upon the art of government, it gave him (directly contrary to my intention) a very mean opinion of our understandings. He professed both to abominate and despise all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a prince or a minister. He could not tell what I meant by secrets of state, where an enemy or some rival nation were not in the case. He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes, with some other obvious topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground, where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be useful in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all mechanical arts; so that among us it would be little esteemed. And as to ideas, entities, abstractions, and transcendentals,[80] I could never drive the least conception into their heads. No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty. But indeed few of them extend even to that length. They are expressed in the most plain and simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial[81] enough to discover above one interpretation; and to write a comment upon any law is a capital crime. As to the decision of civil causes, or proceedings against criminals, their precedents are so few, that they have little reason to boast of any extraordinary skill in either. They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out of mind: but their libraries are not very large; for that of the king, which is reckoned the largest, doth not amount to above a thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, from whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The queen's joiner had contrived in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine, five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a standing ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long: it was indeed a movable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to read was put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book began at the top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and then descending gradually, till I came to the bottom: after which I mounted again, and began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a paste-board, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long. Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for they avoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words, or using various expressions. I have perused many of their books, especially those in history and morality. Among the rest, I was much diverted with a little old treatise, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed-chamber, and belonged to her governess, a grave elderly gentlewoman, who dealt in writings of morality and devotion. The book treats of the weakness of human kind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and the vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that country could say upon such a subject. [Illustration] This writer went through all the usual topics of European moralists, showing how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts; how much he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, by a fourth in industry. He added, that nature was degenerated in these latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce only small births, in comparison to those in ancient times. He said, it was very reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were originally much larger, but also, that there must have been giants in former ages; which as it is asserted by history and tradition, so it hath been confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of man in our days. He argued, that the very laws of nature absolutely required we should have been made in the beginning of a size more large and robust, not so liable to destruction, from every little accident, of a tile falling from a house, or a stone cast from the hand of a boy, or being drowned in a little brook. From this way of reasoning the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I could not avoid reflecting, how universally this talent was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or, indeed, rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with nature. And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people. As to their military affairs, they boast that the king's army consists of a hundred and seventy-six thousand foot, and thirty-two thousand horse: if that may be called an army which is made up of tradesmen in the several cities, and farmers in the country, whose commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay or reward. They are indeed perfect enough in their exercises, and under very good discipline, wherein I saw no great merit; for how should it be otherwise, where every farmer is under the command of his own landlord, and every citizen under that of the principal men in his own city, chosen after the manner of Venice, by ballot? I have often seen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise in a great field, near the city, of twenty miles square. They were in all not above twenty-five thousand foot, and six thousand horse: but it was impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from every quarter of the sky. I was curious to know how this prince, to whose dominions there is no access from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach his people the practice of military discipline. But I was soon informed, both by conversation and reading their histories: for in the course of many ages, they have been troubled with the same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion. All which, however, happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have more than once occasioned civil wars, the last whereof was happily put an end to by this prince's grandfather, in a general composition;[82] and the militia, then settled with common consent, hath been ever since kept in the strictest duty. [Illustration]

Part 2, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210503175927/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/gullivers-travels/summary/part-2-chapter-7

Gulliver sits and listens to the King's intense criticism of England. He keeps quiet because it would be ungrateful of him to contradict the King, his benefactor. He also reassures us that we should forgive the Brobdingnagian King for his criticism of England - how could the King know better, when his own country is so remote from all other nations of the world? To prove how ignorant and foolish the King is, Gulliver tells us, the readers, that he offered to show the King how to make gunpowder to subdue his enemies. The Brobdingnagian King listens to Gulliver's description of guns and is totally horrified. He makes Gulliver promise never even to mention these weapons to him again. Gulliver exclaims to the reader about the foolishness of the Brobdingnagian King, who has let this great opportunity for power slip through his fingers. Gulliver also criticizes Brobdingnagian education, which focuses on practical applications of knowledge rather than on abstract mysteries. No law in Brobdingnag can be longer than 20 words. They also don't have very many books. He comments on the clarity of their writing style: they never use too many words, and everything appears in simple language. The King's army is well-disciplined because all of its soldiers are farmers and tradesmen who serve under their own landlords and chief citizens. Gulliver wonders why the King bothers to have armies at all if there are no other countries nearby. It turns out that Brobdingnag has had a number of civil wars between nobles, who want power, the people, who want freedom, and the king, who wants total authority. In the aftermath of these civil wars, all three of these - the nobles, the people, and the king - have agreed that they need a militia to keep the peace.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/1.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_0_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-1", "summary": "On this voyage, Gulliver goes to the sea as a surgeon on the merchant ship, Antelope. The ship is destroyed during a heavy windstorm, and Gulliver, the only survivor, swims to a nearby island, Lilliput. Being nearly exhausted from the ordeal, he falls asleep. Upon awakening, he finds that the island's inhabitants, who are no larger than six inches tall, have captured him. After the inhabitants examine Gulliver and provide him with food, the Emperor of this country orders his subjects to move Gulliver to a little-used temple, the only place large enough to house him.", "analysis": "In this first chapter, Swift establishes Gulliver's character. He does this primarily by the vast amount of details that he tells us about Gulliver. Clearly, Gulliver is of good and solid -- but unimaginative -- English stock. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, a sedate county without eccentricity. He attended Emmanuel College, a respected, but not dazzling, college. The neighborhoods that Gulliver lived in -- Old Jury, Fetter Lane, and Wapping -- are all lower-middle-class sections. He is, in short, Mr. British middle class of his time. Gulliver is also, as might be expected, \"gullible.\" He believes what he is told. He is an honest man, and he expects others to be honest. This expectation makes for humor -- and also for irony. We can be sure that what Gulliver tells us will be accurate. And we can also be fairly sure that Gulliver does not always understand the meaning of what he sees. The result is a series of astonishingly detailed, dead-pan scenes. For example, Gulliver gradually discovers, moving from one exact detail to another, that he is a prisoner of men six inches tall. Concerning the political application of this chapter, note that Gulliver is confined in a building that was emptied because a notorious murder was committed there. The building probably represents Westminster Hall, where Charles I was tried and sentenced to death. Glossary to alter my condition to marry. hosier a haberdasher, a person whose work or business is selling men's furnishings, such as hats, shirts, neckties, and gloves. four hundred pounds for a portion The part of a man's money or property contributed by his bride; here, meaning Gulliver's dowry. East and West Indies East: Malay Archipelago; especially, the islands of Indonesia; West: the large group of islands between North America and South America; it includes the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas. Van Diemen's Island former name for Tasmania. declivity a downward slope or sloping, as of a hill. several slender ligatures the ropes used to tie Gulliver to the ground. buff jerkin a short, closefitting, sleeveless jacket or vest made of soft brownish leather. durst dared. hogshead a large barrel or cask holding from 63 to 140 gallons. retinue a body of assistants, followers, or servants attending a person of rank or importance. Signet Royal an official seal. express a special messenger; courier. soporiferous medicine medicine that causes or tends to cause sleep. latitude angular distance, measured in degrees, north or south from the equator."}

PART I. _A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT_. CHAPTER I. THE AUTHOR GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF AND FAMILY: HIS FIRST INDUCEMENTS TO TRAVEL. HE IS SHIPWRECKED, AND SWIMS FOR HIS LIFE; GETS SAFE ASHORE IN THE COUNTRY OF LILLIPUT; IS MADE A PRISONER, AND CARRIED UP THE COUNTRY. My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emmanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years; and my father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father, where, by the assistance of him, and my uncle John and some other relations, I got forty pounds,[2] and a promise of thirty pounds a year, to maintain me at Leyden. There I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages. Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the "Swallow," Captain Abraham Pannell, commander; with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant,[3] and some other parts. When I came back I resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and, being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton,[4] second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier in Newgate Street, with whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion. But my good master, Bates, dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my brethren. Having, therefore, consulted with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and, when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language, wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory. The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three years' expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the "Antelope," who was making a voyage to the South Sea.[5] We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699; and our voyage at first was very prosperous. It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas. Let it suffice to inform him, that, in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm, to the northwest of Van Diemen's Land.[6] By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees and 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labor and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the fifth of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock within half a cable's length of the ship;[7] but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labor, while we were in the ship. We, therefore, trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves; and, in about half an hour, the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell, but conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but, when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and, by this time, the storm was much abated. The declivity was so small that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least, I was in so weak a condition, that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for, when I awaked, it was just daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but, in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time, I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which, advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downward, as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature, not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the meantime I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill, but distinct voice--_Hekinah degul!_ the others repeated the same words several times, but I then knew not what they meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness. At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs, that fastened my left arm to the ground; for by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and, at the same time, with a violent pull, which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, _Tolgo phonac_; when, in an instant, I felt above an hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and, besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a-groaning with grief and pain, and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on me a buff jerkin,[8] which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself; and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. [Illustration: "I LAY ALL THIS WHILE IN GREAT UNEASINESS" P. 8.] But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows: but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work; when, turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected, about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it; from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable. [Illustration] But I should have mentioned, that before the principal person began his oration, he cried out three times, _Langro debul san_ (these words, and the former, were afterwards repeated, and explained to me). Whereupon immediately about fifty of the inhabitants came and cut the strings that fastened the left side of my head, which gave me the liberty of turning it to the right, and of observing the person and gesture of him that was to speak. He appeared to be of a middle age, and taller than any of the other three who attended him, whereof one was a page that held up his train, and seemed to be somewhat longer than my middle finger; the other two stood one on each side, to support him. He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes, to the sun, as calling him for a witness: and, being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The _hurgo_ (for so they call a great lord, as I afterwards learned) understood me very well. He descended from the stage, and commanded that several ladders should be applied to my sides; on which above a hundred of the inhabitants mounted, and walked towards my mouth, laden with baskets full of meat, which had been provided and sent thither by the king's orders, upon the first intelligence he received of me. I observed there was the flesh of several animals, but could not distinguish them by the taste. There were shoulders, legs, and loins, shaped like those of mutton, and very well dressed, but smaller than the wings of a lark. I ate them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three loaves at a time, about the bigness of musket bullets. They supplied me as they could, showing a thousand marks of wonder and astonishment at my bulk and appetite. I then made another sign that I wanted drink. They found by my eating that a small quantity would not suffice me; and being a most ingenious people, they slung up with great dexterity, one of their largest hogsheads, then rolled it towards my hand, and beat out the top: I drank it off at a draught; which I might well do, for it did not hold half a pint, and tasted like a small[9] wine of Burgundy, but much more delicious. They brought me a second hogshead, which I drank in the same manner, and made signs for more; but they had none to give me. When I had performed these wonders, they shouted for joy, and danced upon my breast, repeating, several times, as they did at first, _Hekinah degul_. They made me a sign, that I should throw down the two hogsheads, but first warning the people below to stand out of the way, crying aloud, _Borach nevola_; and, when they saw the vessels in the air, there was an universal shout of _Hekinah degul_. I confess, I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the promise of honor I made them--for so I interpreted my submissive behavior--soon drove out those imaginations. Besides, I now considered myself as bound, by the laws of hospitality, to a people who had treated me with so much expense and magnificence. However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk upon my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creature, as I must appear to them. [Illustration: "PRODUCING HIS CREDENTIALS." P. 14.] After some time, when they observed that I made no more demands for meat, there appeared before me a person of high rank from his imperial majesty. His excellency, having mounted on the small of my right leg, advanced forwards up to my face, with about a dozen of his retinue: and, producing his credentials under the signet-royal,[10] which he applied close to my eyes, spoke about ten minutes, without any signs of anger, but with a kind of determinate resolution, often pointing forwards, which, as I afterwards found, was towards the capital city, about half a mile distant, whither it was agreed by his majesty in council that I must be conveyed. I answered in few words, but to no purpose, and made a sign with my hand that was loose, putting it to the other (but over his excellency's head, for fear of hurting him or his train) and then to my own head and body, to signify that I desired my liberty. It appeared that he understood me well enough, for he shook his head by way of disapprobation, and held his hand in a posture to show that I must be carried as a prisoner. However, he made other signs, to let me understand that I should have meat and drink enough, and very good treatment. Whereupon I once more thought of attempting to break my bonds; but again, when I felt the smart of their arrows upon my face and hands, which were all in blisters, and many of the darts still sticking in them, and observing, likewise, that the number of my enemies increased, I gave tokens to let them know, that they might do with me what they pleased. Upon this the _hurgo_ and his train withdrew, with much civility, and cheerful countenances. Soon after, I heard a general shout, with frequent repetitions of the words, _Peplom selan_, and I felt great numbers of people on my left side, relaxing the cords to such a degree, that I was able to turn upon my right, and to get a little ease. But, before this, they had daubed my face and both my hands with a sort of ointment very pleasant to the smell, which, in a few minutes, removed all the smart of their arrows. These circumstances, added to the refreshment I had received by their victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the hogsheads of wine. It seems that, upon the first moment I was discovered sleeping on the ground after my landing, the emperor had early notice of it, by an express; and determined in council, that I should be tied in the manner I have related (which was done in the night, while I slept), that plenty of meat and drink should be sent to me, and a machine prepared to carry me to the capital city. This resolution, perhaps, may appear very bold and dangerous, and I am confident would not be imitated by any prince in Europe, on the like occasion. However, in my opinion, it was extremely prudent, as well as generous; for, supposing these people had endeavored to kill me with their spears and arrows, while I was asleep, I should certainly have awaked with the first sense of smart, which might so far have roused my rage and strength, as to have enabled me to break the strings wherewith I was tied; after which, as they were not able to make resistance, so they could expect no mercy. These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great perfection in mechanics, by the countenance and encouragement of the emperor, who is a renowned patron of learning. The prince hath several machines fixed on wheels for the carriage of trees, and other great weights. He often builds his largest men of war, whereof some are nine feet long, in the woods where the timber grows, and has them carried on these engines three or four hundred yards to the sea. Five hundred carpenters and engineers were immediately set to work, to prepare the greatest engine they had. It was a frame of wood, raised three inches from the ground, about seven feet long and four wide, moving upon twenty-two wheels. The shout I heard was upon the arrival of this engine, which, it seems, set out in four hours after my landing. It was brought parallel to me, as I lay. But the principal difficulty was, to raise and place me in this vehicle. Eighty poles, each of one foot high, were erected for this purpose, and very strong cords, of the bigness of packthread, were fastened by hooks to many bandages, which the workmen had girt round my neck, my hands, my body, and my legs. Nine hundred of the strongest men were employed to draw up these cords by many pulleys fastened on the poles; and thus, in less than three hours, I was raised and slung into the engine, and tied fast. [Illustration] All this I was told; for, while the whole operation was performing, I lay in a profound sleep, by the force of that soporiferous medicine infused into my liquor. Fifteen hundred of the emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were employed to draw me towards the metropolis, which, as I said, was half a mile distant. About four hours after we began our journey, I awaked, by a very ridiculous accident; for, the carriage being stopt a while, to adjust something that was out of order, two or three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I looked, when I was asleep. They climbed up into the engine, and advancing very softly to my face, one of them, an officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike[11] a good way up into my left nostril, which tickled my nose like a straw, and made me sneeze violently; whereupon they stole off, unperceived, and it was three weeks before I knew the cause of my awaking so suddenly. We made a long march the remaining part of the day, and rested at night with five hundred guards on each side of me, half with torches, and half with bows and arrows, ready to shoot me, if I should offer to stir. The next morning, at sunrise, we continued our march, and arrived within two hundred yards of the city gates about noon. The emperor, and all his court, came out to meet us; but his great officers would by no means suffer his majesty to endanger his person, by mounting on my body. At the place where the carriage stopt, there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom, which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge. The great gate, fronting to the north, was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground; into that on the left side the king's smith conveyed four score and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady's watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with six-and-thirty padlocks. [Illustration] Over against this temple, on the other side of the great highway, at twenty feet distance, there was a turret at least five feet high. Here the emperor ascended, with many principal lords of his court, to have an opportunity of viewing me, as I was told, for I could not see them. It was reckoned that above an hundred thousand inhabitants came out of the town upon the same errand; and, in spite of my guards, I believe there could not be fewer than ten thousand, at several times, who mounted my body, by the help of ladders. But a proclamation was soon issued, to forbid it, upon pain of death. When the workmen found it was impossible for me to break loose, they cut all the strings that bound me; whereupon I rose up, with as melancholy a disposition as ever I had in my life. But the noise and astonishment of the people, at seeing me rise and walk, are not to be expressed. The chains that held my left leg were about two yards long, and gave me not only the liberty of walking backwards and forwards in a semi-circle, but, being fixed within four inches of the gate, allowed me to creep in, and lie at my full length in the temple. [Illustration]

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-1

On this voyage, Gulliver goes to the sea as a surgeon on the merchant ship, Antelope. The ship is destroyed during a heavy windstorm, and Gulliver, the only survivor, swims to a nearby island, Lilliput. Being nearly exhausted from the ordeal, he falls asleep. Upon awakening, he finds that the island's inhabitants, who are no larger than six inches tall, have captured him. After the inhabitants examine Gulliver and provide him with food, the Emperor of this country orders his subjects to move Gulliver to a little-used temple, the only place large enough to house him.

In this first chapter, Swift establishes Gulliver's character. He does this primarily by the vast amount of details that he tells us about Gulliver. Clearly, Gulliver is of good and solid -- but unimaginative -- English stock. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, a sedate county without eccentricity. He attended Emmanuel College, a respected, but not dazzling, college. The neighborhoods that Gulliver lived in -- Old Jury, Fetter Lane, and Wapping -- are all lower-middle-class sections. He is, in short, Mr. British middle class of his time. Gulliver is also, as might be expected, "gullible." He believes what he is told. He is an honest man, and he expects others to be honest. This expectation makes for humor -- and also for irony. We can be sure that what Gulliver tells us will be accurate. And we can also be fairly sure that Gulliver does not always understand the meaning of what he sees. The result is a series of astonishingly detailed, dead-pan scenes. For example, Gulliver gradually discovers, moving from one exact detail to another, that he is a prisoner of men six inches tall. Concerning the political application of this chapter, note that Gulliver is confined in a building that was emptied because a notorious murder was committed there. The building probably represents Westminster Hall, where Charles I was tried and sentenced to death. Glossary to alter my condition to marry. hosier a haberdasher, a person whose work or business is selling men's furnishings, such as hats, shirts, neckties, and gloves. four hundred pounds for a portion The part of a man's money or property contributed by his bride; here, meaning Gulliver's dowry. East and West Indies East: Malay Archipelago; especially, the islands of Indonesia; West: the large group of islands between North America and South America; it includes the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas. Van Diemen's Island former name for Tasmania. declivity a downward slope or sloping, as of a hill. several slender ligatures the ropes used to tie Gulliver to the ground. buff jerkin a short, closefitting, sleeveless jacket or vest made of soft brownish leather. durst dared. hogshead a large barrel or cask holding from 63 to 140 gallons. retinue a body of assistants, followers, or servants attending a person of rank or importance. Signet Royal an official seal. express a special messenger; courier. soporiferous medicine medicine that causes or tends to cause sleep. latitude angular distance, measured in degrees, north or south from the equator.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/2.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_1_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 2

chapter 2

{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-2", "summary": "In this chapter, the Imperial Majesty and Gulliver carry on a conversation as best they can. After the Emperor's visit, six Lilliputians shoot arrows at Gulliver. Gulliver retaliates by pretending to eat the little archers and then releases them. This clemency, and Gulliver's cooperation, so impress the Imperial Council that they debate whether or not to free Gulliver. An officer takes inventory of Gulliver's possessions, which will be held until Gulliver's fate is settled upon.", "analysis": "Swift makes the Lilliputians seem ridiculous by having Gulliver compare them to dolls. The little doll-like men strut and posture like full-sized men. Yet we cannot take them seriously. They are too tiny to be considered as majestic as they think they are. But \"we\" are not Gulliver, and he takes them seriously, especially the Emperor. Consider, for example, Gulliver's description of the Emperor: \"His features are strong and masculine with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well-proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic.\" Everything that the Emperor does is respectfully detailed, which of course makes the scene even more entertaining and ridiculous. Swift's contemporaries were doubtless amused by Gulliver's naive awe of the Lilliputian emperor. The Emperor's face clearly resembles the face of George I, yet Gulliver describes the assortment of features as handsome; George I was notoriously gross and ugly. Another political reference in this chapter concerns the list of things found in Gulliver's pockets. Normal, common, everyday possessions become unrecognizable when we see them out of proportion. To the Lilliputians, Gulliver's comb becomes a palisade. Swift is satirizing here the evidence presented against Harley and Bolingbroke in 1715. Certain Whig commissioners did their best to twist letters and books of the accused into treasonable meanings. Swift did not approve and described graphically the sinister distortions that party passion can cause in a person's mind. Glossary demesnes lands or estates belonging chiefly to a lord and not rented or let but kept in his hands. draymen persons whose work involves hauling loads in a dray ."}

CHAPTER II. THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT, ATTENDED BY SEVERAL OF THE NOBILITY, COMES TO SEE THE AUTHOR IN HIS CONFINEMENT. THE EMPEROR'S PERSON AND HABIT DESCRIBED. LEARNED MEN APPOINTED TO TEACH THE AUTHOR THEIR LANGUAGE. HE GAINS FAVOR BY HIS MILD DISPOSITION. HIS POCKETS ARE SEARCHED, AND HIS SWORD AND PISTOLS TAKEN FROM HIM. When I found myself on my feet, I looked about me, and must confess I never beheld a more entertaining prospect. The country around, appeared like a continued garden, and the enclosed fields, which were generally forty feet square, resembled so many beds of flowers. These fields were intermingled with woods of half a stang,[12] and the tallest trees, as I could judge, appeared to be seven feet high. I viewed the town on my left hand, which looked like the painted scene of a city in a theatre. The emperor was already descended from the tower, and advancing on horseback towards me, which had like to have cost him dear; for the beast, though very well trained, yet wholly unused to such a sight, which appeared as if a mountain moved before him, reared up on his hind feet. But that prince, who is an excellent horseman, kept his seat, till his attendants ran in and held the bridle, while his majesty had time to dismount. When he alighted, he surveyed me round with great admiration, but kept without the length of my chain. He ordered his cooks and butlers, who were already prepared, to give me victuals and drink, which they pushed forward in a sort of vehicles upon wheels, till I could reach them. I took these vehicles, and soon emptied them all; twenty of them were filled with meat; each afforded me two or three good mouthfuls. The empress and young princes of the blood of both sexes, attended by many ladies, sat at some distance in their chairs;[13] but upon the accident that happened to the emperor's horse, they alighted, and came near his person, which I am now going to describe. He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three-quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off. However, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description. [Illustration] His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels, and a plume an the crest.[14] He held his sword drawn in his hand, to defend himself, if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three inches long; the hilt and scabbard were gold, enriched with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it, when I stood up. The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad; so that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread on the ground, embroidered with figures of gold and silver. His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers, but neither of us could understand a syllable. There were several of his priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured by their habits), who were commanded to address themselves to me; and I spoke to them in as many languages as I had the least smattering of, which were, High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca;[15] but all to no purpose. After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard, to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst; and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring-leaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my hands; which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forwards with the butt-ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them all on my right hand, put five of them into my coat-pocket; and as to the sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my penknife; but I soon put them out of fear, for, looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket; and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly delighted at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at court. [Illustration] Towards night, I got with some difficulty into my house, where I lay on the ground, and continued to do so about a fortnight, during which time the emperor gave orders to have a bed prepared for me. Six hundred beds, of the common measure, were brought in carriages and worked up in my house; an hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the breadth and length; and these were four double, which, however, kept me but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, which was of smooth stone. By the same computation, they provided me with sheets, blankets, and coverlets, which were tolerable enough for one who had been so long inured to hardships as I. As the news of my arrival spread through the kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious people to see me; so that the villages were almost emptied; and great neglect of tillage and household affairs must have ensued, if his imperial majesty had not provided, by several proclamations and orders of state, against this inconvenience. He directed that those who had already beheld me should return home, and not presume to come within fifty yards of my house without license from court; whereby the secretaries of state got considerable fees. In the meantime, the emperor held frequent councils, to debate what course should be taken with me; and I was afterwards assured by a particular friend, a person of great quality, who was as much in the secret as any, that the court was under many difficulties concerning me. They apprehended my breaking loose; that my diet would be very expensive, and might cause a famine. Sometimes they determined to starve me, or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon despatch me: but again they considered that the stench of so large a carcase might produce a plague in the metropolis, and probably spread through the whole kingdom. In the midst of these consultations, several officers of the army went to the door of the great council-chamber, and two of them being admitted, gave an account of my behavior to the six criminals above-mentioned, which made so favorable an impression in the breast of his majesty, and the whole board, in my behalf, that an imperial commission was issued out, obliging all the villages nine hundred yards round the city to deliver in, every morning, six beeves, forty sheep, and other victuals, for my sustenance; together with a proportionable quantity of bread and wine, and other liquors; for the due payment of which his majesty gave assignments upon his treasury. For this prince lives chiefly upon his own demesnes, seldom, except upon great occasions, raising any subsidies upon his subjects, who are bound to attend him in his wars at their own expense. An establishment was also made of six hundred persons, to be my domestics, who had board-wages allowed for their maintenance, and tents built for them very conveniently on each side of my door. It was likewise ordered that three hundred tailors should make me a suit of clothes, after the fashion of the country; that six of his majesty's greatest scholars should be employed to instruct me in their language; and lastly, that the emperor's horses, and those of the nobility and troops of guards, should be frequently exercised in my sight, to accustom themselves to me. All these orders were duly put in execution, and in about three weeks I made a great progress in learning their language; during which time the emperor frequently honored me with his visits, and was pleased to assist my masters in teaching me. We began already to converse together in some sort; and the first words I learnt were to express my desire that he would please give me my liberty, which I every day repeated on my knees. His answer, as I could apprehend it, was, that this must be a work of time, not to be thought on without the advice of his council, and that first I must _lumos kelmin pesso desmar lon emposo_; that is, swear a peace with him and his kingdom. However, that I should be used with all kindness; and he advised me to acquire, by my patience and discreet behavior, the good opinion of himself and his subjects. He desired I would not take it ill, if he gave orders to certain proper officers to search me; for probably I might carry about me several weapons which must needs be dangerous things, if they answered the bulk of so prodigious a person. I said his majesty should be satisfied, for I was ready to strip myself and turn up my pockets before him. This I delivered, part in words, and part in signs. He replied, that by the laws of the kingdom, I must be searched by two of his officers; that he knew this could not be done without my consent and assistance; that he had so good an opinion of my generosity and justice, as to trust their persons in my hands; that whatever they took from me should be returned when I left the country, or paid for at the rate which I should set upon them. I took up the two officers in my hands, put them first into my coat-pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, except my two fobs and another secret pocket, which I had no mind should be searched, wherein I had some little necessaries that were of no consequence to any but myself. In one of my fobs there was a silver watch, and in the other a small quantity of gold in a purse. [Illustration: "THESE GENTLEMEN MADE AN EXACT INVENTORY OF EVERYTHING THEY SAW" P. 30.] These gentlemen having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact inventory of everything they saw; and, when they had done, desired I would set them down, that they might deliver it to the emperor. This inventory I afterwards translated into English, and is word for word as follows:-- _Imprimis_,[16] In the right coat-pocket of the great man-mountain (for so I interpret the words _quinbus flestrin_), after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth for your majesty's chief room of state. In the left pocket, we saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we the searchers were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us stepping into it, found himself up to the mid-leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces, set us both a sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a prodigious number of white thin substances folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures; which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left, there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, resembling the palisadoes before your majesty's court; wherewith we conjecture the man-mountain combs his head, for we did not always trouble him with questions, because we found it a great difficulty to make him understand us. In the large pocket on the right side of his middle cover (so I translate the word _ranfu-lo_, by which they meant my breeches), we saw a hollow pillar of iron, about the length of a man, fastened to a strong piece of timber, larger than the pillar; and upon one side of the pillar were huge pieces of iron sticking out, cut into strange figures, which we know not what to make of. In the left pocket, another engine of the same kind. In the smaller pocket on the right side were several round flat pieces of white and red metal, of different bulk; some of the white, which seemed to be silver, were so large and so heavy, that my comrade and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket, were two black pillars irregularly shaped; we could not without difficulty reach the top of them, as we stood at the bottom of his pocket. One of them was covered, and seemed all of a piece; but at the upper end of the other, there appeared a white and round substance, about twice the bigness of our heads. Within each of these was enclosed a prodigious plate of steel, which, by our orders, we obliged him to show us, because we apprehended they might be dangerous engines. He took them out of their cases, and told us that in his own country his practice was to shave his beard with one of these, and to cut his meat with the other. There were two pockets which we could not enter: these he called his fobs. Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom. We directed him to draw out whatever was at the end of that chain, which appeared to be a globe, half silver, and half of some transparent metal; for on the transparent side we saw certain strange figures, circularly drawn, and thought we could touch them till we found our fingers stopped by that lucid substance.[17] He put this engine to our ears, which made an incessant noise, like that of a water-mill; and we conjecture it is either some unknown animal, or the god that he worships; but we are more inclined to the latter opinion, because he assured us (if we understood him right, for he expressed himself very imperfectly), that he seldom did anything without consulting it. He called it his oracle, and said it pointed out the time for every action of his life. From the left fob he took out a net almost large enough for a fisherman, but contrived to open and shut like a purse, and served him for the same use; we found therein several massy pieces of yellow metal, which, if they be real gold, must be of immense value. Having thus, in obedience to your majesty's commands, diligently searched all his pockets, we observed a girdle about his waist, made of the hide of some prodigious animal, from which, on the left side, hung a sword of the length of five men; and on the right, a bag or pouch, divided into two cells, each cell capable of holding three of your majesty's subjects. In one of these cells were several globes, or balls, of a most ponderous metal, about the bigness of our heads, and required a strong hand to lift them; the other cell contained a heap of certain black grains, but of no great bulk or weight, for we could hold about fifty of them in the palms of our hands. This is an exact inventory of what we found about the body of the man-mountain, who used us with great civility and due respect to your majesty's commission. Signed and sealed, on the fourth day of the eighty-ninth moon of your majesty's auspicious reign. CLEFRIN FRELOC. MARSI FRELOC. When this inventory was read over to the emperor, he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scimitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the meantime, he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops (who then attended him) to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge; but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his majesty. He then desired me to draw my scimitar, which, although it had got some rust by the sea-water, was in most parts exceedingly bright. I did so, and immediately all the troops gave a shout between terror and surprise; for the sun shone clear, and the reflection dazzled their eyes, as I waved the scimitar to and fro in my hand. His majesty, who is a most magnanimous prince, was less daunted than I could expect; he ordered me to return it into the scabbard, and cast it on the ground as gently as I could, about six feet from the end of my chain. The next thing he demanded was one of the hollow iron pillars, by which he meant my pocket-pistols. I drew it out, and at his desire, as well as I could, expressed to him the use of it; and charging it only with powder, which, by the closeness of my pouch, happened to escape wetting in the sea (an inconvenience against which all prudent mariners take special care to provide), I first cautioned the emperor not to be afraid, and then let it off in the air. The astonishment here was much greater than at the sight of my scimitar. Hundreds fell down as if they had been struck dead; and even the emperor, although he stood his ground, could not recover himself in some time I delivered up both my pistols, in the same manner as I had done my scimitar, and then my pouch of powder and bullets, begging him that the former might be kept from fire, for it would kindle with the smallest spark, and blow up his imperial palace into the air. [Illustration] I likewise delivered up my watch, which the emperor was very curious to see, and commanded two of his tallest yeomen of the guards[18] to bear it on a pole upon their shoulders, as draymen in England do a barrel of ale. He was amazed at the continual noise it made and the motion of the minute-hand, which he could easily discern; for their sight is much more acute than ours. He asked the opinions of his learned men about it, which were various and remote, as the reader may well imagine without my repeating; although, indeed, I could not very perfectly understand them. I then gave up my silver and copper money, my purse, with nine large pieces of gold, and some smaller ones; my knife and razor, my comb and silver snuffbox, my handkerchief and journal-book. My scimitar, pistols, and pouch were conveyed in carriages to his majesty's stores; but the rest of my goods were returned to me. I had, as I before observed, one private pocket, which escaped their search, wherein there was a pair of spectacles (which I sometimes use for the weakness of mine eyes), a pocket perspective,[19] and some other little conveniences; which, being of no consequence to the emperor, I did not think myself bound in honor to discover; and I apprehended they might be lost or spoiled if I ventured them out of my possession. [Illustration]

Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-2

In this chapter, the Imperial Majesty and Gulliver carry on a conversation as best they can. After the Emperor's visit, six Lilliputians shoot arrows at Gulliver. Gulliver retaliates by pretending to eat the little archers and then releases them. This clemency, and Gulliver's cooperation, so impress the Imperial Council that they debate whether or not to free Gulliver. An officer takes inventory of Gulliver's possessions, which will be held until Gulliver's fate is settled upon.

Swift makes the Lilliputians seem ridiculous by having Gulliver compare them to dolls. The little doll-like men strut and posture like full-sized men. Yet we cannot take them seriously. They are too tiny to be considered as majestic as they think they are. But "we" are not Gulliver, and he takes them seriously, especially the Emperor. Consider, for example, Gulliver's description of the Emperor: "His features are strong and masculine with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well-proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic." Everything that the Emperor does is respectfully detailed, which of course makes the scene even more entertaining and ridiculous. Swift's contemporaries were doubtless amused by Gulliver's naive awe of the Lilliputian emperor. The Emperor's face clearly resembles the face of George I, yet Gulliver describes the assortment of features as handsome; George I was notoriously gross and ugly. Another political reference in this chapter concerns the list of things found in Gulliver's pockets. Normal, common, everyday possessions become unrecognizable when we see them out of proportion. To the Lilliputians, Gulliver's comb becomes a palisade. Swift is satirizing here the evidence presented against Harley and Bolingbroke in 1715. Certain Whig commissioners did their best to twist letters and books of the accused into treasonable meanings. Swift did not approve and described graphically the sinister distortions that party passion can cause in a person's mind. Glossary demesnes lands or estates belonging chiefly to a lord and not rented or let but kept in his hands. draymen persons whose work involves hauling loads in a dray .

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/3.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_2_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-3", "summary": "The Lilliputian emperor is pleased that Gulliver is friendly and cooperative, so he rewards him with some court diversions. The diversions, however, prove to be quite different than one might expect. It is the Lilliputian court custom that men seeking political office demonstrate their agility in rope dancing, among other things. How long and how skillfully a candidate can dance upon a rope determines his tenure in office. Of the candidates, two are particularly adept: Reldresal, Gulliver's friend, and Flimnap, the treasurer. Other diversions include noblemen competing for official favor by crawling under or leaping over a stick, a feat for which they are then rewarded with various colored threads. Gulliver also reviews the Emperor's troops; he stands, legs apart, while the tiny men march through. As a result of Gulliver's cooperation, a pact between Gulliver and the Emperor is agreed on. Gulliver is granted limited freedom on certain conditions. In return for abiding by the conditions, he will receive food sufficient for 1,728 Lilliputians. Gulliver swears to the articles in proper form, and the Emperor frees him.", "analysis": "The jumping and crawling games that Gulliver describes sound innocent, like games children might play. Politically, however, their significance is far from innocent. The crawlers and jumpers perform for the amusement of the monarch and are rewarded with blue, red, or green threads. These threads represent the various orders of the Garter, the Bath, and the Thistle. George I used these orders as cheap ways of buying political support from social climbers. Politicians, Swift is saying, are always ready to debase themselves by performing humiliating games, hoping for colored ribbons, money, or titles. Swift's model for Flimnap, the most dexterous of the rope dancers, was Robert Walpole, the leader of the Whigs. Walpole was England's first prime minister in the modern sense and an extremely wily politician. He resigned in 1717 but was restored to office four years later through the influence of the Duchess of Kendal. The Duchess was his mistress and, figuratively, is the cushion on which Flimnap breaks his fall. Walpole was not a pro-war Whig, but he did use war sentiment to retain power; privately, he believed that England prospered better under peace than war. Accordingly, Swift characterizes Flimnap's specialty as somersaults in mid-air. It is thought that Reldresal, the second most dexterous of the rope dancers, probably represents either Viscount Townshend or Lord Carteret. Both were political allies of Walpole. The articles that Gulliver signs relate the political life of Lilliput to the political life of England. The first four articles seem to parallel the ancient position of the king of England. At one time, the king could not leave the country or enter London without permission. In addition, his writ was effective only on his royal domains and on the royal highways. It is possible that Swift is contrasting Gulliver, who is decent, with modern kings to suggest a contrast between antique virtue and modern degeneration. The absurd and complicated method by which Gulliver must swear to the articles exemplifies another aspect of Whig politics: petty, red-tape harassing. The Whigs attacked the Tory's Treaty of Utrecht, maintaining that the peace treaty was invalid because the royal warranty was not properly countersigned. At the Lilliputian court, it is difficult for Gulliver to hold his right foot in his left hand and place the middle finger of his right hand on top of his head with the right thumb on the tip of his ear. Yet that is how he must \"countersign\" his agreement. If the thumb is not squarely on the ear, the sworn loyalty will be technically in question. Glossary summerset a somersault. trencher a wooden board or platter on which to carve or serve meat. colossus a gigantic statue. pikes advanced a pike is a weapon used by foot soldiers, consisting of a metal spearhead on a long, wooden shaft; here, the weapons are held in an attacking position."}

CHAPTER III. THE AUTHOR DIVERTS THE EMPEROR AND HIS NOBILITY OF BOTH SEXES IN A VERY UNCOMMON MANNER. THE DIVERSIONS OF THE COURT OF LILLIPUT DESCRIBED. THE AUTHOR HAS HIS LIBERTY GRANTED HIM UPON CERTAIN CONDITIONS. My gentleness and good behavior had gained so far on the emperor and his court, and indeed upon the army and people in general, that I began to conceive hopes of getting my liberty in a short time, I took all possible methods to cultivate this favorable disposition. The natives came by degrees to be less apprehensive of any danger from me. I would sometimes lie down, and let five or six of them dance on my hand, and at last the boys and girls would venture to come and play at hide and seek in my hair. I had now made a good progress in understanding and speaking their language. The emperor had a mind, one day, to entertain me with one of the country shows, wherein they exceed all nations I have known, both for dexterity and magnificence. I was diverted with none so much as that of the rope-dancers, performed upon a slender white thread, extended about two feet, and twelve inches from the ground. Upon which I shall desire liberty, with the reader's patience, to enlarge a little. [Illustration] This diversion is only practised by those persons who are candidates for great employments and high favor at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens) five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty, and the court, with a dance on the rope, and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the straight rope, at least an inch higher than any lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the summersault several times together upon a trencher,[20] fixed on a rope, which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, is, in my opinion, if I am not partial, the second after the treasurer; the rest of the great officers are much upon a par. These diversions are often attended with fatal accidents, whereof great numbers are on record. I myself have seen two or three candidates break a limb. But the danger is much greater when the ministers themselves are commanded to show their dexterity! for, by contending to excel themselves and their fellows, they strain so far that there is hardly one of them who hath not received a fall, and some of them two or three. I was assured that a year or two before my arrival, Flimnap would have infallibly broke his neck if one of the king's cushions, that accidentally lay on the ground, had not weakened the force of his fall. There is likewise another diversion, which is only shown before the emperor and empress and first minister, upon particular occasions. The emperor lays on the table three fine silken threads, of six inches long; one is purple, the other yellow, and the third white. These threads are proposed as prizes for those persons whom the emperor hath a mind to distinguish by a peculiar mark of his favor. The ceremony is performed in his majesty's great chamber of state, where the candidates are to undergo a trial of dexterity very different from the former, and such as I have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country of the old or new world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes creep under it, backwards and forwards several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and his first minister the other: sometimes the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-colored silk; the yellow is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice about the middle; and you see few great persons round about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles. The horses of the army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. The riders would leap them over my hand as I held it on the ground; and one of the emperor's huntsmen, upon a large courser, took my foot, shoe and all, which was indeed a prodigious leap. I had the good fortune to divert the emperor one day after a very extraordinary manner. I desired he would order several sticks of two feet high, and the thickness of an ordinary cane, to be brought me; whereupon his majesty commanded the master of his woods to give directions accordingly; and the next morning six wood-men arrived with as many carriages, drawn by eight horses to each. I took nine of these sticks, and fixing them firmly in the ground in a quadrangular figure, two feet and a half square, I took four other sticks and tied them parallel at each corner, about two feet from the ground; then I fastened my handkerchief to the nine sticks that stood erect, and extended it on all sides, till it was as tight as the top of a drum; and the four parallel sticks, rising about five inches higher than the handkerchief, served as ledges on each side. When I had finished my work, I desired the emperor to let a troop of his best horse, twenty-four in number, come and exercise upon this plain. His majesty approved of the proposal, and I took them up one by one in my hands, ready mounted and armed, with the proper officers to exercise them. As soon as they got into order, they divided into two parties, performed mock skirmishes, discharged blunt arrows, drew their swords, fled and pursued, attacked and retired, and, in short, discovered the best military discipline I ever beheld. The parallel sticks secured them and their horses from falling over the stage: and the emperor was so much delighted that he ordered this entertainment to be repeated several days, and once was pleased to be lifted up and give the word of command; and, with great difficulty, persuaded even the empress herself to let me hold her in her close chair within two yards of the stage, from whence she was able to take a full view of the whole performance. It was my good fortune that no ill accident happened in these entertainments; only once a fiery horse, that belonged to one of the captains, pawing with his hoof, struck a hole in my handkerchief, and his foot slipping, he overthrew his rider and himself; but I immediately relieved them both, and covering the hole with one hand, I set down the troop with the other, in the same manner as I took them up. The horse that fell was strained in the left shoulder, but the rider got no hurt, and I repaired my handkerchief as well as I could; however, I would not trust to the strength of it any more in such dangerous enterprises. About two or three days before I was set at liberty, as I was entertaining the court with feats of this kind, there arrived an express to inform his majesty that some of his subjects riding near the place where I was first taken up, had seen a great black substance lying on the ground, very oddly shaped, extending its edges round as wide as his majesty's bed-chamber, and rising up in the middle as high as a man; that it was no living creature, as they had at first apprehended, for it lay on the grass without motion; and some of them had walked round it several times; that, by mounting upon each other's shoulders, they had got to the top, which was flat and even, and, stamping upon it, they found it was hollow within; that they humbly conceived it might be something belonging to the man-mountain; and if his majesty pleased, they would undertake to bring it with only five horses. [Illustration] I presently knew what they meant, and was glad at heart to receive this intelligence. It seems, upon my first reaching the shore after our shipwreck, I was in such confusion that, before I came to the place where I went to sleep, my hat, which I had fastened with a string to my head while I was rowing, and had stuck on all the time I was swimming, fell off after I came to land; the string, as I conjecture, breaking by some accident which I never observed, but thought my hat had been lost at sea. I intreated his imperial majesty to give orders it might be brought to me as soon as possible, describing to him the use and nature of it; and the next day the wagoners arrived with it, but not in a very good condition; they had bored two holes in the brim, within an inch and a half of the edge, and fastened two hooks in the holes; these hooks were tied by a long cord to the harness; and thus my hat was dragged along for above half an English mile; but the ground in that country being extremely smooth and level, it received less damage than I expected. Two days after this adventure, the emperor, having ordered that part of the army which quarters in and about his metropolis to be in readiness, took a fancy of diverting himself in a very singular manner. He desired I would stand like a colossus, with my legs as far asunder as I conveniently could. He then commanded his general (who was an old, experienced leader and a great patron of mine) to draw up the troops in close order and march under me; the foot by twenty-four abreast and the horse by sixteen, with drums beating, colors flying, and pikes advanced. This body consisted of three thousand foot and a thousand horse. I had sent so many memorials and petitions for my liberty, that his majesty at length mentioned the matter, first in the cabinet, and then in full council; where it was opposed by none, except Skyrris Bolgolam who was pleased, without any provocation, to be my mortal enemy. But it was carried against him by the whole board, and confirmed by the emperor. That minister was _galbet_, or admiral of the realm, very much in his master's confidence, and a person well versed in affairs, but of a morose and sour complexion. However, he was at length persuaded to comply; but prevailed, that the articles and conditions upon which I should be set free, and to which I must swear, should be drawn up by himself. These articles were brought to me by Skyrris Bolgolam in person, attended by two under-secretaries, and several persons of distinction. After they were read, I was demanded to swear to the performance of them, first in the manner of my own country, and afterwards in the method prescribed by their laws; which was, to hold my right foot in my left hand, and to place the middle finger of my right hand on the crown of my head, and my thumb on the tip of my right ear. But because the reader may be curious to have some idea of the style and manner of expression peculiar to that people, as well as to know the articles upon which I recovered my liberty, I have made a translation of the whole instrument, word for word, as near as I was able, which I here offer to the public. _Golbasto Momaren Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue_, Most Mighty Emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five thousand _blustrugs_ (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; monarch of all monarchs, taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter. His most sublime majesty proposeth to the man-mountain, lately arrived at our celestial dominions, the following articles, which by a solemn oath he shall be obliged to perform. First. The man-mountain shall not depart from our dominions without our license under our great seal. Second. He shall not presume to come into our metropolis, without our express order, at which time the inhabitants shall have two hours warning to keep within doors. Third. The said man-mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn.[21] Fourth. As he walks the said roads, he shall take the utmost care not to trample upon the bodies of any of our loving subjects, their horses or carriages, nor take any of our subjects into his hands without their own consent. Fifth. If an express requires extraordinary despatch, the man-mountain shall be obliged to carry in his pocket the messenger and horse a six-days' journey once in every moon, and return the said messenger back (if so required) safe to our imperial presence. Sixth. He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us. Seventh. That the said man-mountain shall at his times of leisure be aiding and assisting to our workmen, in helping to raise certain great stones, towards covering the wall of the principal park, and other our royal buildings. Eighth. That the said man-mountain shall, in two moons time, deliver in an exact survey of the circumference of our dominions, by a computation of his own paces round the coast. Lastly. That upon his solemn oath to observe all the above articles, the said man-mountain shall have a daily allowance of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724 of our subjects, with free access to our royal person, and other marks of our favor. Given at our palace at Belfaborac, the twelfth day of the ninety-first moon of our reign. I swore and subscribed to the articles with great cheerfulness and content, although some of them were not so honorable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the malice of Skyrris Bolgolam, the high admiral; whereupon my chains were immediately unlocked, and I was at full liberty. The emperor himself in person did me the honor to be by at the whole ceremony. I made my acknowledgments, by prostrating myself at his majesty's feet: but he commanded me to rise; and after many gracious expressions, which, to avoid the censure of vanity, I shall not repeat, he added, that he hoped I should prove a useful servant, and well deserve all the favors he had already conferred upon me, or might do for the future. The reader may please to observe, that, in the last article for the recovery of my liberty, the emperor stipulates to allow me a quantity of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1724 Lilliputians. Some time after, asking a friend at court, how they came to fix on that determinate number, he told me, that his majesty's mathematicians having taken the height of my body by the help of a quadrant,[22] and finding it to exceed theirs in the proportion of twelve to one, they concluded, from the similarity of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1724 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was necessary to support that number of Lilliputians. By which the reader may conceive an idea of the ingenuity of that people, as well as the prudent and exact economy of so great a prince.

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-3

The Lilliputian emperor is pleased that Gulliver is friendly and cooperative, so he rewards him with some court diversions. The diversions, however, prove to be quite different than one might expect. It is the Lilliputian court custom that men seeking political office demonstrate their agility in rope dancing, among other things. How long and how skillfully a candidate can dance upon a rope determines his tenure in office. Of the candidates, two are particularly adept: Reldresal, Gulliver's friend, and Flimnap, the treasurer. Other diversions include noblemen competing for official favor by crawling under or leaping over a stick, a feat for which they are then rewarded with various colored threads. Gulliver also reviews the Emperor's troops; he stands, legs apart, while the tiny men march through. As a result of Gulliver's cooperation, a pact between Gulliver and the Emperor is agreed on. Gulliver is granted limited freedom on certain conditions. In return for abiding by the conditions, he will receive food sufficient for 1,728 Lilliputians. Gulliver swears to the articles in proper form, and the Emperor frees him.

The jumping and crawling games that Gulliver describes sound innocent, like games children might play. Politically, however, their significance is far from innocent. The crawlers and jumpers perform for the amusement of the monarch and are rewarded with blue, red, or green threads. These threads represent the various orders of the Garter, the Bath, and the Thistle. George I used these orders as cheap ways of buying political support from social climbers. Politicians, Swift is saying, are always ready to debase themselves by performing humiliating games, hoping for colored ribbons, money, or titles. Swift's model for Flimnap, the most dexterous of the rope dancers, was Robert Walpole, the leader of the Whigs. Walpole was England's first prime minister in the modern sense and an extremely wily politician. He resigned in 1717 but was restored to office four years later through the influence of the Duchess of Kendal. The Duchess was his mistress and, figuratively, is the cushion on which Flimnap breaks his fall. Walpole was not a pro-war Whig, but he did use war sentiment to retain power; privately, he believed that England prospered better under peace than war. Accordingly, Swift characterizes Flimnap's specialty as somersaults in mid-air. It is thought that Reldresal, the second most dexterous of the rope dancers, probably represents either Viscount Townshend or Lord Carteret. Both were political allies of Walpole. The articles that Gulliver signs relate the political life of Lilliput to the political life of England. The first four articles seem to parallel the ancient position of the king of England. At one time, the king could not leave the country or enter London without permission. In addition, his writ was effective only on his royal domains and on the royal highways. It is possible that Swift is contrasting Gulliver, who is decent, with modern kings to suggest a contrast between antique virtue and modern degeneration. The absurd and complicated method by which Gulliver must swear to the articles exemplifies another aspect of Whig politics: petty, red-tape harassing. The Whigs attacked the Tory's Treaty of Utrecht, maintaining that the peace treaty was invalid because the royal warranty was not properly countersigned. At the Lilliputian court, it is difficult for Gulliver to hold his right foot in his left hand and place the middle finger of his right hand on top of his head with the right thumb on the tip of his ear. Yet that is how he must "countersign" his agreement. If the thumb is not squarely on the ear, the sworn loyalty will be technically in question. Glossary summerset a somersault. trencher a wooden board or platter on which to carve or serve meat. colossus a gigantic statue. pikes advanced a pike is a weapon used by foot soldiers, consisting of a metal spearhead on a long, wooden shaft; here, the weapons are held in an attacking position.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/4.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_3_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 4

chapter 4

{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-4", "summary": "After Gulliver's visit to the Emperor's palace at Mildendo, Reldresal, Lilliput's Principal Secretary of Private Affairs, pays a visit to Gulliver and explains the faction quarrels between the High Heel Party and the Low Heel Party. The conflict, he says, started over a religious question: At which end should the faithful break their eggs: at the big end or at the little end? The Blefuscudians break theirs, in the original style, at the big end. But, by royal edict, the Lilliputians must break their eggs at the little end. There are rebels in Lilliput, Reldresal says, and already 11,000 of them -- Big Endians -- have been put to death; others have fled to the court of Blefuscu. He explains further that the Lilliputians have lost 40 ships in the war. The dilemma seems hopeless, for Lustrog, the prophet of their religion, has said, \"All true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end.\"", "analysis": "Gulliver's description of Mildendo gives Swift another chance to satirize the pretensions of the Lilliputians. The little people, for example, call their city a \"metropolis\"; Gulliver, however, describes the city as only 500 feet square. But he does not scoff at the Lilliputians; he accepts their self-declared importance. Thus, once again, Swift emphasizes the contrast between Gulliver's naive acceptance of the Lilliputian viewpoint and the physical facts he reports. Swift also uses Gulliver's matter-of-fact tone to ridicule the religious war. Politically, Blefuscu stands for France and Lilliput for England. The war between the two over the religious question of egg-breaking symbolizes the long series of wars between Catholic France and Protestant England. The egg-breaking itself may refer to a quarrel over the nature of the sacrament, and it is also possible that it refers to the differences in communion of the Catholic and Anglican churches. The Anglicans receive communion by bread and wine; the Roman Catholics receive only bread. The French and English, of course, also fought over land and loot, but Swift is using the symbolic differences between churches to emphasize the absurdity of any religious war. The reference to the grandfather of the present emperor, who cut his finger breaking an egg, is to Henry VIII. Henry broke with Rome over the question of papal authority and also over the matter of Anne Boleyn. The Big Endians are, therefore, Catholic, and the Little Endians are Protestant. The emperor who lost his life is Charles I. Charles supported Archbishop Laud and was accused of Roman Catholic sympathies. The emperor who lost his crown is James II, who tried to restore some of the rights of the Roman church. He also attempted to institute a standing army with Roman Catholic officers. Consequently, he was driven out of England in 1688. Swift also relates the folly of the religious war between Lilliput and Blefuscu to immediate European politics. The two Lilliputian parties stand for English political parties. The High Heels represent Tories; the Low Heels, Whigs. The king was sympathetic to the Whigs. He used them to support Hanover against France and appointed them to official positions to strengthen his position against the House of Lords. Thus, as the Lilliputian emperor, he wears low heels. The Prince of Wales, later George II, surrounded himself with members of both parties who were out of favor. As a Lilliputian, he wears one high and one low heel and wobbles when he walks. Glossary garret the space, room, or rooms just below the roof of a house; attic. damage to the pile a pile is a long, heavy timber driven into the ground to support a structure; here, meaning that Gulliver did not want to damage the structural support of the Emperor's palace by stepping in the wrong place. fortnight a period of two weeks. schism a split or division in an organized group or society, especially a church, as the result of difference of opinion, of doctrine, etc."}

CHAPTER IV. MILENDO, THE METROPOLIS OF LILLIPUT, DESCRIBED TOGETHER WITH THE EMPEROR'S PALACE. A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND A PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, CONCERNING THE AFFAIRS OF THAT EMPIRE. THE AUTHOR OFFERS TO SERVE THE EMPEROR IN HIS WARS. The first request I made, after I had obtained my liberty, was, that I might have license to see Milendo, the metropolis; which the emperor easily granted me, but with a special charge to do no hurt, either to the inhabitants or their houses. The people had notice, by proclamation, of my design to visit the town. The wall, which encompassed it, is two feet and a half high, and at least eleven inches broad, so that a coach and horses may be driven very safely round it; and it is flanked with strong towers at ten feet distance. I stept over the great western gate, and passed very gently, and sideling, through the two principal streets, only in my short waistcoat, for fear of damaging the roofs and eaves of the houses with the skirts[23] of my coat. I walked with the utmost circumspection, to avoid treading on any stragglers who might remain in the streets; although the orders were very strict, that all people should keep in their houses at their own peril. The garret-windows and tops of houses were so crowded with spectators, that I thought in all my travels I had not seen a more populous place. The city is an exact square, each side of the wall being five hundred feet long. The two great streets, which run across and divide it into four quarters, are five feet wide. The lanes and alleys, which I could not enter, but only viewed them as I passed, are from twelve to eighteen inches. The town is capable of holding five hundred thousand souls; the houses are from three to five stories; the shops and markets well provided. The emperor's palace is in the centre of the city, where the two great streets meet. It is enclosed by a wall of two foot high, and twenty foot distant from the buildings. I had his majesty's permission to step over this wall; and the space being so wide between that and the palace, I could easily view it on every side. The outward court is a square of forty feet, and includes two other courts; in the inmost are the royal apartments, which I was very desirous to see, but found it extremely difficult; for the great gates from one square into another were but eighteen inches high, and seven inches wide. Now the buildings of the outer court were at least five feet high, and it was impossible for me to stride over them without infinite damage to the pile, though the walls were strongly built of hewn stone, and four inches thick. At the same time, the emperor had a great desire that I should see the magnificence of his palace; but this I was not able to do till three days after, which I spent in cutting down, with my knife, some of the largest trees in the royal park, about an hundred yards distance from the city. Of these trees I made two stools, each about three feet high, and strong enough to bear my weight. [Illustration: "HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY WAS PLEASED TO SMILE VERY GRACIOUSLY UPON ME" P. 50.] The people having received notice a second time, I went again through the city to the palace, with my two stools in my hands. When I came to the side of the outer court, I stood upon one stool, and took the other in my hand; this I lifted over the roof, and gently set it down on the space between the first and second court, which was eight feet wide. I then stept over the building very conveniently, from one stool to the other, and drew up the first after me with a hooked stick. By this contrivance I got into the inmost court; and, lying down upon my side, I applied my face to the windows of the middle stories, which were left open on purpose, and discovered the most splendid apartments that can be imagined. There I saw the empress and the young princes in their several lodgings, with their chief attendants about them. Her imperial majesty was pleased to smile very graciously upon me, and gave me out of the window her hand to kiss. But I shall not anticipate the reader with farther descriptions of this kind, because I reserve them for a greater work, which is now almost ready for the press, containing a general description of this empire, from its first erection, through a long series of princes, with a particular account of their wars and politics, laws, learning, and religion, their plants and animals, their peculiar manners and customs, with other matters very curious and useful; my chief design, at present, being only to relate such events and transactions as happened to the public, or to myself, during a residence of about nine months in that empire. One morning, about a fortnight after I had obtained my liberty, Reldresal, principal secretary (as they style him) for private affairs, came to my house, attended only by one servant. He ordered his coach to wait at a distance, and desired I would give him an hour's audience; which I readily consented to, on account of his quality and personal merits, as well as of the many good offices he had done me during my solicitations at court. I offered to lie down, that he might the more conveniently reach my ear; but he chose rather to let me hold him in my hand during our conversation. He began with compliments on my liberty; said he might pretend to some merit in it. But however, added, that if it had not been for the present situation of things at court, perhaps I might not have obtained it so soon. For, said he, as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labor under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad. As to the first, you are to understand, that, for above seventy moons past, there have been two struggling parties in this empire, under the names of _Tramecksan_ and _Slamecksan_, from the high and low heels of their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves. It is alleged, indeed, that the high heels are most agreeable to our ancient constitution; but, however this may be, his majesty hath determined to make use only of low heels in the administration of the government, and all offices in the gift of the crown, as you cannot but observe: and particularly, that his majesty's imperial heels are lower, at least by a _drurr_, than any of his court (_drurr_ is a measure about the fourteenth part of an inch). The animosities between these two parties run so high, that they will neither eat nor drink nor talk with each other. We compute the _Tramecksan_, or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side. We apprehend his imperial highness, the heir to the crown, to have some tendency towards the high heels; at least, we can plainly discover that one of his heels is higher than the other, which gives him a hobble in his gait. Now, in the midst of these intestine disquiets, we are threatened with an invasion from the island of Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his majesty. For, as to what we have heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world, inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon or one of the stars, because it is certain, that an hundred mortals of your bulk would, in a short time, destroy all the fruits and cattle of his majesty's dominions. Besides, our histories of six thousand moons make no mention of any other regions than the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six-and-thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion: It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty's grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor, his father, published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account, wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire. It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy, but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable, by law, of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the Emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate, by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran)[24] This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end. And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience, or, at least, in the power of the chief magistrate to determine. Now, the Big-endian exiles have found so much credit in the emperor of Blefuscu's court, and so much private assistance and encouragement from their party here at home, that a bloody war hath been carried on between the two empires for six-and-thirty moons, with various success; during which time we have lost forty capital ships, and a much greater number of smaller vessels, together with thirty thousand of our best seamen and soldiers; and the damage received by the enemy is reckoned to be somewhat greater than ours. However, they have now equipped a numerous fleet, and are just preparing to make a descent upon us; and his imperial majesty, placing great confidence in your valor and strength, hath commanded me to lay this account of his affairs before you. [Illustration] [Illustration] I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to the emperor, and to let him know that I thought it would not become me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready, with the hazard of my life, to defend his person and state against all invaders.

Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-4

After Gulliver's visit to the Emperor's palace at Mildendo, Reldresal, Lilliput's Principal Secretary of Private Affairs, pays a visit to Gulliver and explains the faction quarrels between the High Heel Party and the Low Heel Party. The conflict, he says, started over a religious question: At which end should the faithful break their eggs: at the big end or at the little end? The Blefuscudians break theirs, in the original style, at the big end. But, by royal edict, the Lilliputians must break their eggs at the little end. There are rebels in Lilliput, Reldresal says, and already 11,000 of them -- Big Endians -- have been put to death; others have fled to the court of Blefuscu. He explains further that the Lilliputians have lost 40 ships in the war. The dilemma seems hopeless, for Lustrog, the prophet of their religion, has said, "All true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end."

Gulliver's description of Mildendo gives Swift another chance to satirize the pretensions of the Lilliputians. The little people, for example, call their city a "metropolis"; Gulliver, however, describes the city as only 500 feet square. But he does not scoff at the Lilliputians; he accepts their self-declared importance. Thus, once again, Swift emphasizes the contrast between Gulliver's naive acceptance of the Lilliputian viewpoint and the physical facts he reports. Swift also uses Gulliver's matter-of-fact tone to ridicule the religious war. Politically, Blefuscu stands for France and Lilliput for England. The war between the two over the religious question of egg-breaking symbolizes the long series of wars between Catholic France and Protestant England. The egg-breaking itself may refer to a quarrel over the nature of the sacrament, and it is also possible that it refers to the differences in communion of the Catholic and Anglican churches. The Anglicans receive communion by bread and wine; the Roman Catholics receive only bread. The French and English, of course, also fought over land and loot, but Swift is using the symbolic differences between churches to emphasize the absurdity of any religious war. The reference to the grandfather of the present emperor, who cut his finger breaking an egg, is to Henry VIII. Henry broke with Rome over the question of papal authority and also over the matter of Anne Boleyn. The Big Endians are, therefore, Catholic, and the Little Endians are Protestant. The emperor who lost his life is Charles I. Charles supported Archbishop Laud and was accused of Roman Catholic sympathies. The emperor who lost his crown is James II, who tried to restore some of the rights of the Roman church. He also attempted to institute a standing army with Roman Catholic officers. Consequently, he was driven out of England in 1688. Swift also relates the folly of the religious war between Lilliput and Blefuscu to immediate European politics. The two Lilliputian parties stand for English political parties. The High Heels represent Tories; the Low Heels, Whigs. The king was sympathetic to the Whigs. He used them to support Hanover against France and appointed them to official positions to strengthen his position against the House of Lords. Thus, as the Lilliputian emperor, he wears low heels. The Prince of Wales, later George II, surrounded himself with members of both parties who were out of favor. As a Lilliputian, he wears one high and one low heel and wobbles when he walks. Glossary garret the space, room, or rooms just below the roof of a house; attic. damage to the pile a pile is a long, heavy timber driven into the ground to support a structure; here, meaning that Gulliver did not want to damage the structural support of the Emperor's palace by stepping in the wrong place. fortnight a period of two weeks. schism a split or division in an organized group or society, especially a church, as the result of difference of opinion, of doctrine, etc.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/5.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_4_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-5", "summary": "Gulliver saves Lilliput from a Blefuscudian invasion by dragging the Blefuscudian ships to Lilliput. In gratitude, the Lilliputian emperor rewards Gulliver with the title Nardac. Gulliver is pleased with his new title, but he is not the Emperor's dupe. He rejects a plan to destroy Blefuscu completely and argues for a reasonable peace treaty. Gulliver's moderation in dealing with the Blefuscudians gives Flimnap and Skyresh Bolgolam a chance to slander him. The Emperor listens to the accusations and is cold to Gulliver when he grants him permission to visit Blefuscu in the future. Later, a fire in the palace breaks out, and Gulliver puts out the fire by urinating on it. There is a law against anyone passing water in the royal palace, however, and the Empress is so horrified by Gulliver's fire-fighting techniques that she never forgives Gulliver. The Emperor softens, though, and promises Gulliver a pardon for his crime.", "analysis": "Here, Swift satirizes the War of the Spanish Succession: The Whigs had conducted a war against the Roman Catholic leaders of France and Spain. Although it had its religious over-tones, the war also involved trading rights with the colonies in America. The Tories, led by Harley and Bolingbroke, were willing to make a reasonable peace with France, and when they came to power, they immediately began to negotiate with the French. The result was the peace treaty signed at Utrecht in 1713. Their naval policy, they said, destroyed the Spanish fleet. The Whigs were unsatisfied. They maintained that it was Marlborough's infantry campaigns on the continent that had brought peace. Moreover, after the peace treaty was signed, the Whigs accused the Tories of treason because of a failure to get colonies and ports from France and Spain. The fire-fighting episode may refer to Swift's Tale of a Tub, which he wrote to defend the Church of England against its Puritan and Roman Catholic enemies. The book is satirical, often coarse, and Queen Anne was reportedly offended by Swift's coarseness. Because of this, she resisted his friends' suggestions that he be made a dean or bishop in England. Glossary encomiums formal expressions of high praise. diuretic increasing the excretion of urine."}

CHAPTER V. THE AUTHOR, BY AN EXTRAORDINARY STRATAGEM, PREVENTS AN INVASION. A HIGH TITLE OF HONOR IS CONFERRED UPON HIM. AMBASSADORS ARRIVE FROM THE EMPEROR OF BLEFUSCU, AND SUE FOR PEACE. THE EMPRESS'S APARTMENT ON FIRE, BY ACCIDENT; THE AUTHOR INSTRUMENTAL IN SAVING THE REST OF THE PALACE. The empire of Blefuscu is an island, situate to the north northeast of Lilliput, from whence it is parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet seen it; and upon this notice of an intended invasion, I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me, all intercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon the pain of death, and an embargo[25] laid by our emperor upon all vessels whatsoever. I communicated to his majesty a project I had formed, of seizing the enemy's whole fleet; which, as our scouts assured us, lay at anchor in the harbor, ready to sail with the first fair wind. I consulted the most experienced seamen upon the depth of the channel, which they had often plumbed; who told me, that in the middle, at high water, it was seventy _glumgluffs_ deep, which is about six feet of European measure; and the rest of it fifty _glumgluffs_ at most. I walked towards the northeast coast, over against Blefuscu; where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective glass, and viewed the enemy's fleet at anchor, consisting of about fifty men-of-war, and a great number of transports; I then came back to my house, and gave orders (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting needle. I trebled the cable, to make it stronger; and, for the same reason, I twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the northeast coast, and putting off my coat, shoes, and stockings, walked into the sea in my leathern jerkin, about half an hour before high-water. I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground; I arrived at the fleet in less than half an hour. The enemy were so frightened, when they saw me, that they leaped out of their ships, and swam to shore, where there could not be fewer than thirty thousand souls: I then took my tackling, and fastening a hook to the hole at the prow of each, I tied all the cords together at the end. While I was thus employed, the enemy discharged several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face; and, besides the excessive smart, gave me much disturbance in my work. My greatest apprehension was for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I kept, among other little necessaries, a pair of spectacles, in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the emperor's searchers. These I took out, and fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and thus armed, went on boldly with my work, in spite of the enemy's arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other effect, farther than a little to discompose them.[26] I had now fastened all the hooks, and, taking the knot in my hand, began to pull: but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors; so that the boldest part of my enterprise remained. I therefore let go the cord, and, leaving the hooks fixed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened the anchors, receiving above two hundred shots in my face and hands; then I took up the knotted end of the cables, to which my hooks were tied, and, with great ease, drew fifty of the enemy's largest men-of-war after me. The Blefuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended, were at first confounded with astonishment. They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift, or fall foul on each other: but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair as it is almost impossible to describe or conceive. When I had got out of danger, I stopped awhile to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face: and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned. I then took off my spectacles, and waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput. The emperor and his whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet more in pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in an hostile manner: but he was soon eased of his fears; for the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing; and holding up the end of the cable, by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, Long live the most puissant[27] emperor of Lilliput! This great prince received me at my landing, with all possible encomiums, and created me a _nardac_ upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor among them. His majesty desired I would take some other opportunity of bringing all the rest of his enemy's ships into his ports. And so immeasurable is the ambition of princes, that he seemed to think of nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and governing it by viceroy; of destroying the Big-endian exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs, by which he would remain the sole monarch of the whole world. But I endeavored to divert him from this design, by many arguments, drawn from the topics of policy, as well as justice. And I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery. And when the matter was debated in council, the wisest part of the ministry were of my opinion. [Illustration: "AND CREATED ME A _NARDAC_ UPON THE SPOT." P. 58.] This open, bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes and politics of his imperial majesty, that he could never forgive me; he mentioned it, in a very artful manner, at council, where, I was told, that some of the wisest appeared, at least by their silence, to be of my opinion; but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions, which by a side-wind reflected on me. And, from this time began an intrigue between his majesty and a junto[28] of ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. About three weeks after this exploit, there arrived a solemn embassy from Blefuscu, with humble offers of peace; which was soon concluded, upon conditions very advantageous to our emperor, wherewith I shall not trouble the reader. There were six ambassadors, with a train of about five hundred persons; and their entry was very magnificent, suitable to the grandeur of their master, and the importance of their business. When their treaty was finished, wherein I did them several good offices, by the credit I now had, or at least appeared to have at court, their excellencies, who were privately told how much I had been their friend, made me a visit in form. They began with many compliments upon my valor and generosity, invited me to that kingdom, in the emperor their master's name, and desired me to show some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had heard so many wonders; wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble the reader with the particulars. [Illustration] When I had for some time entertained their Excellencies, to their infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the honor to present my most humble respects to the emperor their master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend, before I returned to my own country. Accordingly, the next time I had the honor to see our emperor, I desired his general license to wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could plainly perceive, in a very cold manner; but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection, from which, I am sure, my heart was wholly free. And this was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers. It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me by an interpreter, the languages of both empires differing as much from each other as any two in Europe, and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of its own tongue, with an avowed contempt for that of its neighbor; yet our emperor, standing upon the advantage he had got by the seizure of their fleet, obliged them to deliver their credentials, and make their speech in the Lilliputian tongue. And it must be confessed, that, from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both realms; from the continual reception of exiles, which is mutual among them; and from the custom in each empire, to send their young nobility, and richer gentry, to the other, in order to polish themselves, by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners; there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or, seamen, who dwell in the maritime parts, but what can hold conversation in both tongues, as I found some weeks after, when I went to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscu, which, in the midst of great misfortunes, through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in its proper place. The reader may remember, that when I signed those articles, upon which I recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of their being too servile; neither could anything but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit. But, being now a _nardac_ of the highest rank in that empire, such offices were looked upon as below my dignity, and the emperor, to do him justice, never once mentioned them to me. However, it was not long before I had an opportunity of doing his majesty, at least as I then thought, a most signal service. I was alarmed at midnight with the cries of many hundred people at my door, by which, being suddenly awaked, I was in some kind of terror. I heard the word _burglum_ repeated incessantly. Several of the emperor's court, making their way through the crowd, entreated me to come immediately to the palace, where her imperial majesty's apartment was on fire, by the carelessness of a maid of honor, who fell asleep while she was reading a romance. I got up in an instant; and orders being given to clear the way before me, and it being likewise a moonshine night, I made a shift to get to the palace, without trampling on any of the people. I found they had already applied ladders to the walls of the apartment, and were well provided with buckets, but the water was at some distance. These buckets were about the size of a large thimble, and the poor people supplied me with them as fast as they could; but the flame was so violent that they did little good. I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my leathern jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable, and this magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if, by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient by which in three minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from destruction. [Illustration] It was now daylight, and I returned to my house, without waiting to congratulate with the emperor; because, although I had done a very eminent piece of service, yet I could not tell how his majesty might resent the manner by which I had performed it: for, by the fundamental laws of the realm, it is capital in any man, of what quality soever, to even touch the empress or the royal princesses without invitation. But I was a little comforted by a message from his majesty, that he would give orders to the grand justiciary for passing my pardon in form, which, however, I could not obtain. And I was privately assured that the empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of me, and, in the presence of her chief confidants, could not forbear vowing revenge.

Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-5

Gulliver saves Lilliput from a Blefuscudian invasion by dragging the Blefuscudian ships to Lilliput. In gratitude, the Lilliputian emperor rewards Gulliver with the title Nardac. Gulliver is pleased with his new title, but he is not the Emperor's dupe. He rejects a plan to destroy Blefuscu completely and argues for a reasonable peace treaty. Gulliver's moderation in dealing with the Blefuscudians gives Flimnap and Skyresh Bolgolam a chance to slander him. The Emperor listens to the accusations and is cold to Gulliver when he grants him permission to visit Blefuscu in the future. Later, a fire in the palace breaks out, and Gulliver puts out the fire by urinating on it. There is a law against anyone passing water in the royal palace, however, and the Empress is so horrified by Gulliver's fire-fighting techniques that she never forgives Gulliver. The Emperor softens, though, and promises Gulliver a pardon for his crime.

Here, Swift satirizes the War of the Spanish Succession: The Whigs had conducted a war against the Roman Catholic leaders of France and Spain. Although it had its religious over-tones, the war also involved trading rights with the colonies in America. The Tories, led by Harley and Bolingbroke, were willing to make a reasonable peace with France, and when they came to power, they immediately began to negotiate with the French. The result was the peace treaty signed at Utrecht in 1713. Their naval policy, they said, destroyed the Spanish fleet. The Whigs were unsatisfied. They maintained that it was Marlborough's infantry campaigns on the continent that had brought peace. Moreover, after the peace treaty was signed, the Whigs accused the Tories of treason because of a failure to get colonies and ports from France and Spain. The fire-fighting episode may refer to Swift's Tale of a Tub, which he wrote to defend the Church of England against its Puritan and Roman Catholic enemies. The book is satirical, often coarse, and Queen Anne was reportedly offended by Swift's coarseness. Because of this, she resisted his friends' suggestions that he be made a dean or bishop in England. Glossary encomiums formal expressions of high praise. diuretic increasing the excretion of urine.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/6.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_5_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 6

chapter 6

{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-6", "summary": "Gulliver provides the reader with information regarding Lilliputian culture and the personal treatment that he receives from the Lilliputians. Regarding the Lilliputian system of laws, Gulliver says that treason is severely punished, which is not particularly surprising, but other laws are. These laws punish an unsuccessful accuser as severely as a traitor; fraud is most frequently punished with death; and any innocent man who is vindicated of a charge is rewarded. Interestingly, ingratitude is a capital offense. Moral, rather than clever men, are appointed to powerful positions, and atheists are barred from all government offices. Explaining the seeming contradiction between these good laws and the rope-dancing corruptions, Gulliver says that the latter were instituted by the present Emperor's grandfather. The Lilliputians believe that parents marry out of sexual desire rather than love of children. Therefore they deny any filial obligation and establish public schools for children. Parents with children in school pay for each child's maintenance and are forced to maintain those that they breed. The schools for young nobles are spartan, and students are trained in honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and patriotism. The schools for tradesmen and ordinary gentlemen are like those of the nobles, but the duration of schooling is shorter. The Lilliputians educate women to be reasonable, agreeable, and literate. Workers and farmers have no schools. Resuming his tale, Gulliver describes the visit of the Emperor and his family. They come to dine with Gulliver and bring Flimnap with them. The dinner proves to be a disaster because Flimnap, the royal treasurer, is appalled when he reckons the cost of feeding and housing Gulliver. What's more, Flimnap charges, his wife is attracted to Gulliver and has visited him secretly.", "analysis": "Swift uses Gulliver's report of the Lilliputian laws and customs to illustrate a semi-Utopian society. He drew from such political theorists as Plato, in the Republic, and from More, in his Utopia, and he also used many of the suggestions of the political reformers and pamphleteers of his own day. His proposals were aimed at creating and enforcing moral virtue in the citizens. Flimnap's charges against Gulliver parallel those made against Bishop Atterbury, a Jacobite, who was tried for treason in 1723. It is thought that the suspicions concerning Gulliver and Flimnap's wife refer to Walpole. Rumors about Walpole's first wife, Catherine Shorter, had accused her of misconduct, but Walpole displayed no concern. Flimnap is dishonored by his jealousy and Walpole by his complacency. If critics are correct about this parallel, Swift is unfair; he damns Walpole if he does, or if he doesn't, object. Also, of course, Swift is pointing out the absurdity of rash accusations made by politicians. Here, Gulliver is so much larger than the lady that she could not possibly have been unfaithful. Glossary concupiscence strong desire; lust. his white staff domestic staff; housekeepers. postillion a person who rides the left-hand horse of the leaders of a four-horse carriage."}

CHAPTER VI. OF THE INHABITANTS OF LILLIPUT; THEIR LEARNING, LAWS, AND CUSTOMS; THE MANNER OF EDUCATING THEIR CHILDREN. THE AUTHOR'S WAY OF LIVING IN THAT COUNTRY. Although I intend to leave the description of this empire to a particular treatise, yet, in the meantime, I am content to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and a half, more or less; their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards, till you come to the smallest, which, to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature hath adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view; they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And, to show the sharpness of their sight, towards objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling[29] a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible silk. Their tallest trees are about seven feet high; I mean some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the reader's imagination. I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many ages, hath flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at the resurrection, be found ready, standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar. There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and, if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification. It is only to be wished they were as well executed. The first I shall mention relates to informers. All crimes against the state are punished here with the utmost severity; but, if the person accused maketh his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and, out of his goods, or lands, the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he hath been at in making his defence, or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him some public mark of his favor, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city. They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal, who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order, and run away with, and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me, to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and, truly, I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed. Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof that he hath strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three moons, hath a claim to certain privileges, according to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable sum of out of a fund appropriated for that use; he likewise acquires the title of _snillpall_, or _legal_, which is added to his name, but doth not descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify circumspection, with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheath in her left, to show she was more disposed to reward than to punish. In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they believe that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery, to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age; but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by experience, and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequences to the public weal as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions. In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the authority under which he acts. In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original institutions, and not the most scandalous corruptions into which these people are fallen, by the degenerate nature of man. For, as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favor and distinction by leaping over sticks, and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor, now reigning, and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and faction. Ingratitude is, among them, a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries; for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live. Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours. Their opinion is, that parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their own children; and, therefore, they have, in every town, public nurseries, where all parents, except cottagers and laborers, are obliged to send their infants of both sexes to be reared and educated, when they come to the age of twenty moons, at which time they are supposed to have some rudiments of docility. These schools are of several kinds, suited to different qualities, and to both sexes. They have certain professors, well skilled in preparing children for such a condition of life as befits the rank of their parents, and their own capacities as well as inclinations. I shall first say something of the male nurseries, and then of the female. The nurseries for males of noble or eminent birth are provided with grave and learned professors, and their several deputies. The clothes and food of the children are plain and simple. They are bred up in the principles of honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their country; they are always employed in some business, except in the times of eating and sleeping, which are very short, and two hours for diversions, consisting of bodily exercises. They are dressed by men till four years of age, and then are obliged to dress themselves, although their quality be ever so great; and the women attendants, who are aged proportionably to ours at fifty, perform only the most menial offices. They are never suffered to converse with servants, but go together in smaller or greater numbers to take their diversions, and always in the presence of a professor, or one of his deputies; whereby they avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice, to which our children are subject. Their parents are suffered to see them only twice a year; the visit to last but an hour; they are allowed to kiss the child at meeting and parting; but a professor, who always stands by on those occasions, will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or bring any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like. The pension from each family, for the education and entertainment of a child, upon failure of due payment, is levied by the emperor's officers. The nurseries for children of ordinary gentlemen, merchants, traders, and handicrafts, are managed proportionally after the same manner; only those designed for trades are put out apprentices at eleven years old, whereas those persons of quality continue in their exercises till fifteen, which answers to twenty-one with us; but the confinement is gradually lessened for the last three years. In the female nurseries, the young girls of quality are educated much like the males, only they are dressed by orderly servants of their own sex; but always in the presence of a professor or deputy, till they come to dress themselves, which is at five years old. And if it be found that these nurses ever presume to entertain the girls with frightful or foolish stories, or the common follies practised by the chambermaids among us, they are publicly whipped thrice about the city, imprisoned for a year, and banished for life to the most desolate part of the country. Thus, the young ladies there are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education, made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the women were not altogether so robust, and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is that, among people of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young. When the girls are twelve years old, which among them is the marriageable age, their parents or guardians take them home, with great expressions of gratitude to the professors, and seldom without tears of the young lady and her companions. In the nurseries of females of the meaner sort, the children are instructed in all kinds of works proper for their sex and their several degrees; those intended for apprentices are dismissed at seven years old, the rest are kept to eleven. The meaner[30] families who have children at these nurseries are obliged, besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their gettings, to be a portion[31] for the child; and, therefore, all parents are limited in their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be more unjust than for people to leave the burden of supporting their children on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security to appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their condition; and these funds are always managed with good husbandry and the most exact justice. The cottagers and laborers keep their children at home, their business being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their education is of little consequence to the public; but the old and diseased among them are supported by hospitals; for begging is a trade unknown in this empire. And here it may perhaps divert the curious reader to give some account of my domestic,[32] and my manner of living in this country, during a residence of nine months and thirteen days. Having a head for mechanics, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made for myself a table and chair, convenient enough, out of the largest trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make me shirts, and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and coarsest kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than lawn. Their linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a piece. The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one standing at my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord extended that each held by the end, while a third measured the length of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right thumb, and desired no more; for, by a mathematical computation, that twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I displayed on the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three hundred tailors were employed in the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my coat; but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs would not have been able to hold them), they looked like the patchwork made by the ladies in England, only that mine were all of a color. [Illustration: "THREE HUNDRED TAILORS WERE EMPLOYED TO MAKE ME CLOTHES" P. 74.] I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little convenient huts built about my house, where they and their families lived, and prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took up twenty waiters in my hand, and placed them on the table; an hundred more attended below on the ground, some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and other liquors, flung on their shoulders; all of which the waiters above drew up, as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as we draw the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a good mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable draught. Their mutton yields to ours, but their beef is excellent, I have had a sirloin so large that I have been forced to make three bites of it; but this is rare. My servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones and all, as in our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkeys I usually eat at a mouthful, and I must confess they far exceed ours. Of their smaller fowl, I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife. One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living, desired that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of the blood of both sexes, might have the happiness, as he was pleased to call it, of dining with me. They came accordingly, and I placed them in chairs of state upon my table, just over against me, with their guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended there likewise, with his white staff; and I observed he often looked on me with a sour countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but eat more than usual, in honor to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with admiration. I have some private reasons to believe that this visit from his majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill offices to his master. That minister had always been my secret enemy, though he outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the moroseness of his nature. He represented to the emperor the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that exchequer bills[33] would not circulate under nine per cent, below par; that I had cost his majesty above a million and a half of _sprugs_ (their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle); and, upon the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take the first fair occasion of dismissing me. [Illustration: "THE HAPPINESS ... OF DINING WITH ME." P. 76.] [Illustration] [Illustration]

Chapter 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-6

Gulliver provides the reader with information regarding Lilliputian culture and the personal treatment that he receives from the Lilliputians. Regarding the Lilliputian system of laws, Gulliver says that treason is severely punished, which is not particularly surprising, but other laws are. These laws punish an unsuccessful accuser as severely as a traitor; fraud is most frequently punished with death; and any innocent man who is vindicated of a charge is rewarded. Interestingly, ingratitude is a capital offense. Moral, rather than clever men, are appointed to powerful positions, and atheists are barred from all government offices. Explaining the seeming contradiction between these good laws and the rope-dancing corruptions, Gulliver says that the latter were instituted by the present Emperor's grandfather. The Lilliputians believe that parents marry out of sexual desire rather than love of children. Therefore they deny any filial obligation and establish public schools for children. Parents with children in school pay for each child's maintenance and are forced to maintain those that they breed. The schools for young nobles are spartan, and students are trained in honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and patriotism. The schools for tradesmen and ordinary gentlemen are like those of the nobles, but the duration of schooling is shorter. The Lilliputians educate women to be reasonable, agreeable, and literate. Workers and farmers have no schools. Resuming his tale, Gulliver describes the visit of the Emperor and his family. They come to dine with Gulliver and bring Flimnap with them. The dinner proves to be a disaster because Flimnap, the royal treasurer, is appalled when he reckons the cost of feeding and housing Gulliver. What's more, Flimnap charges, his wife is attracted to Gulliver and has visited him secretly.

Swift uses Gulliver's report of the Lilliputian laws and customs to illustrate a semi-Utopian society. He drew from such political theorists as Plato, in the Republic, and from More, in his Utopia, and he also used many of the suggestions of the political reformers and pamphleteers of his own day. His proposals were aimed at creating and enforcing moral virtue in the citizens. Flimnap's charges against Gulliver parallel those made against Bishop Atterbury, a Jacobite, who was tried for treason in 1723. It is thought that the suspicions concerning Gulliver and Flimnap's wife refer to Walpole. Rumors about Walpole's first wife, Catherine Shorter, had accused her of misconduct, but Walpole displayed no concern. Flimnap is dishonored by his jealousy and Walpole by his complacency. If critics are correct about this parallel, Swift is unfair; he damns Walpole if he does, or if he doesn't, object. Also, of course, Swift is pointing out the absurdity of rash accusations made by politicians. Here, Gulliver is so much larger than the lady that she could not possibly have been unfaithful. Glossary concupiscence strong desire; lust. his white staff domestic staff; housekeepers. postillion a person who rides the left-hand horse of the leaders of a four-horse carriage.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/7.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_6_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 7

chapter 7

{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-7", "summary": "Gulliver learns that Flimnap, Skyresh Bolgolam, and others have approved articles of treason against him. His crimes include putting out the fire in the palace, refusing to devastate Blefuscu, speaking to the peace embassy from Blefuscu, and preparing to take advantage of the Emperor's permission to visit Blefuscu. The Emperor accepts the charges, but he refuses to kill Gulliver. Instead, he \"mercifully\" decides to blind Gulliver and save money on his upkeep by starving him slowly. On learning this, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu.", "analysis": "The Emperor's council that presses the charges against Gulliver stands for the commission of inquiry that preferred charges against the Tories. As a result of these charges, Harley and Bolingbroke were threatened with trials for treason. The first article, making water in the palace, may have reference to rumors that the Tories were sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. It may also apply to the charge that Harley and Bolingbroke treasonably and secretly revealed the instructions of the English negotiators to the French negotiators. The second charge correlates with overt attacks on the Tories for their refusal to continue the war and for their tries at negotiating a reasonable peace. The third charge stands for the accusation that Harley and Bolingbroke carried on secret correspondence with French negotiators. The fourth charge reflects the accusation that Harley and Bolingbroke intended to flee to France if their treason were discovered. Swift uses this chapter to show that English politicians were bloody-minded and treacherous. In detail, he records the bloody and cruel methods that the Lilliputians plan to use to kill Gulliver; then he comments ironically on the mercy, decency, generosity, and justice of kings. The Lilliputian emperor, out of mercy, plans to blind and starve Gulliver. This plan seems a direct reference to George's treatment of some captured Jacobites. He executed them -- after parliament had called him most merciful and lenient. Glossary the meanness of my condition my lowness in social status and rank; here, meaning that Gulliver was of humble origins and not of the nobility. in a close chair in an enclosed, one-person chair with glass windows, carried on poles by two men; a sedan chair. standing my trial facing my accusers."}

CHAPTER VII. THE AUTHOR, BEING INFORMED OF A DESIGN TO ACCUSE HIM OF HIGH TREASON, MAKES HIS ESCAPE TO BLEFUSCU. HIS RECEPTION THERE. Before I proceed to give an account of my leaving this kingdom, it may be proper to inform the reader of a private intrigue which had been for two months forming against me. I had been hitherto all my life a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but never expected to have found such terrible effects of them in so remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe. When I was just preparing to pay my attendance on the emperor of Blefuscu, a considerable person at court (to whom I had been very serviceable, at a time when he lay under the highest displeasure of his imperial majesty) came to my house very privately at night, in a close chair,[34] and without sending his name, desired admittance. The chairmen were dismissed; I put the chair, with his lordship in it, into my coat-pocket; and, giving orders to a trusty servant to say I was indisposed and gone to sleep, I fastened the door of my house, placed the chair on the table, according to my usual custom, and sat down by it. After the common salutations were over, observing his lordship's countenance full of concern, and inquiring into the reason, he desired I would hear him with patience, in a matter that highly concerned my honor and my life. His speech was to the following effect, for I took notes of it as soon as he left me:-- You are to know, said he, that several committees of council have been lately called in the most private manner on your account; and it is but two days since his majesty came to a full resolution. You are very sensible that Skyrris Bolgolam (_galbet_ or high-admiral) hath been your mortal enemy almost ever since your arrival: his original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory, as admiral, is much obscured. This lord, in conjunction with Flimnap the high treasurer, whose enmity against you is notorious, Limtoc the general, Lalcon the chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand justiciary, have prepared articles of impeachment against you, for treason, and other capital crimes. This preface made me so impatient, being conscious of my own merits and innocence, that I was going to interrupt; when he entreated me to be silent, and thus proceeded. [Illustration: "HE DESIRED I WOULD HEAR HIM WITH PATIENCE." P. 80.] Out of gratitude for the favors you have done for me, I procured information of the whole proceedings, and a copy of the articles; wherein I venture my head for your service. ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST QUINBUS FLESTRIN, THE MAN-MOUNTAIN. ARTICLE I. Whereas, by a statute made in the reign of his Imperial Majesty Calin Deffar Plune, it is enacted, That whoever shall lay hands upon the empress, or upon any of the royal children, shall be liable to the pains and penalties of high treason. Notwithstanding, the said Quinbus Flestrin, in open breach of the said law, under color of extinguishing the fire kindled in the apartment of his Majesty's most dear imperial consort, did maliciously, and traitorously, pull her by the arms, and lift her high in the air in both his hands, against the statute in that case provided, &c., against the duty, &c. ARTICLE II. That the said Quinbus Flestrin, having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the royal port, and being afterwards commanded by his imperial majesty to seize all the other ships of the said empire of Blefuscu, and reduce that empire to a province, to be governed by a viceroy from hence, and to destroy and put to death, not only all the Big-endian exiles, but likewise all the people of that empire who would not immediately forsake the Big-endian heresy. He, the said Flestrin, like a false traitor against his most auspicious, serene, imperial majesty, did petition to be excused from the said service, upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people. ARTICLE III. That, whereas certain ambassadors arrived from the court of Blefuscu, to sue for peace in his majesty's court; he, the said Flestrin, did, like a false traitor, aid, abet, comfort, and divert the said ambassadors, although he knew them to be servants to a prince who was lately an open enemy to his imperial majesty, and in open war against his said majesty. ARTICLE IV. That the said Quinbus Flestrin, contrary to the duty of a faithful subject, is now preparing to make a voyage to the court and empire of Blefuscu, for which he hath received only verbal license from his imperial majesty; and under color of the said license, doth falsely and traitorously intend to take the said voyage, and thereby to aid, comfort, and abet the emperor of Blefuscu, so late an enemy, and in open war with his imperial majesty aforesaid. There are some other articles, but these are the most important, of which I have read you an abstract. In the several debates upon this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity, often urging the services you had done him, and endeavoring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire on your house at night; and the general was to attend, with twenty thousand men armed with poisoned arrows, to shoot you on the face and hands. Some of your servants were to have private orders to strew a poisonous juice on your shirts and sheets, which would soon make you tear your own flesh, and die in the utmost torture. The general came into the same opinion; so that for a long time there was a majority against you: but his majesty resolving, if possible, to spare your life, at last brought off the chamberlain. Upon this incident, Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, who always approved himself your true friend, was commanded by the emperor to deliver his opinion, which he accordingly did; and therein justified the good thoughts you have of him. He allowed your crimes to be great, but that still there was room for mercy, the most commendable virtue in a prince, and for which his majesty was so justly celebrated. He said, the friendship between you and him was so well known to the world, that perhaps the most honorable board might think him partial; however, in obedience to the command he had received, he would freely offer his sentiments; that if his majesty, in consideration of your services, and pursuant to his own merciful disposition, would please to spare your life, and only give orders to put out both your eyes, he humbly conceived that, by this expedient, justice might in some measure be satisfied, and all the world would applaud the lenity of the emperor, as well as the fair and generous proceedings of those who have the honor to be his counsellors: that the loss of your eyes would be no impediment to your bodily strength, by which you might still be useful to his majesty: that blindness is an addition to courage, by concealing dangers from us: that the fear you had for your eyes was the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy's fleet: and it would be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the ministers, since the greatest princes do no more. [Illustration] This proposal was received with the utmost disapprobation by the whole board. Bolgolam, the admiral, could not preserve his temper, but rising up in fury, said he wondered how the secretary durst presume to give his opinion for preserving the life of a traitor: that the services you had performed were, by all true reasons of state, the great aggravation of your crimes: that you, who extinguished the fire in that unprincipled manner, might at another time inundate and drown the whole palace; and the same strength, which enabled you to bring over the enemy's fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back: that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death. The treasurer was of the same opinion. He showed to what straits his majesty's revenue was reduced, by the charge of maintaining you, which would soon grow insupportable. That the secretary's expedient of putting out your eyes was so far from being a remedy against this evil, that it would probably increase it, as is manifest from the common practice of blinding some sort of fowls, after which they fed the faster, and grew sooner fat. That his sacred majesty, and the council, who are your judges, were to their own consciences fully convinced of your guilt, which was a sufficient argument to condemn you to death without the formal proofs required by the strict letter of the law. But his imperial majesty, fully determined against capital punishment, was graciously pleaded to say, that since the council thought the loss of your eyes too easy a censure, some other might be inflicted hereafter. And your friend, the secretary, humbly desiring to be heard again, in answer to what the treasurer had objected concerning the great charge his majesty was at in maintaining you, said that his excellency, who had the sole disposal of the emperor's revenue, might easily provide against that evil, by gradually lessening your establishment; by which, for want of sufficient food, you would grow weak and faint, and lose your appetite, and consume in a few months; neither would the stench of your carcase be then so dangerous when it should become more than half diminished; and, immediately upon your death, five or six thousand of his majesty's subjects might in two or three days cut your flesh from your bones, take it away by cart-loads, and bury it in distant parts, to prevent infection, leaving the skeleton as a monument of admiration to posterity. Thus, by the great friendship of the secretary, the whole affair was compromised. It was strictly enjoined that the project of starving you by degrees should be kept a secret, but the sentence of putting out your eyes was entered on the books, none dissenting except Bolgolam, the admiral, who, being a creature of the empress, was perpetually instigated by her majesty to insist upon your death, she having borne perpetual malice against you, on account of that illegal method you took to remove her and her children the night of the fire. In three days, your friend the secretary will be directed to come to your house and read before you the articles of impeachment; and then to signify the great lenity and favor of his majesty and council, whereby you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes, which his majesty doth not question you will gratefully and humbly submit to; and twenty of his majesty's surgeons will attend, in order to see the operation well performed, by discharging very sharp-pointed arrows into the balls of your eyes as you lie on the ground. I leave to your prudence what measures you will take; and, to avoid suspicion, I must immediately return, in as private a manner as I came. His lordship did so, and I remained alone, under many doubts and perplexities of mind. It was a custom, introduced by this prince and his ministry (very different, as I have been assured, from the practices of former times), that after the court had decreed any cruel execution either to gratify the monarch's resentment or the malice of a favorite, the emperor always made a speech to his whole council, expressing his great lenity and tenderness, as qualities known and confessed by all the world. This speech was immediately published through the kingdom; nor did anything terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty's mercy; because it was observed that, the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent. Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been designed for a courtier, either by my birth or education, I was so ill a judge of things that I could not discover the lenity and favor of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather to be rigorous than gentle, I sometimes thought of standing my trial; for although I could not deny the facts alleged in the several articles, yet I hoped they would admit of some extenuation. But having in my life perused many state-trials, which I ever observed to terminate as the judges thought fit to direct, I durst not rely on so dangerous a decision, in so critical a juncture, and against such powerful enemies. Once I was strongly bent upon resistance, for, while I had liberty, the whole strength of that empire could hardly subdue me, and I might easily with stones pelt the metropolis to pieces; but I soon rejected that project with horror, by remembering the oath I had made to the emperor, the favors I received from him, and the high title of _nardac_ he conferred upon me. Neither had I so soon learned the gratitude of courtiers as to persuade myself that his majesty's present seventies acquitted me of all past obligations. At last I fixed upon a resolution, for which it is probable I may incur some censure, and not unjustly; for I confess I owe the preserving mine eyes, and consequently my liberty, to my own great rashness and want of experience; because if I had then known the nature of princes and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should with great alacrity and readiness have submitted to so easy a punishment. But, hurried on by the precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial majesty's license to pay my attendance upon the emperor of Blefuscu, I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that morning for Blefuscu pursuant to the leave I had got; and, without waiting for an answer, I went to that side of the island where our fleet lay. I seized a large man-of-war, tied a cable to the prow, and lifting up the anchors, I stript myself, put my clothes (together with my coverlet, which I carried under my arm) into the vessel, and drawing it after me, between wading and swimming arrived at the royal port of Blefuscu, where the people had long expected me; they lent me two guides to direct me to the capital city, which is of the same name. I held them in my hands until I came within two hundred yards of the gate, and desired them to signify my arrival to one of the secretaries, and let him know I there waited his majesty's command. I had an answer in about an hour, that his majesty, attended by the royal family and great officers of the court, was coming out to receive me. I advanced a hundred yards. The emperor and his train alighted from their horses, the empress and ladies from their coaches, and I did not perceive they were in any fright or concern. I lay on the ground to kiss his majesty's and the empress's hand. [Illustration] I told his majesty that I was come, according to my promise, and with the license of the emperor, my master, to have the honor of seeing so mighty a monarch, and to offer him any service in my power consistent with my duty to my own prince, not mentioning a word of my disgrace, because I had hitherto no regular information of it, and might suppose myself wholly ignorant of any such design; neither could I reasonably conceive that the emperor would discover the secret while I was out of his power, wherein however it soon appeared I was deceived. I shall not trouble the reader with the particular account of my reception at this court, which was suitable to the generosity of so great a prince; nor of the difficulties I was in for want of a house and bed, being forced to lie on the ground, wrapped up in my coverlet. [Illustration]

Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-7

Gulliver learns that Flimnap, Skyresh Bolgolam, and others have approved articles of treason against him. His crimes include putting out the fire in the palace, refusing to devastate Blefuscu, speaking to the peace embassy from Blefuscu, and preparing to take advantage of the Emperor's permission to visit Blefuscu. The Emperor accepts the charges, but he refuses to kill Gulliver. Instead, he "mercifully" decides to blind Gulliver and save money on his upkeep by starving him slowly. On learning this, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu.

The Emperor's council that presses the charges against Gulliver stands for the commission of inquiry that preferred charges against the Tories. As a result of these charges, Harley and Bolingbroke were threatened with trials for treason. The first article, making water in the palace, may have reference to rumors that the Tories were sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. It may also apply to the charge that Harley and Bolingbroke treasonably and secretly revealed the instructions of the English negotiators to the French negotiators. The second charge correlates with overt attacks on the Tories for their refusal to continue the war and for their tries at negotiating a reasonable peace. The third charge stands for the accusation that Harley and Bolingbroke carried on secret correspondence with French negotiators. The fourth charge reflects the accusation that Harley and Bolingbroke intended to flee to France if their treason were discovered. Swift uses this chapter to show that English politicians were bloody-minded and treacherous. In detail, he records the bloody and cruel methods that the Lilliputians plan to use to kill Gulliver; then he comments ironically on the mercy, decency, generosity, and justice of kings. The Lilliputian emperor, out of mercy, plans to blind and starve Gulliver. This plan seems a direct reference to George's treatment of some captured Jacobites. He executed them -- after parliament had called him most merciful and lenient. Glossary the meanness of my condition my lowness in social status and rank; here, meaning that Gulliver was of humble origins and not of the nobility. in a close chair in an enclosed, one-person chair with glass windows, carried on poles by two men; a sedan chair. standing my trial facing my accusers.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/8.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_7_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 1.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-8", "summary": "A few days after his arrival at Blefuscu, Gulliver sees a large overturned ship floating in the bay and hauls it to port. While he is restoring the ship for his return home, a Lilliputian envoy presents a note demanding that Gulliver be returned as a traitor. The Blefuscudian emperor refuses to do so, hoping that Gulliver will stay as a war deterrent between the two countries. Gulliver refuses, however, and sets sail for home. Eventually a British merchant ship picks him up and returns him to England where he is reunited with his wife and family.", "analysis": "Gulliver's flight to Blefuscu recalls Bolingbroke's flight from England to France to escape the charges of treason pressed by the Whigs. The suggestions in the previous chapter that Gulliver might have pelted and destroyed the Lilliputian capital relate to Bolingbroke also. Supporters argued that had Bolingbroke and Harley actually intended treason, they could have revolted successfully. The Lilliputians' thirst for vengeance and their attempt to force the Blefuscudians to surrender Gulliver coincide with English protests against the Jacobites who found sanctuary in France. By the end of Book I, Swift has drawn a brilliant, concrete, and detailed contrast between the normal, if gullible, man and the diminutive but vicious politician; the politician is always a midget alongside Gulliver. Swift makes it clear that the normal person is concerned with honor, gratitude, common sense, and kindness. Swift, however, is not through with comparisons. The representative person is a midget compared with the truly moral person. Swift prepares to send gullible Gulliver off on a voyage to a realm where practical morality works. The inhabitants of this realm are as much bigger than normal people as normal people are bigger than politicians. Glossary cordage cords and ropes collectively, especially, the ropes in a ship's rigging. cabal a small group of persons joined in a secret, often political, intrigue. young princes of the blood the nobility; here, meaning the succession of royalty. the lee-side of the island the side or direction away from the wind. ancient an ensign, or flag. a bowling green at Greenwich a smooth lawn at Greenwich, a borough of Greater London. the Black Bull in Fetter Lane a place of business leased by Gulliver. leaving my family upon the parish leaving my family with no income; here, meaning Gulliver provides financial support for his family before leaving on his second voyage. towardly child a friendly child. Surat a seaport in western India, on the Arabian Sea."}

CHAPTER VIII. THE AUTHOR, BY A LUCKY ACCIDENT, FINDS MEANS TO LEAVE BLEFUSCU, AND AFTER SOME DIFFICULTIES, RETURNS SAFE TO HIS NATIVE COUNTRY. Three days after my arrival, walking out of curiosity to the northeast coast of the island, I observed, about half a league off in the sea, somewhat that looked like a boat overturned. I pulled off my shoes and stockings, and wading two or three hundred yards, I found the object to approach nearer by force of the tide; and then plainly saw it to be a real boat, which I supposed might by some tempest have been driven from a ship: whereupon I returned immediately towards the city, and desired his imperial majesty to lend me twenty of the tallest vessels he had left after the loss of his fleet, and three thousand seamen under the command of his vice-admiral. This fleet sailed round, while I went back the shortest way to the coast, where I first discovered the boat. I found the tide had driven it still nearer. The seamen were all provided with cordage, which I had beforehand twisted to a sufficient strength. When the ships came up, I stripped myself, and waded till I came within a hundred yards of the boat, after which I was forced to swim till I got up to it. The seamen threw me the end of the cord, which I fastened to a hole in the forepart of the boat, and the other end to a man-of-war. But I found all my labor to little purpose; for, being out of my depth, I was not able to work. In this necessity, I was forced to swim behind, and push the boat forwards as often as I could with one of my hands, and, the tide favoring me, I advanced so far, that I could just hold up my chin and feel the ground. I rested two or three minutes, and then gave the boat another shove, and so on till the sea was no higher than my arm-pits; and now, the most laborious part being over, I took out my other cables, which were stowed in one of the ships, and fastened them first to the boat, and then to nine of the vessels which attended me; the wind being favorable, the seamen towed, and I shoved, till we arrived within forty yards of the shore, and waiting till the tide was out, I got dry to the boat, and, by the assistance of two thousand men, with ropes and engines, I made a shift to turn it on its bottom, and found it was but little damaged. I shall not trouble the reader with the difficulties I was under, by the help of certain paddles, which cost me ten days making, to get my boat to the royal port of Blefuscu, where a mighty concourse of people appeared upon my arrival, full of wonder at the sight of so prodigious a vessel. I told the emperor that my good fortune had thrown this boat in my way, to carry me to some place from whence I might return into my native country, and begged his majesty's orders for getting materials to fit it up, together with his license to depart, which, after some kind expostulation, he was pleased to grant. I did very much wonder, in all this time, not to have heard of any express relating to me from our emperor to the court of Blefuscu. But I was afterwards given privately to understand that his imperial majesty, never imagining I had the least notice of his designs, believed I was only gone to Blefuscu in performance of my promise according to the license he had given me, which was well known at our court, and would return in a few days when the ceremony was ended. But he was at last in pain at my long absence; and, after consulting with the treasurer and the rest of that cabal,[35] a person of quality was despatched with the copy of the articles against me. This envoy had instructions to represent to the monarch of Blefuscu the great lenity of his master, who was content to punish me no farther than the loss of mine eyes; that I had fled from justice, and, if I did not return in two hours, I should be deprived of my title of _nardac_ and declared a traitor. The envoy farther added that, in order to maintain the peace and amity between both empires, his master expected that his brother of Blefuscu would give orders to have me sent back to Lilliput, bound hand and foot, to be punished as a traitor. The emperor of Blefuscu, having taken three days to consult, returned an answer consisting of many civilities and excuses. He said that, as for sending me bound, his brother knew it was impossible. That, although I had deprived him of his fleet, yet he owed great obligations to me for many good offices I had done him in making the peace. That, however, both their majesties would soon be made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped in a few weeks both empires would be freed from so insupportable an incumbrance. With this answer the envoy returned to Lilliput, and the monarch of Blefuscu related to me all that had passed; offering me at the same time (but under the strictest confidence) his gracious protection if I would continue in his service; wherein, although I believed him sincere, yet I resolved never more to put any confidence in princes or ministers where I could possibly avoid it; and, therefore, with all due acknowledgments for his favorable intentions, I humbly begged to be excused. I told him that, since fortune, whether good or evil, had thrown a vessel in my way, I was resolved to venture myself in the ocean, rather than be an occasion of difference between two such mighty monarchs. Neither did I find the emperor at all displeased; and I discovered, by a certain accident, that he was very glad of my resolution, and so were most of his ministers. These considerations moved me to hasten my departure somewhat sooner than I intended; to which the court, impatient to have me gone, very readily contributed. Five hundred workmen were employed to make two sails to my boat, according to my directions, by quilting thirteen folds of their strongest linen together. I was at the pains of making ropes and cables, by twisting ten, twenty, or thirty of the thickest and strongest of theirs. A great stone, that I happened to find after a long search by the sea-shore, served me for an anchor. I had the tallow of three hundred cows for greasing my boat, and other uses. I was at incredible pains in cutting down some of the largest timber-trees for oars and masts, wherein I was, however, much assisted by his majesty's ship-carpenters, who helped me in smoothing them after I had done the rough work. In about a month, when all was prepared, I sent to receive his majesty's commands, and to take my leave. The emperor and royal family came out of the palace. I lay down on my face to kiss his hand, which he very graciously gave me; so did the empress and young princes of the blood. His majesty presented me with fifty purses of two hundred _sprugs_ a-piece, together with his picture at full length, which I put immediately into one of my gloves, to keep it from being hurt. The ceremonies at my departure were too many to trouble the reader with at this time. [Illustration: "I SET SAIL AT SIX IN THE MORNING" P. 98.] I stored the boat with the carcases of a hundred oxen, and three hundred sheep, with bread and drink proportionable, and as much meat ready dressed as four hundred cooks could provide. I took with me six cows and two bulls alive, with as many ewes and lambs, intending to carry them into my own country, and propagate the breed. And to feed them on board, I had a good bundle of hay and a bag of corn. I would gladly have taken a dozen of the natives, but this was a thing the emperor would by no means permit; and, besides a diligent search into my pockets, his majesty engaged my honor not to carry away any of his subjects, although with their own consent and desire. Having thus prepared all things as well as I was able, I set sail on the twenty-fourth day of September, 1701, at six in the morning; and, when I had gone about four leagues to the northward, the wind being at southeast, at six in the evening I descried a small island about half a league to the northwest I advanced forward, and cast anchor on the lee side[36] of the island, which seemed to be uninhabited. I then took some refreshment, and went to my rest. I slept well, and, as I conjecture, at least six hours, for I found the day broke two hours after I awaked. It was a clear night. I ate my breakfast before the sun was up; and heaving anchor, the wind being favorable, I steered the same course that I had done the day before, wherein I was directed by my pocket-compass. My intention was to reach, if possible, one of those islands, which, I had reason to believe, lay to the northeast of Van Diemen's Land. I discovered nothing all that day; but upon the next, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when I had, by my computation, made twenty-four leagues from Blefuscu, I descried a sail steering to the southeast: my course was due east. I hailed her, but could get no answer; yet I found I gained upon her, for the wind slackened. I made all the sail I could, and in half-an-hour she spied me, then hung out her ancient,[37] and discharged a gun. It is not easy to express the joy I was in, upon the unexpected hope of once more seeing my beloved country, and the dear pledges I left in it. The ship slackened her sails, and I came up with her, between five and six in the evening, September twenty-sixth; but my heart leaped within me to see her English colors. I put my cows and sheep into my coat-pockets, and got on board with all my little cargo of provisions. The vessel was an English merchantman returning from Japan by the North and South Seas; the captain, Mr. John Biddle, of Deptford, a very civil man and an excellent sailor. We were now in the latitude of 30 degrees south. There were about fifty men in the ship; and here I met an old comrade of mine, one Peter Williams, who gave me a good character to the captain. This gentleman treated me with kindness, and desired I would let him know what place I came from last, and whither I was bound; which I did in few words, but he thought I was raving, and that the dangers I had underwent had disturbed my head; whereupon I took my black cattle and sheep out of my pocket, which, after great astonishment, clearly convinced him of my veracity. I then showed him the gold given me by the emperor of Blefuscu, together with his majesty's picture at full length, and some other rareties of that country. I gave him two purses of two hundred _sprugs_ each, and promised, when we arrived in England, to make him a present of a cow and a sheep. [Illustration] I shall not trouble the reader with a particular account of this voyage, which was very prosperous for the most part. We arrived in the Downs[38] on the thirteenth of April, 1702. I had only one misfortune, that the rats on board carried away one of my sheep; I found her bones in a hole, picked clean from the flesh. I got the rest of my cattle safe ashore, and set them a-grazing in a bowling-green at Greenwich, where the fineness of the grass made them feed very heartily, though I had always feared the contrary: neither could I possibly have preserved them in so long a voyage, if the captain had not allowed me some of his best biscuits, which, rubbed to powder, and mingled with water, was their constant food. The short time I continued in England, I made a considerable profit by showing my cattle to many persons of quality and others: and before I began my second voyage I sold them for six hundred pounds. Since my last return, I find the breed is considerably increased, especially the sheep, which I hope will prove much to the advantage of the woollen manufacture, by the fineness of the fleeces. [Illustration] I stayed but two months with my wife and family; for my insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries would suffer me to continue no longer. I left fifteen hundred pounds with my wife and fixed her in a good house at Redriff. My remaining stock I carried with me, part in money, and part in goods, in hopes to improve my fortune. My eldest uncle, John, had left me an estate in land, near Epping, of about thirty pounds a year; and I had a long lease of the "Black Bull[39]," in Fetter Lane, which yielded me as much more: so that I was not in any danger of leaving my family upon the parish. My son Johnny, named so after his uncle, was at the grammar-school, and a towardly[40] child. My daughter Betty (who is now well married, and has children), was then at her needlework. I took leave of my wife and boy and girl, with tears on both sides, and went on board the "Adventure," a merchant ship of three hundred tons, bound for Surat, Captain John Nicholas, of Liverpool, commander. But my account of this voyage must be referred to the second part of my travels. THE END OF THE FIRST PART. [Illustration: "THEY CONCLUDED ... THAT I WAS ONLY _Relplum Scalcath_," P. 37.] [Illustration] TRAVELS. * * * * *

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-i-chapter-8

A few days after his arrival at Blefuscu, Gulliver sees a large overturned ship floating in the bay and hauls it to port. While he is restoring the ship for his return home, a Lilliputian envoy presents a note demanding that Gulliver be returned as a traitor. The Blefuscudian emperor refuses to do so, hoping that Gulliver will stay as a war deterrent between the two countries. Gulliver refuses, however, and sets sail for home. Eventually a British merchant ship picks him up and returns him to England where he is reunited with his wife and family.

Gulliver's flight to Blefuscu recalls Bolingbroke's flight from England to France to escape the charges of treason pressed by the Whigs. The suggestions in the previous chapter that Gulliver might have pelted and destroyed the Lilliputian capital relate to Bolingbroke also. Supporters argued that had Bolingbroke and Harley actually intended treason, they could have revolted successfully. The Lilliputians' thirst for vengeance and their attempt to force the Blefuscudians to surrender Gulliver coincide with English protests against the Jacobites who found sanctuary in France. By the end of Book I, Swift has drawn a brilliant, concrete, and detailed contrast between the normal, if gullible, man and the diminutive but vicious politician; the politician is always a midget alongside Gulliver. Swift makes it clear that the normal person is concerned with honor, gratitude, common sense, and kindness. Swift, however, is not through with comparisons. The representative person is a midget compared with the truly moral person. Swift prepares to send gullible Gulliver off on a voyage to a realm where practical morality works. The inhabitants of this realm are as much bigger than normal people as normal people are bigger than politicians. Glossary cordage cords and ropes collectively, especially, the ropes in a ship's rigging. cabal a small group of persons joined in a secret, often political, intrigue. young princes of the blood the nobility; here, meaning the succession of royalty. the lee-side of the island the side or direction away from the wind. ancient an ensign, or flag. a bowling green at Greenwich a smooth lawn at Greenwich, a borough of Greater London. the Black Bull in Fetter Lane a place of business leased by Gulliver. leaving my family upon the parish leaving my family with no income; here, meaning Gulliver provides financial support for his family before leaving on his second voyage. towardly child a friendly child. Surat a seaport in western India, on the Arabian Sea.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/9.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_8_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-1", "summary": "Gulliver is home for only two months when he and the crew of the Adventure set sail for Surat. A storm blows their ship far off course. When they finally sight land, the captain sends a crew, including Gulliver, to explore. While the crew looks for drinking water, Gulliver explores another part of the island. The men are set upon by \"a huge creature\" that chases them into the ocean and back to their ship. Gulliver, who was investigating the shore of the new country, is left behind. Eventually, Gulliver is discovered by several of these huge creatures that are, in reality, very large human beings. These giants prove to be friendly and curious, and eventually one of the giants, a farmer, takes Gulliver to his farmhouse where the farmer's friendly family receives him.", "analysis": "When Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, Swift first sets up the size ratio. Now the tables are turned: The Lilliputians were midgets one-twelfth Gulliver's size. Now Gulliver is a midget, and the giants who inhabit Brobdingnag are twelve times Gulliver's size. Besides the size change, notice too that Swift changes perspective in another way. When Gulliver was living among the Lilliputians, he described them as being like \"little men.\" The Brobdingnagians who capture Gulliver, however, do not think of Gulliver as a \"little man\" or as a \"little Brobdingnagian.\" Some of his first Brobdingnagian acquaintances think of him as being weasel-like or like dangerous and repulsive vermin. Thus Gulliver, in retrospect, seems more humane than we might have realized. To him, the Lilliputians were never insects or vermin, no matter how odious they acted. The Brobdingnagians are a contrast; they like him, generally speaking, but he is never a man. He is a plaything, a rare pet, but never a man. If the Brobdingnagians do not see Gulliver as a man, however, we cannot condemn them on this one count. They are a moral people, and, again and again, Gulliver will show us instances of their moral virtue. But, at the same time, he never lets us forget that they are also aliens. He admires their laws, but he cannot abide their display of vast areas of flesh. He records his disgust at their physical selves in detail because he cannot overlook, or dismiss, magnified pores and moles and stray hairs. Our own flesh, however, would be repugnant -- even to us -- if we were to see it through the eyes of a doll-sized man. Yet they are flesh, and we are flesh, and it is this common bond that we, and Gulliver, share with the giant Brobdingnagians. They are a positive race of people, and even if we might not be able to attain their superior morality, we might profitably try to emulate certain of their standards. Glossary the Line the equator. ague a fever, usually malarial, marked by regularly recurring chills. arch boy a clever, crafty boy. hanger a short sword, hung from the belt. lappet a loose flap or fold of a garment. scabbard a sheath or case to hold the blade of a sword. sorrel any of various short, coarse weeds. Molucca Islands group of islands of Indonesia, between Sulawesi & New Guinea."}

PART II. A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG_. CHAPTER I. A GREAT STORM DESCRIBED; THE LONG-BOAT SENT TO FETCH WATER; THE AUTHOR GOES WITH IT TO DISCOVER THE COUNTRY. HE IS LEFT ON SHORE, IS SEIZED BY ONE OF THE NATIVES, AND CARRIED TO A FARMER'S HOUSE. HIS RECEPTION, WITH SEVERAL ACCIDENTS THAT HAPPENED THERE. A DESCRIPTION OF THE INHABITANTS. Having been condemned by nature and fortune to an active and restless life, in two months after my return I again left my native country, and took shipping in the Downs on the twentieth day of June, 1702, in the "Adventure," Captain John Nicholas, a Cornish man, commander, bound for Surat. We had a very prosperous gale till we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, where we landed for fresh water; but, discovering a leak, we unshipped our goods and wintered there: for, the captain falling sick of an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March. We then set sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar;[41] but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a constant equal gale, between the north and west, from the beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the nineteenth of April began to blow with much greater violence and more westerly than usual, continuing so for twenty days together, during which time we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands, and about three degrees northward of the line,[42] as our captain found by an observation he took the second of May, at which time the wind ceased and it was a perfect calm; whereat I was not a little rejoiced. But, he, being a man well experienced in the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm, which accordingly happened the day following: for the southern wind, called the southern monsoon, began to set in, and soon it was a fierce storm. Finding it was like to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the foresail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. [Illustration] The ship lay very broad off, so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying, or hulling. We reefed the foresail and set him, we hauled aft the foresheet: the helm was hard-a-weather. The ship wore bravely. We belayed the fore down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things clear of it. It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous. We hauled off the laniard of the whipstaff, and helped the man at the helm. We could not get down our topmast, but let all stand, because she scudded before the sea very well, and we knew that the topmast being aloft, the ship was the wholesomer, and made better way through the sea, seeing we had sea-room. When the storm was over, we set foresail and mainsail, and brought the ship to. Then we set the mizzen, main-top-sail, and the fore-top-sail. Our course was east north east, the wind was at southwest. We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our weather braces and lifts; we set in the lee braces, and hauled forward by the weather bowlings, and hauled them tight and belayed them, and hauled over the mizzen tack to wind-ward and kept her full and by, as near as she could lie. During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind, west southwest, we were carried, by my computation, about five hundred leagues to the east, so that the oldest sailor on board could not tell in what part of the world we were. Our provisions held out well, our ship was staunch, and our crew all in good health; but we lay in the utmost distress for water. We thought it best to hold on the same course, rather than turn more northerly, which might have brought us to the northwest parts of Great Tartary, and into the Frozen Sea. On the sixteenth day of June, 1703, a boy on the topmast discovered land. On the seventeenth, we came in full view of a great island or continent (for we knew not which), on the south side whereof was a small neck of land, jutting out into the sea, and a creek too shallow to hold a ship of above one hundred tons. We cast anchor within a league of this creek, and our captain sent a dozen of his men well armed in the long-boat, with vessels for water, if any could be found. I desired his leave to go with them, that I might see the country, and make what discoveries I could. When we came to land, we saw no river or spring, nor any sign of inhabitants. Our men therefore wandered on the shore to find out some fresh water near the sea, and I walked alone about a mile on the other side, where I observed the country all barren and rocky. I now began to be weary, and seeing nothing to entertain my curiosity, I returned gently down toward the creek; and the sea being full in my view, I saw our men already got into the boat, and rowing for life to the ship. I was going to holla after them, although it had been to little purpose, when I observed a huge creature walking after them in the sea, as fast as he could; he waded not much deeper than his knees, and took prodigious strides; but our men had the start of him about half a league, and the sea thereabouts being full of pointed rocks, the monster was not able to overtake the boat. This I was afterwards told, for I durst not stay to see the issue of the adventure; but ran as fast as I could the way I first went, and then climbed up a steep hill, which gave me some prospect of the country. I found it fully cultivated; but that which first surprised me was the length of the grass, which, in those grounds that seemed to be kept for hay, was about twenty feet high. [Illustration: "A HUGE CREATURE WALKING ... IN THE SEA." P. 6.] I fell into a high road, for so I took it to be, though it served to the inhabitants only as a footpath through a field of barley. Here I walked on for some time, but could see little on either side, it being now near harvest, and the corn rising at least forty feet. I was an hour walking to the end of this field, which was fenced in with a hedge of at least one hundred and twenty feet high, and the trees so lofty that I could make no computation of their altitude. There was a stile to pass from this field into the next. It had four steps, and a stone to cross over when you came to the uppermost. It was impossible for me to climb this stile because every step was six feet high, and the upper stone above twenty. I was endeavoring to find some gap in the hedge, when I discovered one of the inhabitants in the next field, advancing towards the stile, of the same size with him whom I saw in the sea pursuing our boat. He appeared as tall as an ordinary spire steeple, and took about ten yards at every stride, as near as I could guess. I was struck with the utmost fear and astonishment, and ran to hide myself in the corn, from whence I saw him at the top of the stile, looking back into the next field on the right hand, and heard him call in a voice many degrees louder than a speaking trumpet; but the noise was so high in the air that at first I certainly thought it was thunder. Whereupon seven monsters, like himself, came towards him with reaping-hooks in their hands, each hook about the largeness of six scythes. These people were not so well clad as the first, whose servants or laborers they seemed to be; for, upon some words he spoke, they went to reap the corn in the field where I lay. I kept from them at as great a distance as I could, but was forced to move, with extreme difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes not above a foot distance, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt them. However, I made a shift to go forward till I came to a part of the field where the corn had been laid by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible for me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven that I could not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes into my flesh. At the same time I heard the reapers not above a hundred yards behind me. Being quite dispirited with toil, and wholly overcome by grief and despair, I lay down between two ridges, and heartily wished I might there end my days. I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless children. I lamented my own folly and wilfulness in attempting a second voyage against the advice of all my friends and relations. In this terrible agitation of mind, I could not forbear thinking of Lilliput, whose inhabitants looked upon me as the greatest prodigy that ever appeared in the world; where I was able to draw an imperial fleet in my hand, and perform those other actions which will be recorded forever in the chronicles of that empire, while posterity shall hardly believe them, although attested by millions. I reflected what a mortification it must prove to me to appear as inconsiderable in this nation as one single Lilliputian would be among us. But this I conceived was to be among the least of my misfortunes: for, as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk, what could I expect but to be a morsel in the mouth of the first among these enormous barbarians that should happen to seize me? Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might have pleased fortune to let the Lilliputians find some nation where the people were as diminutive with respect to them as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery? Scared and confounded as I was, I could not forbear going on with these reflections, when one of the reapers, approaching within ten yards of the ridge where I lay, made me apprehend that with the next step I should be squashed to death under his foot, or cut in two with his reaping-hook. And, therefore, when he was again about to move, I screamed as loud as fear could make me. Whereupon the huge creature trod short, and looking round about under him for some time, at last espied me as I lay on the ground. He considered awhile, with the caution of one who endeavors to lay hold on a small dangerous animal in such a manner that it shall not be able either to scratch or to bite him, as I myself have sometimes done with a weasel in England. [Illustration: "WHEREUPON THE HUGE CREATURE TROD SHORT." P. 10.] At length he ventured to take me up between his forefinger and thumb, and brought me within three yards of his eyes, that he might behold my shape more perfectly. I guessed his meaning, and my good fortune gave me so much presence of mind that I resolved not to struggle in the least as he held me in the air, above sixty feet from the ground, although he grievously pinched my sides, for fear I should slip through his fingers. All I ventured was to raise my eyes towards the sun, and place my hands together in a supplicating posture, and to speak some words in an humble melancholy tone, suitable to the condition I then was in. For I apprehended every moment that he would dash me against the ground, as we usually do any little hateful animal which we have a mind to destroy. But my good star would have it that he appeared pleased with my voice and gestures, and began to look upon me as a curiosity, much wondering to hear me pronounce articulate words, although he could not understand them. In the meantime I was not able to forbear groaning and shedding tears, and turning my head towards my sides; letting him know, as well as I could, how cruelly I was hurt by the pressure of his thumb and finger. He seemed to apprehend my meaning; for, lifting up the lappet of his coat, he put me gently into it, and immediately ran along with me to his master, who was a substantial farmer, and the same person I had first seen in the field. The farmer, having (as I suppose by their talk) received such an account of me as his servant could give him, took a piece of a small straw, about the size of a walking-staff, and therewith lifted up the lappets of my coat, which it seems he thought to be some kind of covering that nature had given me. He blew my hair aside, to take a better view of my face. He called his hinds[43] about him, and asked them (as I afterwards learned) whether they had ever seen in the fields any little creature that resembled me. He then placed me softly on the ground upon all fours, but I got immediately up, and walked slowly backwards and forwards to let those people see that I had no intent to run away. They all sat down in a circle about me, the better to observe my motions. I pulled off my hat, and made a low bow towards the farmer. I fell on my knees, and lifted up my hands and eyes, and spoke several words as loud as I could: I took a purse of gold out of my pocket, and humbly presented it to him. He received it on the palm of his hand, then applied it close to his eye to see what it was, and afterwards turned it several times with the point of a pin (which he took out of his sleeve), but could make nothing of it. Whereupon I made a sign that he should place his hand on the ground. I then took the purse, and opening it, poured all the gold into his palm. There were six Spanish pieces, of four pistoles[44] each, besides twenty or thirty smaller coins. I saw him wet the tip of his little finger upon his tongue, and take up one of my largest pieces, and then another, but he seemed to be wholly ignorant what they were. He made me a sign to put them again into my purse, and the purse again into my pocket, which, after offering it to him several times, I thought it best to do. The farmer by this time was convinced I must be a rational creature. He spoke often to me, but the sound of his voice pierced my ears like that of a water-mill, yet his words were articulate enough. I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he often laid his ear within two yards of me; but all in vain, for we were wholly unintelligible to each other. He then sent his servants to their work, and taking his handkerchief out of his pocket, he doubled and spread it on his left hand, which he placed flat on the ground, with the palm upwards, making me a sign to step into it, as I could easily do, for it was not above a foot in thickness. I thought it my part to obey, and, for fear of falling, laid myself at full length upon the handkerchief, with the remainder of which he lapped me up to the head for farther security, and in this manner carried me home to his house. There he called his wife, and showed me to her; but she screamed and ran back, as women in England do at the sight of a toad or a spider. However, when she had awhile seen my behavior, and how well I observed the signs her husband made, she was soon reconciled, and by degrees grew extremely tender of me. It was about twelve at noon, and a servant brought in dinner. It was only one substantial dish of meat (fit for the plain condition of an husbandman) in a dish of about four-and-twenty feet diameter. The company were the farmer and his wife, three children, and an old grandmother. When they were sat down, the farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which was thirty feet high from the floor. I was in a terrible fright, and kept as far as I could from the edge for fear of falling. The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a trencher,[45] and placed it before me. I made her a low bow, took out my knife and fork, and fell to eat, which gave them exceeding delight. The mistress sent her maid for a small dram cup, which held about three gallons, and filled it with drink: I took up the vessel with much difficulty in both hands, and in a most respectful manner drank to her ladyship's health, expressing the words as loud as I could in English, which made the company laugh so heartily that I was almost deafened by the noise. This liquor tasted like a small cider, and was not unpleasant. Then the master made me a sign to come to his trencher-side; but as I walked on the table, being in great surprise all the time, as the indulgent reader will easily conceive and excuse, I happened to stumble against a crust, and fell flat on my face, but received no hurt. I got up immediately, and observing the good people to be in much concern, I took my hat (which I held under my arm out of good manners), and, waving it over my head, made three huzzas, to show that I had got no mischief by my fall. But advancing forwards towards my master (as I shall henceforth call him), his youngest son, who sat next him, an arch boy of about ten years old, took me up by the legs, and held me so high in the air, that I trembled in every limb; but his father snatched me from him, and at the same time gave him such a box in the left ear as would have felled an European troop of horse to the earth, ordering him to be taken from the table. But being afraid the boy might owe me a spite, and well remembering how mischievous all children among us naturally are to sparrows, rabbits, young kittens, and puppy dogs, I fell on my knees, and, pointing to the boy, made my master to understand as well as I could, that I desired his son might be pardoned. The father complied, and the lad took his seat again; whereupon I went to him and kissed his hand, which my master took, and made him stroke me gently with it. In the midst of dinner, my mistress's favorite cat leapt into her lap. I heard a noise behind me like that of a dozen stocking-weavers at work; and, turning my head, I found it proceeded from the purring of that animal, who seemed to be three times larger than an ox, as I computed by the view of her head and one of her paws, while her mistress was feeding and stroking her. The fierceness of this creature's countenance altogether discomposed me, though I stood at the further end of the table, above fifty feet off, and although my mistress held her fast, for fear she might give a spring and seize me in her talons. But it happened there was no danger; for the cat took not the least notice of me, when my master placed me within three yards of her. And as I have been always told, and found true by experience in my travels, that flying or discovering[46] fear before a fierce animal is a certain way to make it pursue or attack you, so I resolved in this dangerous juncture to show no manner of concern. I walked with intrepidity five or six times before the very head of the cat, and came within half a yard of her; whereupon she drew herself back, as if she were more afraid of me. I had less apprehension concerning the dogs, whereof three or four came into the room, as it is usual in farmers' houses; one of which was a mastiff equal in bulk to four elephants, and a greyhound somewhat taller than the mastiff, but not so large. When dinner was almost done, the nurse came in with a child of a year old in her arms, who immediately spied me, and began a squall that you might have heard from London Bridge to Chelsea,[47] after the usual oratory of infants, to get me for a plaything. The mother out of pure indulgence took me up, and put me towards the child, who presently seized me by the middle and got my head in its mouth, where I roared so loud that the urchin was frighted, and let me drop, and I should infallibly have broke my neck if the mother had not held her apron under me. The nurse, to quiet her babe, made use of a rattle, which was a kind of hollow vessel filled with great stones, and fastened by a cable to the child's waist. As she sat down close to the table on which I stood, her appearance astonished me not a little. This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough, and coarse and ill-colored. I remember, when I was at Lilliput, the complexions of those diminutive people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and talking upon this subject with a person of learning there, who was an intimate friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother when he looked on me from the ground than it did upon a nearer view, when I took him up in my hand and brought him close, which he confessed was at first a very shocking sight. He said he could discover great holes in my skin; that the stumps of my beard were ten times stronger than the bristles of a boar, and my complexion made up of several colors altogether disagreeable: although I must beg leave to say for myself that I am as fair as most of my sex and country, and very little sunburnt by my travels. On the other side, discoursing of the ladies of that emperor's court, he used to tell me one had freckles, another too wide a mouth, a third too large a nose, nothing of which I was able to distinguish. I confess this reflection was obvious enough; which, however, I could not forbear, lest the reader might think those vast creatures were actually deformed: for I must do them justice to say they are a comely race of people; and particularly the features of my master's countenance, although he were but a farmer, when I beheld him from the height of sixty feet, appeared very well proportioned. When dinner was done my master went out to his labors, and, as I could discover by his voice and gestures, gave his wife a strict charge to take care of me. I was very much tired and disposed to sleep, which, my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail of a man-of-war. I slept about two hours, and dreamed I was at home with my wife and children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked and found myself alone in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and above two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide. My mistress was gone about her household affairs, and had locked me in. The bed was eight yards from the floor. [Illustration: "I ... DREW MY HANGER TO DEFEND MYSELF." P. 18.] Presently two rats crept up the curtains, and ran smelling backwards and forwards on my bed. One of them came almost up to my face; whereupon I rose in a fright, and drew out my hanger to defend myself. The horrible animals had the boldness to attack me both sides, and one of them held his forefeet at my collar; but I killed him before he could do me any mischief. He fell down at my feet; and the other, seeing the fate of his comrade, made his escape, but not without one good wound on the back, which I gave him as he fled, and made the blood run trickling from him. After this exploit I walked gently to and fro on the bed to recover my breath and loss of spirits. These creatures were of the size of a large mastiff, but infinitely more nimble and fierce; so that, if I had taken off my belt before I went to sleep, I must infallibly have been torn to pieces and devoured. I measured the tail of the dead rat, and found it to be two yards long wanting an inch; but it went against my stomach to draw the carcase off the bed, where it still lay bleeding. I observed it had yet some life; but, with a strong slash across the neck, I thoroughly despatched it. I hope the gentle reader will excuse me for dwelling on these and the like particulars, which, however insignificant they may appear to grovelling vulgar minds, yet will certainly help a philosopher to enlarge his thoughts and imagination, and apply them to the benefit of public as well as private life, which was my sole design in presenting this and other accounts of my travels to the world; wherein I have been chiefly studious of truth, without affecting any ornaments of teaming or style. But the whole scene of this voyage made so strong an impression on my mind, and is so deeply memory, that in committing it to paper I did not omit one material circumstance. However, upon a strict review, I blotted out several passages of less moment which were in my first copy, for fear of being censured as tedious and trifling, whereof travellers are often, perhaps not without justice, accused.

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-1

Gulliver is home for only two months when he and the crew of the Adventure set sail for Surat. A storm blows their ship far off course. When they finally sight land, the captain sends a crew, including Gulliver, to explore. While the crew looks for drinking water, Gulliver explores another part of the island. The men are set upon by "a huge creature" that chases them into the ocean and back to their ship. Gulliver, who was investigating the shore of the new country, is left behind. Eventually, Gulliver is discovered by several of these huge creatures that are, in reality, very large human beings. These giants prove to be friendly and curious, and eventually one of the giants, a farmer, takes Gulliver to his farmhouse where the farmer's friendly family receives him.

When Gulliver finds himself in Brobdingnag, Swift first sets up the size ratio. Now the tables are turned: The Lilliputians were midgets one-twelfth Gulliver's size. Now Gulliver is a midget, and the giants who inhabit Brobdingnag are twelve times Gulliver's size. Besides the size change, notice too that Swift changes perspective in another way. When Gulliver was living among the Lilliputians, he described them as being like "little men." The Brobdingnagians who capture Gulliver, however, do not think of Gulliver as a "little man" or as a "little Brobdingnagian." Some of his first Brobdingnagian acquaintances think of him as being weasel-like or like dangerous and repulsive vermin. Thus Gulliver, in retrospect, seems more humane than we might have realized. To him, the Lilliputians were never insects or vermin, no matter how odious they acted. The Brobdingnagians are a contrast; they like him, generally speaking, but he is never a man. He is a plaything, a rare pet, but never a man. If the Brobdingnagians do not see Gulliver as a man, however, we cannot condemn them on this one count. They are a moral people, and, again and again, Gulliver will show us instances of their moral virtue. But, at the same time, he never lets us forget that they are also aliens. He admires their laws, but he cannot abide their display of vast areas of flesh. He records his disgust at their physical selves in detail because he cannot overlook, or dismiss, magnified pores and moles and stray hairs. Our own flesh, however, would be repugnant -- even to us -- if we were to see it through the eyes of a doll-sized man. Yet they are flesh, and we are flesh, and it is this common bond that we, and Gulliver, share with the giant Brobdingnagians. They are a positive race of people, and even if we might not be able to attain their superior morality, we might profitably try to emulate certain of their standards. Glossary the Line the equator. ague a fever, usually malarial, marked by regularly recurring chills. arch boy a clever, crafty boy. hanger a short sword, hung from the belt. lappet a loose flap or fold of a garment. scabbard a sheath or case to hold the blade of a sword. sorrel any of various short, coarse weeds. Molucca Islands group of islands of Indonesia, between Sulawesi & New Guinea.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_9_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 2

chapter 2

{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-2", "summary": "Of all the family, the farmer's daughter is the most fascinated by Gulliver. He seems like a walking, talking doll to her. She enjoys caring for him and even gives him a new name: Grildrig. She takes such good care of Gulliver that he calls her his glumdalclitch . News of Gulliver's living at the farmer's house spreads quickly, and several visitors come to see him. At the urging of one particular gentleman, the farmer decides to take Gulliver to the market place and to put him on display for others to see . This being successful, the farmer decides to take Gulliver on tour throughout the kingdom, including visiting the kingdom's metropolis, Lorbrulgrud. There Gulliver performs ten times a day for all who wish to see him. By this time, though, Gulliver has presented far too many performances; he is almost dead with fatigue.", "analysis": "In this chapter, Swift demonstrates that the giants are kind and decent. It is a delicate process because, on the surface, Gulliver seems to be mistreated, yet the farmer is careful with Gulliver, and Glumdalclitch is especially loving with him. The farmer, it is true, almost kills Gulliver out of thoughtlessness, but he is never cruel or malicious to Gulliver . No normal Brobdingnagian is malicious; only children and the deformed are of that temper. These giants are not perfect; they are akin to us. Even the best of us are, sometimes, thoughtless and greedy. As for the rest of us, we are sometimes malicious -- like the Lilliputians. There is a stray political comment in this section that is of interest. Gulliver notes that the King of England himself would have felt isolated and different were he to be in a foreign land. This statement refers to George I. The English, and especially the Tories, made much of George's German origin. Glossary manikin a little man; dwarf; here, being a translation of the name Grildrig, the name given to Gulliver by the farmer's daughter. pillion a cushion attached behind a saddle for an extra rider. gimlet-holes holes made by a gimlet, a small boring tool with a handle at right angles to a shaft having at the other end a spiral, pointed cutting edge; here, meaning the holes bored in Gulliver's traveling box. the Sign of the Green Eagle an inn where Gulliver performed. Ganges a river in northern India, flowing from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal."}

CHAPTER II. A DESCRIPTION OF THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER. THE AUTHOR CARRIED TO A MARKET-TOWN, AND THEN TO THE METROPOLIS. THE PARTICULARS OF THIS JOURNEY. My mistress had a daughter of nine years old, a child of toward parts for her age, very dexterous at her needle, and skilful in dressing her baby. Her mother and she contrived to fit up the baby's cradle for me against night. The cradle was put into a small drawer cabinet, and the drawer placed upon a hanging shelf for fear of the rats. This was my bed all the time I stayed with these people, though made more convenient by degrees, as I began to learn their language and make my wants known. She made me seven shirts, and some other linen, of as fine cloth as could be got, which indeed was coarser than sackcloth; and these she constantly washed for me with her own hands. She was likewise my school-mistress, to teach me the language. When I pointed to anything, she told me the name of it in her own tongue, so that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to. She was very good-natured, and not above forty feet high, being little for her age. She gave me the name of Grildrig, which the family took up, and afterwards the whole kingdom. The word imports what the Latins call _nanunculus_, the Italians _homunceletino_, and the English _mannikin_. To her I chiefly owe my preservation in that country. We never parted while I was there; I called her my Glumdalclitch, or little nurse; and should be guilty of great ingratitude if I omitted this honorable mention of her care and affection towards me, which I heartily wish it lay in my power to requite as she deserves. It now began to be known and talked of in the neighborhood, that my master had found a strange animal in the field, about the bigness of a _splacnuck_, but exactly shaped in every part like a human creature; which it likewise imitated in all its actions, seemed to speak in a little language of its own, had already learned several words of theirs, went erect upon two legs, was tame and gentle, would come when it was called, do whatever it was bid, had the finest limbs in the world, and a complexion fairer than a nobleman's daughter of three years old. Another farmer, who lived hard by, and was a particular friend of my master, came on a visit on purpose to inquire into the truth of this story. I was immediately produced and placed upon a table, where I walked as I was commanded, drew my hanger, put it up again, made my reverence to my master's guest, asked him in his own language how he did, and told him _he was welcome_, just as my little nurse had instructed me. This man, who was old and dim-sighted, put on his spectacles to behold me better, at which I could not forbear laughing very heartily, for his eyes appeared like the full moon shining into a chamber at two windows. Our people, who discovered the cause of my mirth, bore me company in laughing, at which the old fellow was fool enough to be angry and out of countenance. He had the character of a great miser; and, to my misfortune, he well deserved it by the cursed advice he gave my master, to show me as a sight upon a market-day in the next town, which was half an hour's riding, about two-and-twenty miles from our house. I guessed there was some mischief contriving, when I observed my master and his friend whispering long together, sometimes pointing at me; and my fears made me fancy that I overheard and understood some of their words. [Illustration: "I CALLED HER MY GLUMDALCLITCH." P. 22.] But the next morning, Glumdalclitch, my little nurse, told me the whole matter, which she had cunningly picked out from her mother. The poor girl laid me on her bosom, and fell a-weeping with shame and grief. She apprehended some mischief would happen to me from rude vulgar folks, who might squeeze me to death, or break one of my limbs by taking me in their hands. She had also observed how modest I was in my nature, how nicely I regarded my honor, and what an indignity conceive it to be exposed for money, as a public spectacle, to the meanest of the people. She said her papa and mamma had promised that Grildrig should be hers, but now she found they meant to serve her as they did last year when they pretended to give her a lamb, and yet as soon as it was fat sold it to a butcher. For my own part I may truly affirm that I was less concerned than my nurse. I had a strong hope, which left me, that I should one day recover my liberty; to the ignominy of being carried about for a monster, I considered myself to be a perfect stranger in the country, and that such a misfortune could never be charged upon me as a reproach if ever I should return to England; since the king of Great Britain himself, in my condition, must have undergone the same distress. My master, pursuant to the advice of his friend, carried me in a box the next market-day, to the neighboring town, and took along with him his little daughter, my nurse, upon a pillion[48] behind him. The box was close on every side, with a little door for me to go in and out, and a few gimlet holes to let in air. The girl had been so careful as to put the quilt of her baby's bed into it, for me to lie down on. However, I was terribly shaken and discomposed in this journey, though it were but of half an hour. For the horse went about forty feet at every step, and trotted so high that the agitation was equal to the rising and falling of a ship in a great storm, but much more frequent; our journey was somewhat farther than from London to St. Alban's. My master alighted at an inn which he used to frequent; and after consulting a while with the innkeeper and making some necessary preparations, he hired the _grultrud_, or crier, to give notice through the town, of a strange creature to be seen at the sign of the Green Eagle, not so big as a _splacnuck_ (an animal in that country, very finely shaped, about six feet long), and in every part of the body resembling a human creature, could speak several words, and perform a hundred diverting tricks. I was placed upon a table in the largest room of the inn, which might be near three hundred feet square. My little nurse stood on a low stool close to the table, to take care of me, and direct what I should do. My master, to avoid a crowd, would suffer only thirty people at a time to see me. I walked about on the table as the girl commanded. She asked me questions, as far as she knew my understanding of the language reached, and I answered them as loud as I could. I turned about several times to the company, paid my humble respects, said they were welcome, and used some other speeches I had been taught. I took a thimble filled with liquor, which Glumdalclitch had given me for a cup, and drank their health. I drew out my hanger, and flourished with it, after the manner of fencers in England. My nurse gave me part of a straw, which I exercised as a pike, having learnt the art in my youth. I was that day shown to twelve sets of company, and as often forced to act over again the same fopperies, till I was half dead with weariness and vexation. For those who had seen me made such wonderful reports, that the people were ready to break down the doors to come in. My master, for his own interest, would not suffer any one to touch me except my nurse, and, to prevent danger, benches were set round the table at such a distance as to put me out of everybody's reach. However, an unlucky school-boy aimed a hazel-nut directly at my head, which very narrowly missed me: otherwise, it came with so much violence, that it would have infallibly knocked out my brains, for it was almost as large as a small pumpion,[49] but I had the satisfaction to see the young rogue well beaten, and turned out of the room. [Illustration: "FLOURISHED IT AFTER THE MANNER OF FENCERS IN ENGLAND." P. 26.] My master gave public notice that he would show me again the next market-day, and in the meantime he prepared a more convenient vehicle for me, which he had reason enough to do; for I was so tired with my first journey, and with entertaining company for eight hours together, that I could hardly stand upon my legs or speak a word. It was at least three days before I recovered my strength; and that I might have no rest at home, all the neighboring gentleman, from a hundred miles round, hearing of my fame, came to see me at my master's own house. There could not be fewer than thirty persons with their wives and children (for the country was very populous); and my master demanded the rate of a full room whenever he showed me at home, although it were only to a single family; so that for some time I had but little ease every day of the week (except Wednesday which is their Sabbath), although I was not carried to the town. My master, finding how profitable I was like to be, resolved to carry me to the most considerable cities of the kingdom. Having, therefore, provided himself with all things necessary for a long journey, and settled his affairs at home, he took leave of his wife, and upon the seventeenth of August, 1703, about two months after my arrival, we set out for the metropolis, situated the middle of that empire, and about three thousand miles distance from our house. My master made his daughter Glumdalclitch ride behind him. She carried me on her lap, in a box tied about her waist. The girl had lined it on all sides with the softest cloth she could get, well quilted underneath, furnished it with her baby's bed, provided me with linen and other necessaries, and made everything as conveniently as she could. We had no other company but a boy of the house, who rode after us with the luggage. My master's design was to show me in all the towns by the way, and to step out of the road for fifty or a hundred miles, to any village, or person of quality's house, where he might expect custom. We made easy journeys of not above seven or eight score miles a day; for Glumdalclitch, on purpose to spare me, complained she was tired with the trotting of the horse. She often took me out of my box at my own desire, to give me air and show me the country, but always held me fast by a leading-string. We passed over five or six rivers, many degrees broader and deeper than the Nile or the Ganges; and there was hardly a rivulet so small as the Thames at London Bridge. We were ten weeks in our journey, and I was shown in eighteen large towns, besides many villages and private families. [Illustration] On the twenty-sixth of October we arrived at the metropolis, called in their language, _Lorbrulgrud_, or Pride of the Universe. My master took a lodging in the principal street of the city, not far from the royal palace, and put out bills in the usual form, containing an exact description of my person and parts.[50] He hired a large room between three and four hundred feet wide. He provided a table sixty feet in diameter, upon which I was to act my part, and palisadoed it round three feet from the edge, and as many high, to prevent my falling over. I was shown ten times a day, to the wonder and satisfaction of all people. I could now speak the language tolerably well, and perfectly understood every word that was spoken to me. Besides, I had learned their alphabet, and could make a shift to explain a sentence here and there; for Glumdalclitch had been my instructor while we were at home, and at leisure hours during our journey. She carried a little book in her pocket, not much larger than a Sanson's Atlas;[51] it was a common treatise for the use of young girls, giving a short account of their religion; out of this she taught me my letters, and interpreted the words.

Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-2

Of all the family, the farmer's daughter is the most fascinated by Gulliver. He seems like a walking, talking doll to her. She enjoys caring for him and even gives him a new name: Grildrig. She takes such good care of Gulliver that he calls her his glumdalclitch . News of Gulliver's living at the farmer's house spreads quickly, and several visitors come to see him. At the urging of one particular gentleman, the farmer decides to take Gulliver to the market place and to put him on display for others to see . This being successful, the farmer decides to take Gulliver on tour throughout the kingdom, including visiting the kingdom's metropolis, Lorbrulgrud. There Gulliver performs ten times a day for all who wish to see him. By this time, though, Gulliver has presented far too many performances; he is almost dead with fatigue.

In this chapter, Swift demonstrates that the giants are kind and decent. It is a delicate process because, on the surface, Gulliver seems to be mistreated, yet the farmer is careful with Gulliver, and Glumdalclitch is especially loving with him. The farmer, it is true, almost kills Gulliver out of thoughtlessness, but he is never cruel or malicious to Gulliver . No normal Brobdingnagian is malicious; only children and the deformed are of that temper. These giants are not perfect; they are akin to us. Even the best of us are, sometimes, thoughtless and greedy. As for the rest of us, we are sometimes malicious -- like the Lilliputians. There is a stray political comment in this section that is of interest. Gulliver notes that the King of England himself would have felt isolated and different were he to be in a foreign land. This statement refers to George I. The English, and especially the Tories, made much of George's German origin. Glossary manikin a little man; dwarf; here, being a translation of the name Grildrig, the name given to Gulliver by the farmer's daughter. pillion a cushion attached behind a saddle for an extra rider. gimlet-holes holes made by a gimlet, a small boring tool with a handle at right angles to a shaft having at the other end a spiral, pointed cutting edge; here, meaning the holes bored in Gulliver's traveling box. the Sign of the Green Eagle an inn where Gulliver performed. Ganges a river in northern India, flowing from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/11.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_10_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-3", "summary": "The Queen asks for an audience with the farmer and Gulliver, and Gulliver performs admirably and respectfully for her. The Queen, being attracted to the novelty of this tiny man, buys Gulliver from the farmer. Included in this arrangement is the farmer's daughter, Glumdalclitch, who becomes a member of the Queen's court as Gulliver's nurse. Conversing with the King, Gulliver tells him about English customs and politics. The King is amused; he laughs at the fierceness of such tiny insects. Gulliver dares not refute the King's opinion; indeed, before long, he adopts his host's point of view. The King and Queen are happy with Gulliver, but there is one member of the royal entourage who is not happy: the Queen's dwarf, who is jealous because Gulliver has replaced him in the Queen's affection.", "analysis": "Swift prevents us from idealizing the giants by reminding us of their incapacity to accept Gulliver as a scaled-down version of a Brobdingnagian. Gulliver always considered the Lilliputians as miniature men, but this is not true of the Brobdingnagians. Even the King, who is affectionate towards Gulliver, thinks of him as rat-like and as a contrivance made of clockwork. The King discredits Gulliver and his fellow Englishmen. And, because the King is adamant toward the English, Swift has a mouthpiece to voice some of his complaints. The English, he emphasizes, are contradictory. They \"love, fight, dispute, cheat, and betray.\" In general, the Brobdingnagians do not. Interestingly, the only real \"villain\" in Brobdingnag is the Queen's jester -- a dwarf, diminutive physically and lacking in the Brobdingnagian virtues, who wedges Gulliver into the hollow of a bone and dumps him into a large silver bowl of cream. The King also mocks human pretension, and once again we recall our perspective. In Book I, we stood tall, like Gulliver, and watched the Lilliputians mimic human posturings and vanities. Now we stand small, like Gulliver, and listen to a moral giant discredit human pride and pretense. Gulliver accepts the King's judgment. Actually, it would be false pride not to. The King is merely telling Gulliver, and us, what we already know about the damage that results from inflated pride. But Gulliver is still gullible; his acceptance of the King's viewpoint reflects the fact that he is beginning to adjust to the Brobdingnagian perspective. Glossary scrutore a writing desk or table. equipage furnishings; accessories."}

CHAPTER III. THE AUTHOR SENT FOR TO COURT. THE QUEEN BUYS HIM OF HIS MASTER THE FARMER, AND PRESENTS HIM TO THE KING. HE DISPUTES WITH HIS MAJESTY'S GREAT SCHOLARS. AN APARTMENT AT COURT PROVIDED FOR THE AUTHOR. HE IS IN HIGH FAVOR WITH THE QUEEN. HE STANDS UP FOR THE HONOR OF HIS OWN COUNTRY. HE QUARRELS WITH THE QUEEN'S DWARF. The frequent labors I underwent every day, made in a few weeks a very considerable change in my health; the more my master got by me, the more insatiable he grew. I had quite lost my stomach, and was almost reduced to a skeleton. The farmer observed it, and, concluding I must soon die, resolved to make as good a hand of me[52] as he could. While he was thus reasoning and resolving with himself, a _slardral_, or gentleman-usher, came from court, commanding my master to carry me immediately thither, for the diversion of the queen and her ladies. Some of the latter had already been to see me, and reported strange things of my beauty, behavior, and good sense. Her majesty, and those who attended her, were beyond measure delighted with my demeanor. I fell on my knees and begged the honor of kissing her imperial foot; but this gracious princess held out her little finger towards me, after I was set on a table, which I embraced in both my arms, and put the tip of it with the utmost respect to my lip. She made me some general questions about my country, and my travels, which I answered as distinctly, and in as few words, as I could. She asked whether I would be content to live at court. I bowed down to the board of the table, and humbly answered that I was my master's slave; but if I were at my own disposal, I should be proud to devote my life to her majesty's service. She then asked my master whether he were willing to sell me at a good price. He, who apprehended I could not live a month, was ready enough to part with me, and demanded a thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered him on the spot, each piece being the bigness of eight hundred moidores[53]; but, for the proportion of all things between that country and Europe, and the high price of gold among them, was hardly so great a sum as a thousand guineas[54] would be in England. I then said to the queen, since I was now her majesty's most humble creature and vassal, I must beg the favor, that Glumdalclitch, who had always attended me with so much care and kindness, and understood to do it so well, might be admitted into her service, and continue to be my nurse and instructor. Her majesty agreed to my petition, and easily got the farmer's consent, who was glad enough to have his daughter preferred at court, and the poor girl herself was not able to hide her joy. My late master withdrew, bidding me farewell, and saying he had left me in good service, to which I replied not a word, only making him a slight bow. [Illustration: "THIS GRACIOUS PRINCESS HELD OUT HER LITTLE FINGER." P. 32.] The queen observed my coldness, and, when the farmer was gone out of the apartment, asked me the reason. I made bold to tell her majesty that I owed no other obligation to my late master, than his not dashing out the brains of a poor harmless creature, found by chance in his field; which obligation was amply recompensed by the gain he had made in showing me through half the kingdom, and the price he had now sold me for. That the life I had since led was laborious enough to kill an animal of ten times my strength. That my health was much impaired by the continual drudgery of entertaining the rabble every hour of the day, and that, if my master had not thought my life in danger, her majesty would not have got so cheap a bargain. But as I was out of all fear of being ill-treated under the protection of so great and good an empress, the ornament of nature, the darling of the world, the delight of her subjects, the phoenix[55] of the creation; so, I hoped my late master's apprehensions would appear to be groundless, for I already found my spirits to revive, by the influence of her most august presence. This was the sum of my speech, delivered with great improprieties and hesitation; the latter part was altogether framed in the style peculiar to that people, whereof I learned some phrases from Glumdalclitch, while she was carrying me to court. The queen, giving great allowance for my defectiveness in speaking, was, however, surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal. [Illustration: "SHE ... CARRIED ME TO THE KING." P. 36.] She took me in her own hand, and carried me to the king, who was then retired to his cabinet.[56] His majesty, a prince of much gravity and austere countenance, not well observing my shape at first view, asked the queen, after a cold manner, how long it was since she grew fond of a _splacnuck_; for such it seems he took me to be, as I lay upon my breast in her majesty's right hand. But this princess, who hath an infinite deal of wit and humor, set me gently on my feet upon the scrutoire,[57] and commanded me to give his majesty an account of myself, which I did in a very few words; and Glumdalclitch, who attended at the cabinet-door, and could not endure I should be out of her sight, being admitted, confirmed all that had passed from my arrival at her father's house. The king, although he be as learned a person as any in his dominions, had been educated in the study of philosophy, and particularly mathematics; yet, when he observed my shape exactly, and saw me walk erect, before I began to speak, conceived I might be a piece of clockwork (which is in that country arrived to a very great perfection) contrived by some ingenious artist. But when he heard my voice, and found what I delivered to be regular and rational, he could not conceal his astonishment. He was by no means satisfied with the relation I gave him of the manner I came into his kingdom, but thought it a story concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father, who had taught me a set of words, to make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers, no otherwise defective than by a foreign accent, and an imperfect knowledge in the language, with some rustic phrases, which I had learned at the farmer's house, and did not suit the polite style of a court. His majesty sent for three great scholars, who were then in their weekly waiting[58] according to the custom in that country. These gentlemen, after they had a while examined my shape with much nicety, were of different opinions concerning me. They all agreed that I could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature, because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth. They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field-mice, with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could not possibly do. They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison; for the queen's favorite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was nearly thirty feet high. After much debate, they concluded unanimously that I was only _relplum scalcath_, which is interpreted literally, _lusus naturae_;[59] a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe: whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavored in vain to disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge. After this decisive conclusion, I entreated to be heard a word or two. I applied myself to the king, and assured his majesty that I came from a country which abounded with several millions of both sexes, and of my own stature; where the animals, trees, and houses were all in proportion, and where, by consequence, I might be as able to defend myself, and to find sustenance, as any of his majesty's subjects could do here; which I took for a full answer to those gentlemen's arguments. To this they only replied with a smile of contempt, saying, that the farmer had instructed me very well in my lesson. The king, who had a much better understanding, dismissing his learned men, sent for the farmer, who, by good fortune, was not yet gone out of town; having therefore first examined him privately, and then confronted him with me and the young girl, his majesty began to think that what we had told him might possibly be true. He desired the queen to order that a particular care should be taken of me, and was of opinion that Glumdalclitch should still continue in her office of tending me, because he observed that we had a great affection for each other. A convenient apartment was provided for her at court; she had a sort of governess appointed to take care of her education, a maid to dress her, and two other servants for menial offices; but the care of me was wholly appropriated to herself. The queen commanded her own cabinet-maker to contrive a box, that might serve me for a bed-chamber, after the model that Glumdalclitch and I should agree upon. This man was a most ingenious artist, and, according to my directions, in three weeks finished to me a wooden chamber of sixteen feet square and twelve high, with sash-windows, a door, and two closets, like a London bed-chamber. The board that made the ceiling was to be lifted up and down by two hinges, to put in a bed ready furnished by her majesty's upholsterer, which Glumdalclitch took out every day to air, made it with her own hands, and, letting it down at night, locked up the roof over me. A nice workman, who was famous for little curiosities, undertook to make me two chairs, with backs and frames, of a substance not unlike ivory, and two tables, with a cabinet to put my things in. The room was quilted on all sides, as well as the floor and the ceiling, to prevent any accident from the carelessness of those who carried me, and to break the force of a jolt when I went in a coach. I desired a lock for my door, to prevent rats and mice from coming in: the smith, after several attempts, made the smallest that ever was seen among them; for I have known a larger at the gate of a gentleman's house in England. I made a shift to keep the key in a pocket of my own, fearing Glumdalclitch might lose it. The queen likewise ordered the thinnest silks that could be gotten to make me clothes, not much thicker than an English blanket, very cumbersome, till I was accustomed to them. They were after the fashion of the kingdom, partly resembling the Persian, and partly the Chinese, and are a very grave and decent habit. The queen became so fond of my company that she could not dine without me. I had a table placed upon the same at which her Majesty ate, just at her left elbow, and a chair to sit on. Glumdalclitch stood on a stool on the floor, near my table, to assist and take care of me. I had an entire set of silver dishes and plates, and other necessaries, which, in proportion to those of the queen, were not much bigger than what I have seen in a London toy-shop for the furniture of a baby-house: these my little nurse kept in her pocket in a silver box, and gave me at meals as I wanted them, always cleaning them herself. No person dined with the queen but the two princesses royal the elder sixteen years old, and the younger at that time thirteen and a month. Her majesty used to put a bit of meat upon one of my dishes, out of which I carved for myself: and her diversion was to see me eat in miniature; for the queen (who had, indeed, but a weak stomach) took up at one mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown turkey; and put a bit of bread in her mouth as big as two twelve-penny loaves. She drank out of a golden cup, above a hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice as long as a scythe, set straight upon the handle. The spoons, forks, and other instruments, were all in the same proportion. I remember when Glumdalclitch carried me, out of curiosity, to see some of the tables at court, where ten or a dozen of these enormous knives and forks were lifted up together, I thought I had never till then beheld so terrible a sight. It is the custom that every Wednesday (which, as I have before observed, is their Sabbath) the king and queen, with the royal issue of both sexes dine together in the apartment of his majesty, to whom I was now become a great favorite; and, at these times, my little chair and table were placed at his left hand, before one of the salt-cellars. This prince took a pleasure in conversing with me, inquiring into the manners, religion, taws, government, and learning of Europe; wherein I gave him the best account I was able. His apprehension was so clear, and his judgment so exact, that he made very wise reflections and observations upon all I said. But I confess that after I had been a little too copious in talking of my own beloved country, of our trade, and wars by sea and land, of our schisms in religion, and parties in the state; the prejudices of his education prevailed so far that he could not forbear taking me up in his right hand, and, stroking me gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, whether I was a whig or a tory? Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign[60]," he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet, says he, I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honor; they contrive little nests and burrows, that they call houses and cities; they make a figure in dress and equipage; they love, they fight, they dispute, they cheat, they betray. And thus he continued on, while my color came and went several times with indignation, to hear our noble country, the mistress of arts and arms, the scourge of France, the arbitress of Europe, the seat of virtue, piety, honor, and truth, the pride and envy of the world, so contemptuously treated. But, as I was not in a condition to resent injuries, so upon mature thoughts, I began to doubt whether I was injured or no. For, after having been accustomed, several months, to the sight and converse of this people, and observed every object upon which I cast mine eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the horror I had at first conceived from their bulk and aspect was so far worn off, that, if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies in their finery, and birthday clothes, acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of strutting and bowing and prating, to say the truth, I should have been strongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and his grandees did at me. Neither, indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to place me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both our persons appeared before me in full view together; and there could nothing be more ridiculous than the comparison; so that I really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below my usual size. Nothing angered and mortified me so much, as the queen's dwarf, who being of the lowest stature that ever in that country (for I verily think he was not full thirty feet high) became so insolent at seeing a creature so much beneath him, that he would always affect to swagger, and look big, as he passed by me in the queen's ante-chamber, while I was standing on some table, talking with the lords or ladies of the court, and he seldom failed of a smart word or two upon my littleness; against which I could only revenge myself, by calling him brother, challenging him to wrestle, and such repartees as are usual in the mouths of court pages. One day, at dinner, this malicious little cub was so nettled with something I had said to him, that, raising himself upon the frame of her majesty's chair, he took me up, as I was sitting down, not thinking any harm; and let me drop into a large silver bowl of cream, and then ran away as fast as he could. I fell over head and ears, and, if I had not been a good swimmer, it might have gone very hard with me; for Glumdalclitch, in that instant, happened to be at the other end of the room, and the queen was in such a fright, that she wanted presence of mind to assist me. But my little nurse ran to my relief, and took me out, after I had swallowed above a quart of cream. I was put to bed; however, I received no other damage than the loss of a suit of clothes, which was utterly spoiled. The dwarf was soundly whipped, and, as a farther punishment, forced to drink up the bowl of cream into which he had thrown me; neither was he ever restored to favor; for, soon after, the queen bestowed him on a lady of high quality, so that I saw him no more, to my very great satisfaction; for I could not tell to what extremity such a malicious urchin might have carried his resentment. [Illustration: "I COULD ONLY REVENGE MYSELF BY CALLING HIM BROTHER." P. 42.] He had before served me a scurvy trick, which set the queen a-laughing, although, at the same time she was heartily vexed, and would have immediately cashiered him, if I had not been so generous as to intercede. Her majesty had taken a marrow-bone upon her plate and, after knocking out the marrow, placed the bone on the dish erect, as it stood before. The dwarf watching his opportunity, while Glumdalclitch was gone to the sideboard, mounted upon the stool she stood on to take care of me at meals, took me up in both hands, and, squeezing my legs together, wedged them into the marrow-bone above my waist, where I stuck for some time, and made a very ridiculous figure, I believe it was near a minute before any one knew what was became of me; for I thought it below me to cry out. But, as princes seldom get their meat hot, my legs were not scalded, only my stockings and breeches in a sad condition. The dwarf, at my entreaty, had no other punishment than a sound whipping. I was frequently rallied by the queen upon account of my fearfulness; and she used to ask me, whether the people of my country were as great cowards as myself? The occasion was this; the kingdom is much pestered with flies in summer; and these odious insects, each of them as big as a Dunstable lark,[61] hardly gave me any rest, while I sat at dinner, with their continual humming and buzzing about my ears. They would sometimes alight upon my victuals. Sometimes they would fix upon my nose or forehead, where they stung me to the quick, and I had much ado to defend myself against these detestable animals, and could not forbear starting when they came on my face. It was the common practice of the dwarf, to catch a number of these insects in his hand, as school-boys do among us, and let them out suddenly under my nose, on purpose to frighten me, and divert the queen. My remedy was, to cut them in pieces with my knife, as they flew in the air, wherein my dexterity was much admired. [Illustration] I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in my box upon a window, as she usually did in fair days, to give me air (for I durst not venture to let the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we do with cages in England) after I had lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a piece of sweet-cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than the drones[62] of as many bag-pipes. Some of them seized my cake, and carried it piece-meal away; others flew about my head and face, confounding me with the noise, and putting me in the utmost terror of their stings. However, I had the courage to rise and draw my hanger, and attack them in the air. I despatched four of them, but the rest got away, and I presently shut my window. These creatures were as large as partridges; I took out their stings, found them an inch and a half long, and as sharp as needles. I carefully preserved them all, and having since shown them, with some other curiosities, in several parts of Europe, upon my return to England, I gave three of them to Gresham College,[63] and kept the fourth for myself. [Illustration]

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-3

The Queen asks for an audience with the farmer and Gulliver, and Gulliver performs admirably and respectfully for her. The Queen, being attracted to the novelty of this tiny man, buys Gulliver from the farmer. Included in this arrangement is the farmer's daughter, Glumdalclitch, who becomes a member of the Queen's court as Gulliver's nurse. Conversing with the King, Gulliver tells him about English customs and politics. The King is amused; he laughs at the fierceness of such tiny insects. Gulliver dares not refute the King's opinion; indeed, before long, he adopts his host's point of view. The King and Queen are happy with Gulliver, but there is one member of the royal entourage who is not happy: the Queen's dwarf, who is jealous because Gulliver has replaced him in the Queen's affection.

Swift prevents us from idealizing the giants by reminding us of their incapacity to accept Gulliver as a scaled-down version of a Brobdingnagian. Gulliver always considered the Lilliputians as miniature men, but this is not true of the Brobdingnagians. Even the King, who is affectionate towards Gulliver, thinks of him as rat-like and as a contrivance made of clockwork. The King discredits Gulliver and his fellow Englishmen. And, because the King is adamant toward the English, Swift has a mouthpiece to voice some of his complaints. The English, he emphasizes, are contradictory. They "love, fight, dispute, cheat, and betray." In general, the Brobdingnagians do not. Interestingly, the only real "villain" in Brobdingnag is the Queen's jester -- a dwarf, diminutive physically and lacking in the Brobdingnagian virtues, who wedges Gulliver into the hollow of a bone and dumps him into a large silver bowl of cream. The King also mocks human pretension, and once again we recall our perspective. In Book I, we stood tall, like Gulliver, and watched the Lilliputians mimic human posturings and vanities. Now we stand small, like Gulliver, and listen to a moral giant discredit human pride and pretense. Gulliver accepts the King's judgment. Actually, it would be false pride not to. The King is merely telling Gulliver, and us, what we already know about the damage that results from inflated pride. But Gulliver is still gullible; his acceptance of the King's viewpoint reflects the fact that he is beginning to adjust to the Brobdingnagian perspective. Glossary scrutore a writing desk or table. equipage furnishings; accessories.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_11_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 4

chapter 4

{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-4", "summary": "When the King and Queen go traveling about the country, they decide to take Gulliver along. Gulliver describes the island, the sea around the island, the city of Lorbrulgrud, the King's palace, his method of travel on the island, several of the island's inhabitants, and some of the sights to see on the island. In describing the inhabitants of the island, Gulliver focuses on their illnesses and diseases. He mentions, for instance, giant beggars, horribly deformed, with lice crawling all over them. Gulliver compares the sights to similar sights in his homeland. Finally, the dimensions of the King's palace are described with the kitchen receiving particular attention.", "analysis": "The exact dimensions that Gulliver enumerates in the chapter emphasize Gulliver's smallness. The description of the church, for example, reinforces this notion: Size denotes morality. Swift also shows us another magnified view of human flesh. Gulliver sees people with obvious tumors and cysts, and he states, \"But the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes: I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin . . . .\" Gulliver's interest as a doctor is piqued because he suggests that he would like to dissect one of these vermin, but he adds, \" . . . the sight was so nauseous, that it perfectly turned my stomach.\" Even if we have disgust for the physique of the giant beggars, it is surpassed by our disgust for the lice that crawl over the enormous bodies. The lesson is this: The giant beggars may be physically revolting, but the pernicious little vermin are even more so. Glossary wen a benign skin tumor, especially of the scalp, consisting of a fatty cyst. in battalia in full battle dress."}

CHAPTER IV. THE COUNTRY DESCRIBED. A PROPOSAL FOR CORRECTING MODERN MAPS. THE KING'S PALACE, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE METROPOLIS. THE AUTHOR'S WAY OF TRAVELLING. THE CHIEF TEMPLE DESCRIBED. I now intend to give the reader a short description of this country, as far as I travelled in it, which was not above two thousand miles round Lorbrulgrud, the metropolis. For the queen, whom I always attended, never went farther when she accompanied the king in his progresses, and there staid till his majesty returned from viewing his frontiers. The whole extent of this prince's dominions reacheth about six thousand miles in length, and from three to five in breadth. From whence I cannot but conclude, that our geographers of Europe are in a great error, by supposing nothing but sea between Japan and California; for it was ever my opinion, that there must be a balance of earth to counterpoise the great continent of Tartary; and therefore they ought to correct their maps and charts, by joining this vast tract of land to the northwest parts of America, wherein I shall be ready to lend them my assistance. The kingdom is a peninsula, terminated to the northeast by a ridge of mountains, thirty miles high, which are altogether impassable, by reason of the volcanoes upon the tops: neither do the most learned know what sort of mortals inhabit beyond those mountains, or whether they be inhabited at all. On the three other sides it is bounded by the ocean. There is not one sea-port in the whole kingdom, and those parts of the coasts into which the rivers issue, are so full of pointed rocks, and the sea generally so rough, that there is no venturing with the smallest of their boats; so that these people are wholly excluded from any commerce with the rest of the world. But the large rivers are full of vessels, and abound with excellent fish, for they seldom get any from the sea, because the sea-fish are of the same size with those in Europe, and consequently not worth catching, whereby it is manifest, that nature, in the production of plants and animals of so extraordinary a bulk, is wholly confined to this continent, of which I leave the reasons to be determined by philosophers. However, now and then, they take a whale, that happens to be dashed against the rocks, which the common people feed on heartily. These whales I have known so large, that a man could hardly carry one upon his shoulders; and sometimes, for curiosity, they are brought in hampers to Lorbrulgrud: I saw one of them in a dish at the king's table, which passed for a rarity, but I did not observe he was fond of it; for I think indeed the bigness disgusted him, although I have seen one somewhat larger in Greenland. The country is well inhabited, for it contains fifty-one cities, near a hundred walled towns, and a great number of villages. To satisfy my curious reader, it may be sufficient to describe Lorbrulgrud. This city stands upon almost two equal parts on each side the river that passes through. It contains above eighty thousand houses, and about six hundred thousand inhabitants. It is in length three _glomglungs_ (which make about fifty-four English miles) and two and a half in breadth, as I measured it myself in the royal map made by the king's order, which was laid on the ground on purpose for me, and extended a hundred feet: I paced the diameter and circumference several times barefoot, and, computing by the scale, measured it pretty exactly. The king's palace is no regular edifice, but a heap of buildings, about seven miles round: the chief rooms are generally two hundred and forty feet high, and broad and long in proportion. A coach was allowed to Glumdalclitch and me, wherein her governess frequently took her out to see the town, or go among the shops; and I was always of the party, carried in my box; although the girl, at my own desire, would often take me out, and hold me in her hand, that I might more conveniently view the houses and the people as we passed along the streets, I reckoned our coach to be about the square of Westminster-hall, but not altogether so high: however, I cannot be very exact. Besides the large box in which I was usually carried, the queen ordered a smaller one to be made for me, of about twelve feet square and ten high, for the convenience of travelling, because the other was somewhat too large for Glumdalclitch's lap, and cumbersome in the coach. It was made by the same artist, whom I directed in the whole contrivance. This travelling closet was an exact square,[64] with a window in the middle of three of the squares, and each window was latticed with iron wire on the outside, to prevent accidents in long journeys. On the fourth side, which had no window, two strong staples were fixed, through which the person who carried me, when I had a mind to be on horseback, put a leathern belt, and buckled it about his waist. This was always the office of some grave, trusty servant, in whom I could confide, whether I attended the king and queen in their progresses, or were disposed to see the gardens, or pay a visit to some great lady or minister of state in the court; for I soon began to be known and esteemed among the greatest officers, I suppose more on account of their majesties' favor than any merit of my own. In journeys, when I was weary of the coach, a servant on horseback would buckle on my box, and place it upon a cushion before him; and there I had a full prospect of the country on three sides from my three windows. I had in this closet a field-bed, and a hammock hung from the ceiling, two chairs and a table, neatly screwed to the floor, to prevent being tossed about by the agitation of the horse or the coach. And having been long used to sea voyages, those motions, although sometimes very violent, did not much discompose me. Whenever I had a mind to see the town, it was always in my travelling closet, which Glumdalclitch held in her lap, in a kind of open sedan, after the fashion of the country, borne by four men, and attended by two others in the queen's livery. The people, who had often heard of me, were very curious to crowd about the sedan, and the girl was complaisant enough to make the bearers stop, and to take me in her hand, that I might be more conveniently seen. I was very desirous to see the chief temple, and particularly the tower belonging to it, which is reckoned the highest in the kingdom. Accordingly, one day my nurse carried me thither, but I must truly say I came back disappointed; for the height is not above three thousand feet, reckoning from the ground to the highest pinnacle top; which, allowing for the difference between the size of those people and us in Europe, is no great matter for admiration, nor at all equal in proportion (if I rightly remember) to Salisbury steeple.[65] But, not to detract from a nation, to which during my life I shall acknowledge myself extremely obliged, it must be allowed that whatever this famous tower wants in height is amply made up in beauty and strength. For the walls are nearly a hundred feet thick, built of hewn stone, whereof each is about forty feet square, and adorned on all sides with statues of gods and emperors, cut in marble larger than life, placed in their several niches. I measured a little finger which had fallen down from one of these statues, and lay unperceived among some rubbish, and found it exactly four feet and an inch in length. Glumdalclitch wrapped it up in her handkerchief and carried it home in her pocket, to keep among other trinkets, of which the girl was very fond, as children at her age usually are. The king's kitchen is indeed a noble building, vaulted at top, and about six hundred feet high. The great oven is not so wide by ten paces as the cupola at St. Paul's, for I measured the latter on purpose after my return. But if I should describe the kitchen-grate, the prodigious pots and kettles, the joints of meat turning on the spits, with many other particulars, perhaps I should be hardly believed; at least, a severe critic would be apt to think I enlarged a little, as travellers are often suspected to do. To avoid which censure, I fear I have run too much into the other extreme; and that if this treatise should happen to be translated into the language of Brobdingnag (which is the general name of that kingdom) and transmitted thither, the king and his people would have reason to complain that I had done them an injury, by a false and diminutive representation. His majesty seldom keeps above six hundred horses in his stables: they are generally from fifty-four to sixty feet high. But when he goes abroad on solemn days, he is attended for state by a militia guard of five hundred horse, which indeed I thought was the most splendid sight that could be ever beheld, till I saw part of his army in battalia,[66] whereof I shall find another occasion to speak. [Illustration]

Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-4

When the King and Queen go traveling about the country, they decide to take Gulliver along. Gulliver describes the island, the sea around the island, the city of Lorbrulgrud, the King's palace, his method of travel on the island, several of the island's inhabitants, and some of the sights to see on the island. In describing the inhabitants of the island, Gulliver focuses on their illnesses and diseases. He mentions, for instance, giant beggars, horribly deformed, with lice crawling all over them. Gulliver compares the sights to similar sights in his homeland. Finally, the dimensions of the King's palace are described with the kitchen receiving particular attention.

The exact dimensions that Gulliver enumerates in the chapter emphasize Gulliver's smallness. The description of the church, for example, reinforces this notion: Size denotes morality. Swift also shows us another magnified view of human flesh. Gulliver sees people with obvious tumors and cysts, and he states, "But the most hateful sight of all was the lice crawling on their clothes: I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin . . . ." Gulliver's interest as a doctor is piqued because he suggests that he would like to dissect one of these vermin, but he adds, " . . . the sight was so nauseous, that it perfectly turned my stomach." Even if we have disgust for the physique of the giant beggars, it is surpassed by our disgust for the lice that crawl over the enormous bodies. The lesson is this: The giant beggars may be physically revolting, but the pernicious little vermin are even more so. Glossary wen a benign skin tumor, especially of the scalp, consisting of a fatty cyst. in battalia in full battle dress.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/13.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_12_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-5", "summary": "Gulliver's mishaps continue. The Queen's dwarf drops barrel-sized apples on him; hailstones as big as tennis balls batter and bruise him; a bird of prey nearly grabs him; and a spaniel picks him up in his mouth and carries him to the royal gardener. Gulliver is insulted to be coddled and played with by the maids of honor. To them, Gulliver is a toy, not a man, so they undress in front of him without a thought of modesty. The maids, perhaps comely enough, repulse Gulliver. He is particularly annoyed when they titillate themselves with his naked self. Because Gulliver is a sailor, the Queen has a toy boat made for him and a trough in which to sail. The royal ladies also take part in the game and make a brisk breeze with their fans. Disaster strikes when a frog hops into the trough and nearly swamps Gulliver's boat, but Gulliver bravely drives the monster off with an oar. One day a monkey seizes Gulliver and carries him to the top of the palace. Gulliver is finally rescued and, when he recovers, is summoned by the King, who is curious to know whether Gulliver was afraid. Gulliver boasts that he could have protected himself with his sword. The King guffaws at the little splacknuck's pride.", "analysis": "Gulliver has begun to accept the Brobdingnagian point of view, but Swift will not let him forget that he is not a giant. He may adopt certain ideas of the giants, but once Gulliver begins to have pretensions, he is literally knocked down to size. The mishaps with the hailstones, the spaniel, and the mole hole he falls into are not really serious, but they serve to discipline him. He is humiliated; none of them could have happened to a giant. The humiliating incidents multiply. After a series of physical threats, Gulliver's emotional make-up is attacked. The maids of honor treat him as a plaything. They strip him and are curious about his maleness, but they ignore his masculinity. They offend his sexual pride by treating him as though he has no sexual significance. Then, in the abduction scene, Gulliver is likened not to a toy, but to a baby monkey. Swift continues to reinforce Gulliver's connection with animal smallness. The progression has been handled with great care. Gulliver's life was imperiled, his safety was endangered, his sexual pride was assaulted, and now he has been reduced to being monkey-like. Despite all, though, Gulliver is still tempted to brag about himself. He is still not aware that the giants are morally superior. Glossary Bristol barrel a barrel made in Bristol, England. kite any of various birds of prey with long, pointed wings and usually a forked tail. espalier a lattice or trellis on which trees and shrubs are trained to grow flat. cudgel a short, thick stick or club. linnet a kind of small finch. three tuns a tun is a large cask, especially for wine, beer, or ale. wherry a light rowboat used on rivers. varlet a scoundrel; knave."}

CHAPTER V. SEVERAL ADVENTURES THAT HAPPENED TO THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR SHOWS HIS SKILL IN NAVIGATION. I should have lived happily enough in that country, if my littleness had not exposed me to several ridiculous and troublesome accidents, some of which I shall venture to relate. Glumdalclitch often carried me into the gardens of the court in my smaller box, and would sometimes take me out of it, and hold me in her hand, or set me down to walk. I remember, before the dwarf left the queen, he followed us one day into those gardens, and my nurse having set me down, he and I being close together, near some dwarf apple-trees, I must needs show my wit by a silly allusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language, as it doth in ours. Whereupon the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity, when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head; by which a dozen apples, each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling about my ears; one of them hit me on the back as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but I received no other hurt; and the dwarf was pardoned at my desire, because I had given the provocation. [Illustration] Another day, Glumdalclitch left me on a smooth grass-plot to divert myself, while she walked at some distance with her governess. In the meantime there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail, that I was immediately, by the force of it, struck to the ground; and when I was down, the hail stones gave me such cruel bangs all over the body as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls, however, I made a shift to creep on all fours, and shelter myself by lying flat on my face on the lee-side of a border of lemon-thyme, but so bruised from head to foot that I could not go abroad in ten days. Neither is this at all to be wondered at, because nature, in that country, observing the same proportion through all her operations, a hail-stone is near eighteen hundred times as large as one in Europe, which I can assert upon experience, having been so curious to weigh and measure them. But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same garden, when my little nurse, believing she had put me in a secure place, which I often entreated her to do, that I might enjoy my own thoughts, and having left my box at home, to avoid the trouble of carrying it, went to another part of the garden with governess and some ladies of her acquaintance, she was absent and out of hearing, a small white belonging to one of the chief gardeners, having got by accident into the garden, happened to place where I lay: the dog, following the scent, came directly up, and taking me in his mouth, ran straight to his master, wagging his tail, and set me gently on the ground. By good fortune, he had been so well taught, that I was carried between his teeth without the least hurt, or even tearing my clothes. But the poor gardener, who knew me well, and had a great kindness for me, was in a terrible fright: he gently took me up in both his hands, and asked me how I did; but I was so amazed and out of breath, that I could not speak a word. In a few minutes I came to myself, and he carried me safe to my little nurse, who by this time had returned to the place where she left me, and was in cruel agonies when I did not appear nor answer when she called. She severely reprimanded the gardener on account of his dog, but the thing was bushed up and never known at court; for the girl was afraid of the queen's anger, and truly, as to myself, I thought it would not be for my reputation that such a story should go about. This accident absolutely determined Glumdalclitch never to trust me abroad for the future out of her sight. I had been long afraid of this resolution, and therefore concealed from her some little unlucky adventures that happened in those times when I was left by myself. Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made a stoop at me; and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a thick espalier,[67] he would have certainly carried me away in his talons. Another time, walking to the top of a fresh mole-hill, I fell to my neck in the hole through which that animal had cast up the earth. I likewise broke my right shin against the shell of a snail, which I happened to stumble over as I was walking alone and thinking on poor England. I cannot tell whether I were more pleased or mortified to observe in those solitary walks that the smaller birds did not appear to be at all afraid of me, but would hop about within a yard's distance, looking for worms and other food, with as much indifference and security as if no creature at all were near them. I remember a thrush had the confidence to snatch out of my hand with his bill a piece of cake that Glumdalclitch had just given me for my breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds they would boldly turn against me, endeavoring to pick my fingers, which I durst not venture within their reach; and then they would hop back unconcerned to hunt for worms and snails as they did before. But one day I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily at a linnet that I knocked him down, and seizing him by the neck with both my hands ran with him in triumph to my nurse. However, the bird, who had only been stunned, recovering himself, gave me so many boxes with his wings on both sides of my head and body, though I held him at arm's length and was out of the reach of his claws, that I was twenty times thinking of letting him go. But I was soon relieved by one of our servants, who wrung off the bird's neck, and I had him next day for dinner by the queen's command. This linnet, as near as I can remember, seemed to be somewhat larger than an English swan. The queen, who often used to hear me talk of my sea-voyages, and took all occasions to divert me when I was melancholy, asked me, whether I understood how to handle a sail or an oar, and whether a little exercise of rowing might not be convenient for my health. I answered, that I understood both very well; for, although nay proper employment had been to be surgeon or doctor to the ship, yet often, upon a pinch, I was forced to work like a common mariner. But I could not see how this could be done in their country, where the smallest wherry was equal to a first-rate man-of-war among us, and such a boat as I could manage would never live in any of their rivers. [Illustration: "THE SMALLER BIRDS DID NOT APPEAR TO BE AT ALL AFRAID OF ME." P. 57.] Her majesty said, if I could contrive a boat, her own joiner should make it, and she would provide a place for me to sail in. The fellow was an ingenious workman, and, by my instructions, in ten days finished a pleasure-boat, with all its tackling, able conveniently to hold eight Europeans. When it was finished, the queen was so delighted that she ran with it in her lap to the king, who ordered it to be put in a cistern full of water, with me in it, by way of trial; where I could not manage my two sculls,[68] or little oars, for want of room. But the queen had before contrived another project. She ordered the joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep; which, being well pitched, to prevent leaking, was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of the palace. It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water, when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half-an-hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would put up my sail, and then my business was only to steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans; and when they were weary, some of their pages would blow my sail forward with their breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard[69] or larboard, as I pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my boat, into her closet, and hung it oh a nail to dry. In this exercise I once met an accident, which had like to have cost me my life; for one of the pages having put my boat into the trough, the governess, who attended Glumdalclitch, very officiously lifted me up to place me in the boat, but I happened to slip through her fingers, and should infallibly have fallen down forty feet upon the floor, if, by the luckiest chance in the world, I had not been stopped by a corking-pin[70] that stuck in the good gentlewoman's stomacher;[71] the head of the pin passed between my shirt and the waistband of my breeches, and thus I held by the middle in the air, till Glumdalclitch ran to my relief. [Illustration: "GAVE ME A GALE WITH THEIR FANS." P. 60.] Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my trough every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let a huge frog (not perceiving it) slip out of his pail. The frog lay concealed till I was put into my boat, but then seeing a resting-place, climbed up, and made it lean so much on one side that I was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to prevent overturning. When the frog was got in, it hopped at once half the length of the boat, and then over my head backwards and forwards. The largeness of its features made it appear the most deformed animal that can be conceived. However, I desired Glumdalclitch to let me deal with it alone. I banged it a good while with one of my sculls, and at last forced it to leap out of the boat. But the greatest danger I ever underwent in that kingdom was from a monkey, who belonged to one of the clerks of the kitchen. Glumdalclitch had locked the up in her closet, while she went somewhere upon business or a visit. The weather being very warm the closet window was left open, as well as the windows and the door of my bigger box, in which I usually lived, because of its largeness and conveniency. As I sat quietly meditating at my table, I heard something bounce in at the closet window, and skip about from one side to the other; whereat, although I was much alarmed, yet I ventured to look out, but not stirring from my seat; and then I saw this frolicsome animal frisking and leaping up and down, till at last he came to my box, which he seemed to view with great pleasure and curiosity, peeping in at the door and every window. [Illustration] I retreated to the farther corner of my room or box; but the monkey looking in at every side, put me into such a fright that I wanted presence of mind to conceal myself under the bed, as I might easily have done. After some time spent in peeping, grinning, and chattering, he at last espied me, and reaching one of his paws in at the door, as a cat does when she plays with a mouse, although I often shifted place to avoid him, he at length seized the lappet of my coat (which, being made of that country silk, was very thick and strong), and dragged me out. He took me out in his right fore-foot, and held me as a nurse does a child, just as I have seen the same sort of creature do with a kitten in Europe: and, when I offered to struggle, he squeezed me so hard that I thought it more prudent to submit. I have good reason to believe that he took me for a young one of his own species, by his often stroking my face very gently with his other paw. In these diversions he was interrupted by a noise at the closet door, as if somebody were opening it; whereupon he suddenly leaped up to the window, at which he had come in, and thence upon the leads and gutters walking upon three legs, and holding me in the fourth, till he clambered up to a roof that was next to ours. I heard Glumdalclitch give a shriek at the moment he was carrying me out. The poor girl was almost distracted. That quarter of the palace was all in an uproar; the servants ran for ladders; the monkey was seen by hundreds in the court, sitting upon the ridge of a building, holding me like a baby in one of his fore-paws: whereat many of the rabble below could not forbear laughing; neither do I think they justly ought to be blamed, for without question, the sight was ridiculous enough to everybody but myself. Some of the people threw up stones, hoping to drive the monkey down; but this was strictly forbidden, or else very probably my brains had been dashed out. The ladders were now applied, and mounted by several men, which the monkey observing, and finding himself almost encompassed, not being able to make speed enough with his three legs, let me drop on a ridge tile, and made his escape. Here I sat for some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every moment to be blown down by the wind, or to fall by my own giddiness, and come tumbling over and over from the ridge to the eaves; but an honest lad, one of my nurse's footmen, climbed up, and putting me into his breeches-pocket, brought me down safe. I was so weak and bruised in the sides with the squeezes given me by this odious animal, that I was forced to keep my bed a fortnight. The king, queen, and all the court, sent every day to inquire after my health, and her majesty made me several visits during my sickness. The monkey was killed, and an order made that no such animal should be kept about the palace. When I attended the king, after my recovery, to return him thanks for his favors, he was pleased to rally me a good deal upon this adventure. He asked me what my thoughts and speculations were while I lay in the monkey's paw. He desired to know what I would have done upon such an occasion in my own country. I told his majesty that in Europe we had no monkeys, except such as were brought for curiosities from other places, and so small, that I could deal with a dozen of them together if they presumed to attack me. And as for that monstrous animal with whom I was so lately engaged (it was, indeed, as large as an elephant) if my fears had suffered me to think so far as to make use of my hanger (looking fiercely, and clapping my hand upon the hilt, as I spoke) when he poked his paw into my chamber, perhaps I should have given him such a wound as would have made him glad to withdraw it with more haste than he put it in. This I delivered in a firm tone, like a person who was jealous lest his courage should be called in question. However, my speech produced nothing else besides a loud laughter, which all the respect due to his majesty from those about him could not make them contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England since my return, where a little contemptible varlet,[72] without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common-sense, shall presume to look with importance, and put himself upon a foot with the greatest persons of the kingdom. I was every day furnishing the court with some ridiculous story; and Glumdalclitch, although she loved me to excess, yet was arch enough to inform the queen whenever I committed any folly that she thought would be diverting to her majesty. The girl, who had been out of order, was carried by her governess to take the air about an hour's distance, or thirty miles from town. They alighted out of the coach near a small footpath in a field, and, Glumdalclitch setting down my travelling-box, I went out of it to walk. There was a pool of mud in the path, and I must needs try my activity by attempting to leap over it. I took a run, but unfortunately jumped short, and found myself just in the middle up to my knees. I waded through with some difficulty, and one of the footmen wiped me as clean as he could with his handkerchief, for I was filthily bemired; and my nurse confined me to my box till we returned home, when the queen was soon informed of what had passed, and the footman spread it about the court; so that all the mirth for some days was at my expense.

Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-5

Gulliver's mishaps continue. The Queen's dwarf drops barrel-sized apples on him; hailstones as big as tennis balls batter and bruise him; a bird of prey nearly grabs him; and a spaniel picks him up in his mouth and carries him to the royal gardener. Gulliver is insulted to be coddled and played with by the maids of honor. To them, Gulliver is a toy, not a man, so they undress in front of him without a thought of modesty. The maids, perhaps comely enough, repulse Gulliver. He is particularly annoyed when they titillate themselves with his naked self. Because Gulliver is a sailor, the Queen has a toy boat made for him and a trough in which to sail. The royal ladies also take part in the game and make a brisk breeze with their fans. Disaster strikes when a frog hops into the trough and nearly swamps Gulliver's boat, but Gulliver bravely drives the monster off with an oar. One day a monkey seizes Gulliver and carries him to the top of the palace. Gulliver is finally rescued and, when he recovers, is summoned by the King, who is curious to know whether Gulliver was afraid. Gulliver boasts that he could have protected himself with his sword. The King guffaws at the little splacknuck's pride.

Gulliver has begun to accept the Brobdingnagian point of view, but Swift will not let him forget that he is not a giant. He may adopt certain ideas of the giants, but once Gulliver begins to have pretensions, he is literally knocked down to size. The mishaps with the hailstones, the spaniel, and the mole hole he falls into are not really serious, but they serve to discipline him. He is humiliated; none of them could have happened to a giant. The humiliating incidents multiply. After a series of physical threats, Gulliver's emotional make-up is attacked. The maids of honor treat him as a plaything. They strip him and are curious about his maleness, but they ignore his masculinity. They offend his sexual pride by treating him as though he has no sexual significance. Then, in the abduction scene, Gulliver is likened not to a toy, but to a baby monkey. Swift continues to reinforce Gulliver's connection with animal smallness. The progression has been handled with great care. Gulliver's life was imperiled, his safety was endangered, his sexual pride was assaulted, and now he has been reduced to being monkey-like. Despite all, though, Gulliver is still tempted to brag about himself. He is still not aware that the giants are morally superior. Glossary Bristol barrel a barrel made in Bristol, England. kite any of various birds of prey with long, pointed wings and usually a forked tail. espalier a lattice or trellis on which trees and shrubs are trained to grow flat. cudgel a short, thick stick or club. linnet a kind of small finch. three tuns a tun is a large cask, especially for wine, beer, or ale. wherry a light rowboat used on rivers. varlet a scoundrel; knave.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_13_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 6

chapter 6

{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-6", "summary": "Gulliver entertains himself and demonstrates his ingenuity by using the King's beard stubble to make a comb and by using strands of the Queen's hair to make several chairs and a purse. In addition, Gulliver plays the spinet for the King and Queen by using sticks formed as cudgels to bang on the keys as he runs up and down a piano bench. The King also holds several audiences with Gulliver to discuss the culture of Gulliver's home country, England. In these audiences, as requested by the King, Gulliver explains the role of the people in the operation of the government, in religion, and in the legal system, among other topics. The King, after asking many questions related to all that Gulliver tells him, concludes this audience with a summary and an assessment of what he hears.", "analysis": "In this chapter, Swift changes his focus to European politics and institutional morality. The king is the questioner, and Gulliver is the \"expert.\" Immediately we sense that what Gulliver says is naive. He is idealizing his country's customs and institutions; he even lies about them. His distortion, therefore, is revealing: It exposes the actual workings of the English system. Besides attacking the English as a whole, Swift singles out the Whigs. When the King asks whether lords are advanced because of achievement or from political convenience, the reference is to the Whigs' buying votes in parliament by granting nobility to politicians. When the King asks whether bishops are ever appointed because of their political opinions, the reference is again to the Whigs, who appointed writers of their party to bishoprics. Conversely, clerical success was denied Swift largely because of his political opinions. When the King asks whether members of parliament are not sometimes elected by bribery or influence, the allusion is to Walpole, a master at rigging elections. And when the King asks whether judges don't sometimes get rich and dispense partial and slow justice, Swift's inference is that justices of the peace are usually stupid and biased and that judges in the higher courts are notoriously slow and usually very rich. Swift has Gulliver invoke the rhetoricians before he begins praising England; then he connects this highly formal invocation with the ludicrous spectacle of Gulliver proudly banging on the piano with mallets. Also, Swift uses insect imagery to surround the discussion of the morality of Europe; Gulliver even brags that bees and ants have a reputation for sagacity. Gulliver's praise rings hollow. The King tells his pint-sized performer that English history is not as Gulliver describes; rather, it is a \"heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, or ambition could produce.\" He concludes that the bulk of Gulliver's countrymen are \"the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.\" -- a statement that is not only the most famous statement in the Travels, but is perhaps the most famous in all literature in its assessment of the nature of mankind. Glossary the King's levee a morning reception held by a sovereign or person of high rank upon arising. awl a small, pointed tool for making holes in wood, leather, etc. consorts seventeenth-century English chamber music ensembles, sometimes including vocalists. spinet an early, small variety of harpsichord with a single keyboard. play a jig to perform a fast, gay, springy sort of dance, usually in triple time. sifted me to inspect or examine with care, as by testing or questioning; here, meaning the King asked many probing questions of Gulliver. chancery the court of the Lord Chancellor of England. gaming the act or practice of gambling."}

CHAPTER VI. SEVERAL CONTRIVANCES OF THE AUTHOR TO PLEASE THE KING AND QUEEN. HE SHOWS HIS SKILL IN MUSIC. THE KING INQUIRES INTO THE STATE OF ENGLAND, WHICH THE AUTHOR RELATES TO HIM. THE KING'S OBSERVATIONS THEREON. I used to attend the king's levee[73] once or twice a week, and had often seen him under the barber's hand, which indeed was at first very terrible to behold; for the razor was almost twice as long as an ordinary scythe. His majesty, according to the custom of the country, was only shaved twice a week. I once prevailed on the barber to give me some of the suds or lather, out of which I picked forty or fifty of the strongest stumps of hair, I then took a piece of fine wood and cut it like the back of a comb, making several holes in it at equal distance with as small a needle as I could get from Glumdalclitch. I fixed in the stumps so artificially, scraping and sloping them with my knife towards the points, that I made a very tolerable comb; which was a seasonable supply, my own being so much broken in the teeth that it was almost useless: neither did I know any artist in that country so nice and exact as would undertake to make me another. And this puts me in mind of an amusement wherein I spent many of my leisure hours. I desired the queen's woman to save for me the combings of her majesty's hair, whereof in time I got a good quantity; and consulting with my friend the cabinet-maker, who had received general orders to do little jobs for me, I directed him to make two chair-frames, no larger than those I had in my box, and then to bore little holes with a fine awl round those parts where I designed the backs and seats; through these holes I wove the strongest hairs I could pick out, just after the manner of cane chairs in England. When they were finished I made a present of them to her majesty, who kept them in her cabinet, and used to shew them for curiosities, as indeed they were the wonder of every one that beheld them. Of these hairs (as I had always a mechanical genius) I likewise made a neat little purse, about five feet long, with her majesty's name deciphered in gold letters, which I gave to Glumdalclitch, by the queen's consent. To say the truth, it was more for show than use, being not of strength to bear the weight of the larger coins, and therefore she kept nothing in it, but some little coins that girls are fond of. The king, who delighted in music, had frequent concerts at court, to which I was sometimes carried, and set in my box on a table to hear them; but the noise was so great that I could hardly distinguish the tunes. I am confident that all the drums and trumpets of a royal army beating and sounding together just at your ears, could not equal it. My practice was to have my box removed from the place where the performers sat, as far as I could, then to shut the doors and windows of it, and draw the window-curtains, after which I found their music not disagreeable. [Illustration] I had learnt in my youth to play a little upon the spinet.[74] Glumdalclitch kept one in her chamber, and a master attended twice a week to teach her. I called it a spinet, because it somewhat resembled that instrument, and was played upon in the same manner. A fancy came into my head that I would entertain the king and queen with an English tune upon this instrument. But this appeared extremely difficult; for the spinet was nearly sixty feet long, each key being almost a foot wide, so that with my arms extended I could not reach to above five keys, and to press them down required a good smart stroke with my fist, which would be too great a labor, and to no purpose. The method I contrived was this: I prepared two round sticks, about the bigness of common cudgels; they were thicker at one end than the other, and I covered the thicker ends with a piece of mouse's skin, that by rapping on them I might neither damage the tops of the keys nor interrupt the sound. Before the spinet a bench was placed about four feet below the keys, and I was put upon the bench. I ran sideling upon it that way and this as fast as I could, banging the proper keys with my two sticks, and made a shift to play a jig to the great satisfaction of both their majesties; but it was the most violent exercise I ever underwent, and yet I could not strike above sixteen keys, nor consequently play the bass and treble together as other artists do, which was a great disadvantage to my performance. The king, who, as I before observed, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I should be brought in my box, and set upon the table in his closet.[75] He would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and sit down within three yards distance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almost to a level with his face. In this manner I had several conversations with him. I one day took the freedom to tell his majesty that the contempt he discovered towards Europe and the rest of the world did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of mind that he was master of; that reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body; on the contrary, we observed in our country that the tallest persons were usually least provided with it. That, among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art, and sagacity than many of the larger kinds; and that, as inconsiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his majesty some signal[76] service. The king heard me with attention, and began to conceive a much better opinion of me than he had ever before. He desired I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for he conjectured of other monarchs by my former discourses), he should be glad to hear of anything that might deserve imitation. Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praise of my own dear native country, in a style equal to its merits and felicity. [Illustration: "THE MOST VIOLENT EXERCISE I EVER UNDERWENT." P. 71.] I began my discourse by informing his majesty that our dominions consisted of two islands, which composed three mighty kingdoms, under one sovereign, besides our plantations in America. I dwelt long upon the fertility of our soil and the temperature of our climate. I then spoke at large upon the constitution of an English parliament, partly made up of an illustrious body, called the House of Peers, persons of the noblest blood and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies. I described that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them for being counsellors both to the king and kingdom; to have a share in the legislature; to be members of the highest court of judicature, from whence there could be no appeal; and to be champions always ready for the defence of their prince and country, by their valor, conduct, and fidelity. That these were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom, worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whose honor had been the reward of their virtue, from which their posterity were never once known to degenerate. To these were joined several holy persons, as part of that assembly, under the title of bishops, whose peculiar business it is to take care of religion, and those who instruct the people therein. These were searched and sought out through the whole nation, by the prince and his wisest counsellors, among such of the priesthood as were most deservedly distinguished by the sanctity of their lives and the depth of their erudition, who were indeed the spiritual fathers of the clergy and the people. That the other part of the parliament consisted of an assembly, called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen, _freely_ picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities and love of their country, to represent the wisdom of the whole nation. And that these two bodies made up the most august assembly in Europe, to whom, in conjunction with the prince, the whole legislature is committed. I then descended to the courts of justice, over which the judges, those venerable sages and interpreters of the law, presided, for determining the disputed rights and properties of men, as well as for the punishment of vice and protection of innocence. I mentioned the prudent management of our treasury, the valor and achievements of our forces by sea and land. I computed the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there might be of each religious sect or political party among us. I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular, which I thought might redound to the honor of my country. And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and events in England for about a hundred years past. This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each of several hours; and the king heard the whole with great attention, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memorandums of what questions he intended to ask me. When I had put an end to these long discourses, his majesty, in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts, queries, and objections, upon every article. He asked what methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable part of their lives? What course was taken to supply that assembly when any noble family became extinct? What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords; whether the humor of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady as a prime minister, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be motives in those advancements? What share of knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort? Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe or some other sinister view could have no place among them? Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters and the sanctity of their lives; had never been compilers with the times while they were common priests, or slavish prostitute chaplains to some noblemen, whose opinions they continued servilely to follow, after they were admitted into that assembly? He then desired to know what arts were practised in electing those whom I called commoners; whether a stranger, with a strong purse, might not influence the vulgar voters to choose him before their own landlord, or the most considerable gentleman in the neighborhood? How it came to pass that people were so violently bent upon getting into this assembly, which I allowed to be a great trouble and expense, often to the ruin of their families, without any salary or pension: because this appeared such an exalted strain of virtue and public spirit, that his majesty seemed to doubt it might possibly not be always sincere; and he desired to know whether such zealous gentlemen could have any views of refunding themselves for the charges and trouble they were at, by sacrificing the public good to the designs of a weak and vicious prince, in conjunction with a corrupted ministry? He multiplied his questions, and sifted me thoroughly upon every part of this head, proposing numberless inquiries and objections, which I think it not prudent or convenient to repeat. Upon what I said in relation to our courts of justice, his majesty desired to be satisfied in several points; and this I was the better able to do, having been formerly almost ruined by a long suit in chancery,[77] which was decreed for me with costs. He asked what time was usually spent in determining between right and wrong, and what degree of expense? Whether advocates and orators had liberty to plead in causes, manifestly known to be unjust, vexatious, or oppressive? Whether party in religion or politics was observed to be of any weight in the scale of justice? Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs? Whether they, or their judges, had any part in penning those laws which they assumed the liberty of interpreting and glossing[78] upon at their pleasure? Whether they had ever, at different times, pleaded for or against the same cause, and cited precedents to prove contrary opinions? Whether they were a rich or a poor corporation? Whether they received any pecuniary reward for pleading or delivering their opinions? And, particularly, whether they were admitted as members in the lower senate? He fell next upon the management of our treasury, and said he thought my memory had failed me, because I computed our taxes at about five or six millions a year, and, when I came to mention the issues, he found they sometimes amounted to more than double; for the notes he had taken were very particular in this point, because he hoped, as he told me, that the knowledge of our conduct might be useful to him, and he could not be deceived in his calculations. But if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate like a private person. He asked me who were our creditors, and where we found to pay them. He wondered to hear me talk of such chargeable and expensive wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbors and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings. He asked what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade or treaty, or to defend the coasts with our fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army in the midst of peace and among a free people. He said if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man's house might not better be defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half-a-dozen rascals, picked up at a venture in the streets for small wages, who might get a hundred times more by cutting their throats? He laughed at my odd kind of arithmetic (as he was pleased to call it), in reckoning the numbers of our people by a computation drawn from the several sects among us, in religion and politics. He said, he knew no reason why those who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them. And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials. He observed, that among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed: whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes: whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others? He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce. His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in its original might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required towards the procurement of any one station among you; much less that men are ennobled on account of their virtue, that priests are advanced for their piety or learning, soldiers for their conduct or valor, judges for their integrity, senators for the love of their country, or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself, continued the king, who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." [Illustration: "YOU HAVE MADE A MOST ADMIRABLE PANEGYRIC." P. 79.]

Chapter 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-6

Gulliver entertains himself and demonstrates his ingenuity by using the King's beard stubble to make a comb and by using strands of the Queen's hair to make several chairs and a purse. In addition, Gulliver plays the spinet for the King and Queen by using sticks formed as cudgels to bang on the keys as he runs up and down a piano bench. The King also holds several audiences with Gulliver to discuss the culture of Gulliver's home country, England. In these audiences, as requested by the King, Gulliver explains the role of the people in the operation of the government, in religion, and in the legal system, among other topics. The King, after asking many questions related to all that Gulliver tells him, concludes this audience with a summary and an assessment of what he hears.

In this chapter, Swift changes his focus to European politics and institutional morality. The king is the questioner, and Gulliver is the "expert." Immediately we sense that what Gulliver says is naive. He is idealizing his country's customs and institutions; he even lies about them. His distortion, therefore, is revealing: It exposes the actual workings of the English system. Besides attacking the English as a whole, Swift singles out the Whigs. When the King asks whether lords are advanced because of achievement or from political convenience, the reference is to the Whigs' buying votes in parliament by granting nobility to politicians. When the King asks whether bishops are ever appointed because of their political opinions, the reference is again to the Whigs, who appointed writers of their party to bishoprics. Conversely, clerical success was denied Swift largely because of his political opinions. When the King asks whether members of parliament are not sometimes elected by bribery or influence, the allusion is to Walpole, a master at rigging elections. And when the King asks whether judges don't sometimes get rich and dispense partial and slow justice, Swift's inference is that justices of the peace are usually stupid and biased and that judges in the higher courts are notoriously slow and usually very rich. Swift has Gulliver invoke the rhetoricians before he begins praising England; then he connects this highly formal invocation with the ludicrous spectacle of Gulliver proudly banging on the piano with mallets. Also, Swift uses insect imagery to surround the discussion of the morality of Europe; Gulliver even brags that bees and ants have a reputation for sagacity. Gulliver's praise rings hollow. The King tells his pint-sized performer that English history is not as Gulliver describes; rather, it is a "heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, or ambition could produce." He concludes that the bulk of Gulliver's countrymen are "the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." -- a statement that is not only the most famous statement in the Travels, but is perhaps the most famous in all literature in its assessment of the nature of mankind. Glossary the King's levee a morning reception held by a sovereign or person of high rank upon arising. awl a small, pointed tool for making holes in wood, leather, etc. consorts seventeenth-century English chamber music ensembles, sometimes including vocalists. spinet an early, small variety of harpsichord with a single keyboard. play a jig to perform a fast, gay, springy sort of dance, usually in triple time. sifted me to inspect or examine with care, as by testing or questioning; here, meaning the King asked many probing questions of Gulliver. chancery the court of the Lord Chancellor of England. gaming the act or practice of gambling.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_14_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 7

chapter 7

{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-7", "summary": "Gulliver decides that the King's lack of enthusiasm for England springs from his ignorance of the country. To remedy this, Gulliver offers to teach the King about England's magnificence. The first lesson concerns one of England's most valuable assets: gunpowder. Describing its effects graphically and at great length, Gulliver tells the King that gunpowder would be a great boon for him; with it, the King could reduce all his subjects to slavery. The King is horrified by the suggestion. He rejects such a bloodthirsty and inhumane proposal, warning the \"impotent and groveling insect\" that he will be executed if he ever mentions gunpowder again. Gulliver drops the subject of gunpowder and gives us an account of the customs and government of his hosts. The Brobdingnagian army is a national guard or militia; there are no professional soldiers. As for government, it is extremely simple. There are no refinements, mysteries, intrigues, or state secrets. Government depends upon common sense, mercy, and swift justice. Brobdingnagian learning consists only of morality, history, poetry, and practical mathematics. The Brobdingnagians cannot understand abstract reasoning or ideas. Their laws must contain only twenty-two words and must be absolutely clear. Their libraries are small, and their books are written in a clear style.", "analysis": "Swift shows us that Gulliver's character seems to be changing for the worse. His pride is growing to enormous proportions; he becomes condescending to the King. He calls the King a nobody and says that the King's standards are not worthy of emulation: \"But great allowances should be given to a king who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world and must, therefore, be altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted.\" He then waxes patriotic and political over European morality, mentioning Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Significantly, Dionysius was a partisan historian who lied when it suited his purpose. He also sneers at the King's idea that government should be compounded of common sense, justice, mercy, and understandable laws. Yet, the laws and customs that the King describes are ideal; most of all, they are sensible. They are not abstract or transcendental. They serve to keep people honest, happy, and free. Instead of censuring the Whigs, most of Swift's allusions in this section draw attention to English intellectual follies. Gulliver remarks that he could not teach the giants to think in abstractions and transcendentals; instead their thinking was always clear. This observation anticipates Swift's ridicule of the Modern philosophers in Book III. Swift is saucy on the subject of the \"Moderns.\" Already in his Battle of the Books, he berated certain poets, philosophers, and scientists who called themselves the \"Moderns.\" This group cited gunpowder as evidence of Modern superiority over the Ancients and also praised Modern philosophers who used abstract and transcendental terms. Swift's mention of the giants who preceded the smaller Brobdingnagians reminds us that the Brobdingnagians are not perfect, but they are consistently moral. They still have a remnant of their former greatness. There is prosperity and peace, morality and common sense in Brobdingnag. Glossary transcendentals philosophers who propose to discover the nature of reality by investigating the process of thought rather than the objects of sense experience."}

CHAPTER VII THE AUTHOR'S LOVE OF HIS COUNTRY. HE MAKES A PROPOSAL OF MUCH ADVANTAGE TO THE KING, WHICH IS REJECTED. THE KING'S GREAT IGNORANCE IN POLITICS. THE LEARNING OF THAT COUNTRY VERY IMPERFECT AND CONFINED. THE LAWS, AND MILITARY AFFAIRS, AND PARTIES IN THE STATE. Nothing but an extreme love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover my resentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced to rest with patience, while my noble and beloved country was so injuriously treated. I am as heartily sorry as any of my readers can possibly be, that such an occasion was given: but this prince happened to be so curious and inquisitive upon every particular, that it could not consist either with gratitude or good manners, to refuse giving him what satisfaction I was able. Yet this much I may be allowed to say, in my own vindication, that I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favorable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis[79] with so much justice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light. This was my sincere endeavor, in those many discourses I had with that monarch, although it unfortunately failed of success. But great allowances should be given to a king who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world, and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted. And it would be hard indeed, if so remote a prince's notions of virtue and vice were to be offered as a standard for all mankind. To confirm what I have now said, and farther to show the miserable effects of a confined education, I shall here insert a passage which will hardly obtain belief. In hopes to ingratiate myself farther into his majesty's favor, I told him of an invention discovered between three and four hundred years ago, to make a certain powder into a heap, on which the smallest spark of fire falling would kindle the whole in a moment, although it were as big as a mountain, and make it all fly up in the air together with a noise and agitation greater than thunder. That a proper quantity of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass or iron, according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead with such violence and speed as nothing was able to sustain its force. That the largest balls thus discharged would not only destroy whole ranks of an army at once, but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink down ships with a thousand men in each to the bottom of the sea; and, when linked together by a chain, would cut through masts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all waste before them. That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near. That I knew the ingredients very well, which were cheap and common; I understood the manner of compounding them, and could direct his workman how to make those tubes of a size proportionable to all other things in his majesty's kingdom, and the largest need not to be above a hundred feet long; twenty or thirty of which tubes, charged with the proper quantity of powder and balls, would batter down the walls of the strongest town in his dominions in a few hours, or destroy the whole metropolis if ever it should pretend to dispute his absolute commands. This I humbly offered to his majesty as a small tribute of acknowledgment, in return for so many marks that I had received of his royal favor and protection. The king was struck with horror at the description I had given him of those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. He was amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I (these were his expressions), could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation, which I had painted, as the common effects of those destructive machines, whereof, he said, some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for himself, he protested, that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom than be privy to such a secret, which he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any more. A strange effect of narrow principles and short views! that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents for government, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands, that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do I say this with the least intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whose character I am sensible will on this account be very much lessened in the opinion of an English reader; but I take this defect among them to have arisen from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a science, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For I remember very well, in a discourse one day with the king, when I happened to say there were several thousand books among us, written upon the art of government, it gave him (directly contrary to my intention) a very mean opinion of our understandings. He professed both to abominate and despise all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a prince or a minister. He could not tell what I meant by secrets of state, where an enemy or some rival nation were not in the case. He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes, with some other obvious topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground, where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel. But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be useful in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all mechanical arts; so that among us it would be little esteemed. And as to ideas, entities, abstractions, and transcendentals,[80] I could never drive the least conception into their heads. No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty. But indeed few of them extend even to that length. They are expressed in the most plain and simple terms, wherein those people are not mercurial[81] enough to discover above one interpretation; and to write a comment upon any law is a capital crime. As to the decision of civil causes, or proceedings against criminals, their precedents are so few, that they have little reason to boast of any extraordinary skill in either. They have had the art of printing, as well as the Chinese, time out of mind: but their libraries are not very large; for that of the king, which is reckoned the largest, doth not amount to above a thousand volumes, placed in a gallery of twelve hundred feet long, from whence I had liberty to borrow what books I pleased. The queen's joiner had contrived in one of Glumdalclitch's rooms, a kind of wooden machine, five-and-twenty feet high, formed like a standing ladder; the steps were each fifty feet long: it was indeed a movable pair of stairs, the lowest end placed at ten feet distance from the wall of the chamber. The book I had a mind to read was put up leaning against the wall: I first mounted to the upper step of the ladder, and turning my face towards the book began at the top of the page, and so walking to the right and left about eight or ten paces, according to the length of the lines, till I had gotten a little below the level of mine eyes, and then descending gradually, till I came to the bottom: after which I mounted again, and began the other page in the same manner, and so turned over the leaf, which I could easily do with both my hands, for it was as thick and stiff as a paste-board, and in the largest folios not above eighteen or twenty feet long. Their style is clear, masculine, and smooth, but not florid; for they avoid nothing more than multiplying unnecessary words, or using various expressions. I have perused many of their books, especially those in history and morality. Among the rest, I was much diverted with a little old treatise, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed-chamber, and belonged to her governess, a grave elderly gentlewoman, who dealt in writings of morality and devotion. The book treats of the weakness of human kind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and the vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that country could say upon such a subject. [Illustration] This writer went through all the usual topics of European moralists, showing how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in his own nature; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the air, or the fury of wild beasts; how much he was excelled by one creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, by a fourth in industry. He added, that nature was degenerated in these latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce only small births, in comparison to those in ancient times. He said, it was very reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were originally much larger, but also, that there must have been giants in former ages; which as it is asserted by history and tradition, so it hath been confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of man in our days. He argued, that the very laws of nature absolutely required we should have been made in the beginning of a size more large and robust, not so liable to destruction, from every little accident, of a tile falling from a house, or a stone cast from the hand of a boy, or being drowned in a little brook. From this way of reasoning the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I could not avoid reflecting, how universally this talent was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or, indeed, rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with nature. And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people. As to their military affairs, they boast that the king's army consists of a hundred and seventy-six thousand foot, and thirty-two thousand horse: if that may be called an army which is made up of tradesmen in the several cities, and farmers in the country, whose commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay or reward. They are indeed perfect enough in their exercises, and under very good discipline, wherein I saw no great merit; for how should it be otherwise, where every farmer is under the command of his own landlord, and every citizen under that of the principal men in his own city, chosen after the manner of Venice, by ballot? I have often seen the militia of Lorbrulgrud drawn out to exercise in a great field, near the city, of twenty miles square. They were in all not above twenty-five thousand foot, and six thousand horse: but it was impossible for me to compute their number, considering the space of ground they took up. A cavalier, mounted on a large steed, might be about ninety feet high. I have seen this whole body of horse, upon a word of command, draw their swords at once, and brandish them in the air. Imagination can figure nothing so grand, so surprising, and so astonishing! it looked as if ten thousand flashes of lightning were darting at the same time from every quarter of the sky. I was curious to know how this prince, to whose dominions there is no access from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach his people the practice of military discipline. But I was soon informed, both by conversation and reading their histories: for in the course of many ages, they have been troubled with the same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion. All which, however, happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have more than once occasioned civil wars, the last whereof was happily put an end to by this prince's grandfather, in a general composition;[82] and the militia, then settled with common consent, hath been ever since kept in the strictest duty. [Illustration]

Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-7

Gulliver decides that the King's lack of enthusiasm for England springs from his ignorance of the country. To remedy this, Gulliver offers to teach the King about England's magnificence. The first lesson concerns one of England's most valuable assets: gunpowder. Describing its effects graphically and at great length, Gulliver tells the King that gunpowder would be a great boon for him; with it, the King could reduce all his subjects to slavery. The King is horrified by the suggestion. He rejects such a bloodthirsty and inhumane proposal, warning the "impotent and groveling insect" that he will be executed if he ever mentions gunpowder again. Gulliver drops the subject of gunpowder and gives us an account of the customs and government of his hosts. The Brobdingnagian army is a national guard or militia; there are no professional soldiers. As for government, it is extremely simple. There are no refinements, mysteries, intrigues, or state secrets. Government depends upon common sense, mercy, and swift justice. Brobdingnagian learning consists only of morality, history, poetry, and practical mathematics. The Brobdingnagians cannot understand abstract reasoning or ideas. Their laws must contain only twenty-two words and must be absolutely clear. Their libraries are small, and their books are written in a clear style.

Swift shows us that Gulliver's character seems to be changing for the worse. His pride is growing to enormous proportions; he becomes condescending to the King. He calls the King a nobody and says that the King's standards are not worthy of emulation: "But great allowances should be given to a king who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world and must, therefore, be altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we and the politer countries of Europe are wholly exempted." He then waxes patriotic and political over European morality, mentioning Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Significantly, Dionysius was a partisan historian who lied when it suited his purpose. He also sneers at the King's idea that government should be compounded of common sense, justice, mercy, and understandable laws. Yet, the laws and customs that the King describes are ideal; most of all, they are sensible. They are not abstract or transcendental. They serve to keep people honest, happy, and free. Instead of censuring the Whigs, most of Swift's allusions in this section draw attention to English intellectual follies. Gulliver remarks that he could not teach the giants to think in abstractions and transcendentals; instead their thinking was always clear. This observation anticipates Swift's ridicule of the Modern philosophers in Book III. Swift is saucy on the subject of the "Moderns." Already in his Battle of the Books, he berated certain poets, philosophers, and scientists who called themselves the "Moderns." This group cited gunpowder as evidence of Modern superiority over the Ancients and also praised Modern philosophers who used abstract and transcendental terms. Swift's mention of the giants who preceded the smaller Brobdingnagians reminds us that the Brobdingnagians are not perfect, but they are consistently moral. They still have a remnant of their former greatness. There is prosperity and peace, morality and common sense in Brobdingnag. Glossary transcendentals philosophers who propose to discover the nature of reality by investigating the process of thought rather than the objects of sense experience.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/17157-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Gulliver's Travels/section_15_part_0.txt

Gulliver's Travels.part 2.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-8", "summary": "Gulliver spends two years in Brobdingnag, but he is not happy despite the royal family's pampering. He is afraid that he will never escape and will turn into a sort of domestic, albeit royal, pet. Escape seems impossible; chance, however, intervenes: On a trip to the seashore, an eagle swoops down, snatches up the box Gulliver travels in, and drops it into the sea. The box is driven by the wind close to an English ship and is spied by some sailors, who retrieve Gulliver and his possessions. Gulliver does not adjust easily to his fellow Englishmen. After living two years in a land of giants, he has convinced himself that all Englishmen are midgets. Everything looks tiny back home, and he feels like a giant. In time Gulliver's sense of perspective heals.", "analysis": "Swift reinforces the idea of the giant's moral superiority by having Gulliver identify the English with the Lilliputians. This association also makes Gulliver ridiculous. It demonstrates the folly and self-deception that Gulliver practices in identifying himself with the moral giants. Gulliver's pride is at the root of his trouble. Swift dramatizes this with the mirror Gulliver cannot bear to look into. The mirror is a standard device, just as satire is; anyone who looks closely is shown his own flaws. Swift has finished his Analysis on human morality. In Gulliver's next voyage, he trains his satire on people's intellect: how they use -- and misuse -- it. Glossary hundred leagues one league is about three nautical miles; here, meaning about 300 nautical miles. conceit an idea, thought, concept. raillery light, good-natured ridicule or satire; banter."}

CHAPTER VIII THE KING AND QUEEN MAKE A PROGRESS[83] TO THE FRONTIERS. THE AUTHOR ATTENDS THEM. THE MANNER IN WHICH HE LEAVES THE COUNTRY VERY PARTICULARLY RELATED. HE RETURNS TO ENGLAND. I had always a strong impulse that I should sometime recover my liberty, though it was impossible to conjecture by what means, or to form any project with the least hope of succeeding. The ship in which I sailed was the first ever known to be driven within sight of the coast; and the king had given strict orders, that if at any time another appeared, it should be taken ashore, and with all its crew and passengers brought in a tumbrel[84] to Lorbrulgrud. I was treated with much kindness: I was the favorite of a great king and queen, and the delight of the whole court; but it was upon such a footing as ill became the dignity of human kind. I could never forget those domestic pledges I had left behind me. I wanted to be among people with whom I could converse upon even terms, and walk about the streets and fields, without being afraid of being trod to death like a frog or a young puppy. But my deliverance came sooner than I expected, and in a manner not very common: the whole story and circumstances of which I shall faithfully relate. [Illustration: "SHE HAD SOME FOREBODING." P. 94.] I had now been two years in this country; and about the beginning of the third, Glumdalclitch and I attended the king and queen in a progress to the south coast of the kingdom. I was carried, as usual, in my travelling-box, which, as I have already described, was a very convenient closet of twelve feet wide. And I had ordered a hammock to be fixed by silken ropes from the four corners at the top, to break the jolts, when a servant carried me before him on horseback, as I sometimes desired, and would often sleep in my hammock while we were upon the road. On the roof of my closet, not directly over the middle of the hammock, I ordered the joiner to cut out a hole of a foot square, to give me air in hot weather as I slept, which hole I shut at pleasure with a board that drew backwards and forwards through a groove. When we came to our journey's end, the king thought proper to pass a few days at a palace he hath near Flanflasnic, a city within eighteen English of the sea-side Glumdalclitch and I were much fatigued, I had gotten a small cold, but the poor girl was so ill as to be confined to her chamber. I longed to see the ocean, which must be the only scene of my escape, if ever it should happen I pretended to be worse than I really was, and desired leave to take the fresh air of the sea with a page, whom I was very fond of, and who had sometimes been trusted with me. I shall never forget with what unwillingness Glumdalclitch consented, nor the strict charge she gave the page[85] to be careful of me, bursting at the same time into a flood of tears, as if she had some foreboding of what was to happen. The boy took me out in my box about half-an-hour's walk from the palace towards the rocks on the sea-shore. I ordered him to set me down, and lifting up one of my sashes, cast many a wistful melancholy look towards the sea. I found myself not very well, and told the page that I had a mind to take a nap in my hammock, which I hoped would do me good. I got in, and the boy shut the window close down to keep out the cold. I soon fell asleep, and all I can conjecture is, that while I slept, the page, thinking no danger could happen, went among the rocks to look for birds' eggs, having before observed him from my windows searching about, and picking up one or two in the clefts. Be that as it will, I found myself suddenly awaked with a violent pull upon the ring, which was fastened at the top of my box for the conveniency of carriage. I felt my box raised very high in the air, and then borne forward with prodigious speed. The first jolt had like to have shaken me out of my hammock, but afterwards the motion was easy enough. I called out several times, as loud as I could raise my voice, but all to no purpose. I looked towards my windows, and could see nothing but the clouds and sky. I heard a noise just over my head like the clapping of wings, and then began to perceive the woful condition I was in, that some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak, with an intent to let it fall on a rock like a tortoise in a shell, and then pick out my body and devour it; for the sagacity and smell of this bird enabled him to discover his quarry[86] at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a two-inch board. [Illustration] In a little time I observed the noise and flutter of wings to increase very fast, and my box was tossed up and down like a sign in a windy day. I heard several bangs or buffets, as I thought, given to the eagle (for such I am certain it must have been, that held the ring of my box in his beak), and then all on a sudden felt myself falling perpendicularly down for above a minute, but with such incredible swiftness, that I almost lost my breath. My fall was stopped by a terrible squash,[87] that sounded louder to my ears than the cataract of Niagara; after which I was quite in the dark for another minute, and then my box began to rise so high that I could see light from the tops of the windows. I now perceived I was fallen into the sea. My box, by the weight of my body, the goods that were in, and the broad plates of iron fixed for strength at the four corners of the top and bottom, floated about five feet deep in the water. I did then, and do now suppose, that the eagle which flew away with my box was pursued by two or three others, and forced to let me drop while he defended himself against the rest, who hoped to share in the prey. The plates of iron fastened at the bottom of the box (for those were the strongest) preserved the balance while it fell, and hindered it from being broken on the surface of the water. Every joint of it was well grooved, and the door did not move on hinges, but up and down like a sash, which kept my closet so tight that very little water came in. I got with much difficulty out of my hammock, having first ventured to draw back my slip-board on the roof already mentioned, contrived on purpose to let in air, for want of which I found myself almost stifled. How often did I then wish myself with my dear Glumdalclitch, from whom one single hour had so far divided me. And I may say with truth that in the midst of my own misfortunes I could not forbear lamenting my poor nurse, the grief she would suffer for my loss, the displeasure of the queen, and the ruin of her fortune. Perhaps many travellers have not been under greater difficulties and distress than I was at juncture, expecting every moment to see my box dashed to pieces, or at least overset by the first violent blast or rising wave. A breach in one single pane of glass would have been immediate death; nor could anything have preserved the windows but the strong lattice-wires placed on the outside against accidents in travelling. I saw the water ooze in at several crannies, although the leaks were not considerable, and I endeavored to stop them as well as I could, I was not able to lift up the roof of my closet, which otherwise I certainly should have done, and sat on the top of it, where I might at least preserve myself some hours longer, than by being shut up (as I may call it) in the hold. Or, if I escaped these dangers for a day or two, what could I expect but a miserable death of cold and hunger? I was four hours under these circumstances, expecting, and indeed wishing, every moment to be my last. I have already told the reader that there were two strong staples fixed upon that side of my box which had no window, and into which the servant who used to carry me on horseback would put a leathern belt, and buckle it about his waist. Being in this disconsolate state, I heard, or at least thought I heard, some kind of grating noise on that side of my box where the staples were fixed, and soon after I began to fancy that the box was pulled or towed along in the sea, for I now and then felt a sort of tugging which made the waves rise near the tops of my windows, leaving me almost in the dark. This gave me some faint hopes of relief, although I was not able to imagine how it could be brought about. I ventured to unscrew one of my chairs, which were always fastened to the floor, and having made a hard shift to screw it down again directly under the slipping board that I had lately opened, I mounted on the chair, and putting my mouth as near as I could to the hole, I called for help in a loud voice and in all the languages I understood. I then fastened my handkerchief to a stick I usually carried, and thrusting it up the hole, waved it several times in the air, that if any boat or ship were near, the seamen might conjecture some unhappy mortal to be shut up in the box. I found no effect from all I could do, but plainly perceived my closet to be moved along; and in the space of an hour or better, that side of the box where the staples were and had no window struck against something that was hard. I apprehended it to be a rock, and found myself tossed more than ever. I plainly heard a noise upon the cover of my closet like that of a cable, and the grating of it as it passed through the ring. I then found myself hoisted up by degrees, at least three feet higher than I was before. Whereupon I again thrust up my stick and handkerchief, calling for help till I was almost hoarse. In return to which I heard a great shout repeated three times, giving me such transports of joy as are not to be conceived but by those who feel them. I now heard a trampling over my head, and somebody calling through the hole with a loud voice in the English tongue. "If there be anybody below, let them speak." I answered I was an Englishman, drawn by ill fortune into the greatest calamity that ever any creature underwent, and begged by all that was moving to be delivered out of the dungeon I was in. The voice replied I was safe, for my box was fastened to their ship; and the carpenter should immediately come and saw a hole in the cover, large enough to pull me out. I answered that was needless, and would take up too much time, for there was no more to be done, but let one of the crew put his finger into the ring, and take the box out of the sea into the ship, and so into the captain's cabin. Some of them upon hearing me talk so wildly thought I was mad; others laughed; for indeed it never came into my head that I was now got among people of my own stature and strength. The carpenter came, and in a few minutes sawed a passage about four feet square, then let down a small ladder upon which I mounted, and from thence was taken into the ship in a very weak condition. [Illustration: "SOMEBODY CALLING ... IN THE ENGLISH TONGUE." P. 99.] The sailors were all in amazement, and asked me a thousand questions, which I had no inclination to answer. I was equally confounded at the sight of so many pygmies, for such I took them to be, after having so long accustomed mine eyes to the monstrous objects I had left. But the captain, Mr. Thomas Wilcocks, an honest, worthy Shropshire man, observing I was ready to faint, took me into his cabin, gave me a cordial to comfort me, and made me turn in upon his own bed, advising me to take a little rest, of which I had great need. Before I went to sleep, I gave him to understand that I had some valuable furniture in my box, too good to be lost; a fine hammock, a handsome two chairs, a table, and a cabinet. That my closet was hung on all sides, or rather quilted, with silk and cotton: that if he would let one of the crew bring my closet into his cabin, I would open it there before him, and show him my goods. The captain, hearing me utter these absurdities, concluded I was raving: however (I suppose to pacify me), he promised to give orders as I desired, and going upon deck, sent some of his men down into my closet, from whence (as I afterwards found) they drew up all my goods, and stripped off the quilting; but the chairs, cabinet, and bedstead, being screwed to the floor, were much damaged by the ignorance of the seamen, who tore them up by force. Then they knocked off some of the boards for the use of the ship, and when they had got all they had a mind for, let the hull drop into the sea, which, by reason of so many breaches made in the bottom and sides, sunk to rights.[88] And indeed I was glad not to have been a spectator of the havoc they made; because I am confident it would have sensibly touched me, by bringing former passages into my mind, which I had rather forgotten. I slept some hours, but was perpetually disturbed with dreams of the place I had left, and the dangers I had escaped. However, upon waking, I found myself much recovered. It was now about eight o'clock at night, and the captain ordered supper immediately, thinking I had already fasted too long. He entertained me with great kindness, observing me not to look wildly, or talk inconsistently; and when we were left alone, desired I would give him a relation of my travels, and by what accident I came to be set adrift in that monstrous wooden chest. He said that about twelve o'clock at noon, as he was looking through his glass, he spied it at a distance, and thought it was a sail, which he had a mind to make[89], being not much out of his course, in hopes of buying some biscuit, his own beginning to fall short. That upon coming nearer and finding his error, he sent out his long-boat to discover what it was; that his men came back in a fright, swearing they had seen a swimming-house. That he laughed at their folly, and went himself in the boat, ordering his men to take a strong cable along with them. That the weather being calm, he rowed round me several times, observed my windows and wire-lattices that defenced them. That he discovered two staples upon one side, which was all of boards, without any passage for light. He then commanded his men to row up to that side, and fastening a cable to one of the staples, ordered them to tow my chest (as they called it) towards the ship. When it was there, he gave directions to fasten another cable to the ring fixed in the cover, and to raise up my chest with pulleys, which all the sailors were not able to do above two or three feet. He said they saw my stick and handkerchief thrust out of the hole, and concluded that some unhappy man must be shut up in the cavity. I asked whether he or the crew had seen any prodigious birds in the air about the time he first discovered me? to which he answered, that, discoursing this matter with the sailors while I was asleep, one of them said he had observed three eagles flying towards the north, but remarked nothing of their being larger than the usual size, which I suppose must be imputed to the great height they were at; and he could not guess the reason of my question. I then asked the captain how far he reckoned we might be from land? He said, by the best computation he could make, we were at least a hundred leagues. I assured him that he must be mistaken by almost half, for I had not left the country from whence I came above two hours before I dropt into the sea. Whereupon he began again to think that my brain was disturbed, of which he gave me a hint, and advised me to go to bed in a cabin he had provided. I assured him I was well refreshed with his good entertainment and company, and as much in my senses as ever I was in my life. He then grew serious, and desired to ask me freely whether I were not troubled in mind by the consciousness of some enormous crime, for which I was punished by the command of some prince, by exposing me in that chest, as great criminals in other countries have been forced to sea in a leaky vessel without provisions; for although he should be sorry to have taken so ill a man into his ship, yet he would engage his word to set me safe ashore in the first port where we arrived. He added that his suspicions were much increased by some very absurd speeches I had delivered, at first to his sailors, and afterwards to himself, in relation to my closet chest, as well as by my odd looks and behavior while I was at supper. I begged his patience to hear me tell my story, which I faithfully did, from the last time I left England to the moment he first discovered me. And as truth always forceth its way into rational minds, so this honest worthy gentleman, who had some tincture of learning and very good sense, was immediately convinced of my candor and veracity. But, farther to confirm all I had said, I entreated him to give order that my cabinet should be brought, of which I had the key in my pocket (for he had already informed me how seamen disposed of my closet). I opened it in his own presence, and showed him the small collection of rarities I made in the country from whence I had been so strangely delivered. There was the comb I had contrived out of the stumps of the king's beard. There was a collection of needles and pins, from a foot to half a yard long; four wasps' stings, like joiners' tacks; some combings of the queen's hair; a gold ring, which one day she made me a present of in a most obliging manner, taking it from her little finger and throwing it over my head like a collar. I desired the captain would please to accept this ring in return of his civilities, which he absolutely refused. Lastly I desired him to see the breeches I had then on, which were made of a mouse's skin. I could force nothing upon him but a footman's tooth, which I observed him to examine with great curiosity, and found he had a fancy for it. He received it with abundance of thanks, more than such a trifle could deserve. It was drawn by an unskilful surgeon, in a mistake, from one of Glumdalclitch's men, who was affected with the toothache, but it was as sound as any in his head. I got it cleaned, and put it in my cabinet. It was about a foot long, and four inches in diameter. The captain was very well satisfied with this plain relation I had given him, and said he hoped when we returned to England I would oblige the world by putting it on paper, and making it public. My answer was, that I thought we were already overstocked with books of travels; that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers, that my story could contain little besides common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to take the matter into my thoughts. He said he wondered at one thing very much, which was, to hear me speak so loud, asking me whether the king or queen of that country were thick of hearing. I told him it was what I had been used to for above two years past, and that I wondered as much at the voices of him and his men, who seemed to me only to whisper, and yet I could hear them well enough. But when I spoke in that country, it was like a man talking in the street to another looking out from the top of a steeple, unless when I was placed on a table, or held in any person's hand. I told him I had likewise observed another thing, that when I first got into the ship, and the sailors stood all about me, I thought they were the most contemptible little creatures I had ever beheld. For indeed, while I was in that prince's country, I could never endure to look in a glass, after my eyes had been accustomed to such prodigious objects, because the comparison gave me so despicable a conceit of myself. The captain said that while we were at supper he observed me to look at everything with a sort of wonder, and that I often seemed hardly able to contain my laughter, which he knew not well how to take, but imputed it to some disorder in my brain. I answered, it was very true, and I wondered how I could forbear, when I saw his dishes of the size of a silver threepence, a leg of pork hardly a mouthful, a cup not so big as a nut-shell, and so I went on, describing the rest of his household stuff and provisions after the same manner. For although the queen had ordered a little equipage of all things necessary for me, while I was in her service, yet my ideas were wholly taken up with what I saw on every side of me, and I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults. The captain understood my raillery very well, and merrily replied that he did not observe my stomach so good, although I had fasted all day; and, continuing in his mirth, protested he would have gladly given a hundred pounds to have seen my closet in the eagle's bill, and afterwards in its fall from so great a height into the sea; which would certainly have been a most astonishing object, worthy to have the description of it transmitted to future ages: and the comparison of Phaeton[90] was so obvious, that he could not forbear applying it, although I did not much admire the conceit. [Illustration: "MY DAUGHTER KNEELED BUT I COULD NOT SEE HER" P. 109.] The captain having been at Tonquin, was, in his return to England, driven northeastward, to the latitude of 44 degrees, and of longitude 143. But meeting a trade-wind two days after I came on board him, we sailed southward a long time, and, coasting New Holland, kept our course west-south-west, and then south-south-west, till we doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Our voyage was very prosperous, but I shall not trouble the reader with a journal of it. The captain called in at one or two ports, and sent in his long-boat for provisions and fresh water, but I never went out of the ship till we came into the Downs, which was on the third day of June, 1706, about nine months after my escape. I offered to leave pay goods in security for payment of my freight, but the captain protested he would not receive one farthing. We took a kind leave of each other, and I made him promise he would come to see me at my house in Redriff. I hired a horse and guide for five shillings, which I borrowed of the captain. As I was on the road, observing the littleness of the houses--the trees, the cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput. I was afraid of trampling on every traveller I met, and often called aloud to have them stand out of the way, so that I had like to have gotten one or two broken heads for my impertinence. When I came to my own house, for which I was forced to inquire, one of the servants opened the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate), for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter kneeled to ask my blessing, but I could not see her till she arose, having been so long used to stand with my head and eyes erect to above sixty feet; and then I went to take her up with one hand by the waist. I looked down upon the servants, and one or two friends who were in the house, as if they had been pygmies, and I a giant. I told my wife she had been too thrifty, for I found she had starved herself and her daughter to nothing. In short, I behaved myself so unaccountably, that they were all of the captain's opinion when he first saw me, and concluded I had lost my wits. This I mention as an instance of the great power of habit and prejudice. In a little time, I and my family and friends came to a right understanding: but my wife protested I should never go to sea any more; although my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not power to hinder me, as the reader may know hereafter. In the meantime I here conclude the second part of my unfortunate voyages. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [1] _Redriff Rotherhithe_: then a Thames side village, now part of London. [2] _Pound_: nearly five dollars. [3] _Levant_: the point where the sun rises. The countries about the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea and its adjoining waters. [4] _Mrs._: it was formerly the custom to call unmarried women Mrs. [5] _The South Sea_: the Pacific Ocean. [6] _Van Diemen's Land_: N.W. from Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and in latitude 30 degrees 2 minutes would be in Australia or off the West Coast. [7] _Cable's length_: about six hundred or seven hundred feet. [8] _Buff jerkin_ a leather jacket or waistcoat. [9] _Small_: weak, thin. [10] _Signet-royal_: the king's seal. [11] _Half-pike_ a short wooden staff, upon one end of which was a steel head. [12] _Stang_: an old word for a perch, sixteen feet and a half, also for a rood of ground. [13] _Chairs_: a sedan chair is here meant. It held one person, and was carried by two men by means of projecting poles. [14] _Crest_: a decoration to denote rank. [15] _Lingua Franca_: a language--Italian mixed with Arabic, Greek, and Turkish--used by Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians trading with Arabs, Turks, and Greeks. It is the commercial language of Constantinople. [16] _Imprimis_: in the first place, (pr.) im pri' mis. [17] _Lucid_: shining, transparent. [18] _Yeomen of the guards_: freemen forming the bodyguard of the sovereign. [19] _Pocket perspective_: a small spy-glass or telescope. [20] _Trencher_: a wooden plate or platter. [21] _Corn_: such grains as wheat, rye, barley, oats. [22] _Quadrant_: an instrument long used for measuring altitudes. [23] _Skirt_: coat-tail. [24] _Alcoran_ the Koran or Mohammedan Bible. [25] _Embargo_: an order not to sail. [26] _Discompose them_: displace them. [27] _Puissant_: powerful. [28] _Junto_: a body of men secretly united to gain some political end. [29] _Pulling_: plucking and drawing, preparatory to cooking, [30] _Meaner_: of lower rank. [31] _Portion_: the part of an estate given to a child. [32] _Domestic_: the household and all pertaining thereto. [33] _Exchequer bills_: bills of credit issued from the exchequer by authority of parliament. [34] _Close chair_: sedan chair. [35] _Cabal_: a body of men united for some sinister purpose. [36] _Lee side_: side sheltered from the wind. [37] _Ancient_: flag, corrupted from ensign. [38] _Downs_: A famous natural roadstead off the southeast coast of Kent, between Goodwin Sands and the mainland, south of the Thames entrance. [39] _Black Bull_: inns in England are often named after animals with an adjective descriptive of the color of the sign; as, _The Golden Lion, The White Horse_. [40] _Towardly_: apt, docile. [41] _Straits of Madagascar_: Mozambique Channel. [42] _The line_: the equator. [43] _Hinds_: peasants; rustics. [44] _Pistoles_: about three dollars and sixty cents. [45] _Trencher-side_: up to his trencher or wooden plate. [46] _Discovering_: Showing. [47] _From London Bridge to Chelsea_: about three miles as the birds fly. [48] _Pillion_: a cushion for a woman to ride on behind a person on horseback. _From London to St. Alban's_: about twenty miles. [49] _Pumpion_: pumpkin. [50] _Parts_: accomplishments. [51] _Sanson's Atlas_: a very large atlas by a French geographer in use in Swift's time. [52] _As good a hand of me_: as much money of me. [53] _Moidore_: a Portuguese gold piece worth about six dollars. [54] _Guineas_: an obsolete English gold coin, of the value of five dollars. [55] _Phoenix_: a bird of fable said to live for a long time and rise anew from its own ashes. [56] _Cabinet_: a private room. [57] _Scrutoire_: a writing-desk. [58] _Waiting_: attendance on the king. [59] _Lusus naturae_: a freak of nature. [60] _Royal Sovereign_: one of the great ships of Swift's time. [61] _Dunstable lark_: large larks are caught on the downs near Dunstable between September and February, and sent to London for luxurious tables. [62] _Drone_: the largest tube of a bag-pipe, giving forth a dull heavy tone. [63] _Gresham College_, in London, is named after the founder, an English merchant, who died in 1579. [64] _The square of_: as large as the square of. [65] _Salisbury Steeple_: this is about four hundred feet high. [66] _Battalia_: the order of battle. [67] _Espalier_: a lattice upon which fruit-trees or shrubs are trained. [68] _Scull_: a short oar. [69] _Starboard or larboard_: right or left. [70] _Corking-pin_: a larger-sized pin. [71] _Stomacher_: a broad belt. [72] _Varlet_: knave. [73] _Levee_: a ceremonious visit received by a distinguished person in the morning. [74] _Spinet_: a stringed instrument, a forerunner of out piano. [75] _Closet_: private room. [76] _Signal_: memorable. [77] _Chancery_: a high court of equity. [78] _Glossing_: commenting. [79] _Dionysius of Halicarnassus_ was born about the middle of the first century, B.C.; he endeavored in his history to relieve his Greek countrymen from the mortification they had felt in their subjection to the Romans, and patched up an old legend about Rome being of Greek origin and therefore their "political mother." [80] _Ideas, entities, abstractions, transcendentals_, words used in that philosophy which deals with thinking, existence, and things beyond the senses. [81] _Mercurial_: active, spirited. [82] _Composition_: compact, agreement. [83] _Progress_: an old term for the travelling of the sovereign to different parts of his country. [84] _Tumbrel_: a rough cart. [85] _Page_: a serving-boy, and especially one who waits on a person of rank. [86] _Quarry_: prey. [87] _Squash_: shock, concussion. [88] _To rights_ speedily. [89] _To make_ To get alongside. [90] _Phaeton_ a son of Apollo who was dashed into the river Endanus for his foolhardiness in attempting to drive the steeds of the sun for one day.

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101012530/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/gullivers-travels/summary-and-analysis/part-ii-chapter-8

Gulliver spends two years in Brobdingnag, but he is not happy despite the royal family's pampering. He is afraid that he will never escape and will turn into a sort of domestic, albeit royal, pet. Escape seems impossible; chance, however, intervenes: On a trip to the seashore, an eagle swoops down, snatches up the box Gulliver travels in, and drops it into the sea. The box is driven by the wind close to an English ship and is spied by some sailors, who retrieve Gulliver and his possessions. Gulliver does not adjust easily to his fellow Englishmen. After living two years in a land of giants, he has convinced himself that all Englishmen are midgets. Everything looks tiny back home, and he feels like a giant. In time Gulliver's sense of perspective heals.

Swift reinforces the idea of the giant's moral superiority by having Gulliver identify the English with the Lilliputians. This association also makes Gulliver ridiculous. It demonstrates the folly and self-deception that Gulliver practices in identifying himself with the moral giants. Gulliver's pride is at the root of his trouble. Swift dramatizes this with the mirror Gulliver cannot bear to look into. The mirror is a standard device, just as satire is; anyone who looks closely is shown his own flaws. Swift has finished his Analysis on human morality. In Gulliver's next voyage, he trains his satire on people's intellect: how they use -- and misuse -- it. Glossary hundred leagues one league is about three nautical miles; here, meaning about 300 nautical miles. conceit an idea, thought, concept. raillery light, good-natured ridicule or satire; banter.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/01.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_0_part_1.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-5", "summary": "It is 1801, and the narrator, Mr. Lockwood, relates how he has just returned from a visit to his new landlord, Mr. Heathcliff. Lockwood, a self-described misanthropist, is renting Thrushcross Grange in an effort to get away from society following a failure at love. He had fallen in love with a \"real goddess\" , but when she returned his affection he acted so coldly she \"persuaded her mamma to decamp. He finds that relative to Heathcliff, however, he is extremely sociable. Heathcliff, \"a dark skinned gypsy, in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman\" treats his visitor with a minimum of friendliness, and Wuthering Heights, the farm where Heathcliff lives, is just as foreign and unfriendly. Wuthering' means stormy and windy in the local dialect. As Lockwood enters, he sees a name carved near the door: Hareton Earnshaw. Dangerous-looking dogs inhabit the bare and old-fashioned rooms, and threaten to attack Lockwood: when he calls for help Heathcliff implies that Lockwood had tried to steal something. The only other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are an old servant named Joseph and a cook--neither of whom are much friendlier than Heathcliff. Despite his rudeness, Lockwood finds himself drawn to Heathcliff: he describes him as intelligent, proud and morose--an unlikely farmer. Heathcliff gives Lockwood some wine and invites him to come again. Although Lockwood suspects this invitation is insincere, he decides he will return because he is so intrigued by the landlord", "analysis": "This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a \"beneficent fairy,\" which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed."}

1801.--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. 'Mr. Heathcliff?' I said. A nod was the answer. 'Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts--' 'Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,' he interrupted, wincing. 'I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it--walk in!' The 'walk in' was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, 'Go to the Deuce:' even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself. When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the court,--'Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse; and bring up some wine.' 'Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,' was the reflection suggested by this compound order. 'No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cutters.' Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. 'The Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent. Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones. Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw.' I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium. One stop brought us into the family sitting-room, without any introductory lobby or passage: they call it here 'the house' pre-eminently. It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls. One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been under-drawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses. The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling--to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one. While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return--the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame--shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate. I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl. 'You'd better let the dog alone,' growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. 'She's not accustomed to be spoiled--not kept for a pet.' Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, 'Joseph!' Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me _vis-a-vis_ the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establishing peace. Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene. 'What the devil is the matter?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment. 'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered. 'The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!' 'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,' he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. 'The dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine?' 'No, thank you.' 'Not bitten, are you?' 'If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.' Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin. 'Come, come,' he said, 'you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir?' I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his humour took that turn. He--probably swayed by prudential consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant--relaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,--a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit to-morrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him.

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-5

It is 1801, and the narrator, Mr. Lockwood, relates how he has just returned from a visit to his new landlord, Mr. Heathcliff. Lockwood, a self-described misanthropist, is renting Thrushcross Grange in an effort to get away from society following a failure at love. He had fallen in love with a "real goddess" , but when she returned his affection he acted so coldly she "persuaded her mamma to decamp. He finds that relative to Heathcliff, however, he is extremely sociable. Heathcliff, "a dark skinned gypsy, in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman" treats his visitor with a minimum of friendliness, and Wuthering Heights, the farm where Heathcliff lives, is just as foreign and unfriendly. Wuthering' means stormy and windy in the local dialect. As Lockwood enters, he sees a name carved near the door: Hareton Earnshaw. Dangerous-looking dogs inhabit the bare and old-fashioned rooms, and threaten to attack Lockwood: when he calls for help Heathcliff implies that Lockwood had tried to steal something. The only other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are an old servant named Joseph and a cook--neither of whom are much friendlier than Heathcliff. Despite his rudeness, Lockwood finds himself drawn to Heathcliff: he describes him as intelligent, proud and morose--an unlikely farmer. Heathcliff gives Lockwood some wine and invites him to come again. Although Lockwood suspects this invitation is insincere, he decides he will return because he is so intrigued by the landlord

This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a "beneficent fairy," which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/04.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_0_part_4.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 4

chapter 4

{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-5", "summary": "Lockwood is bored and a little weak after his adventures, so he asks his housekeeper, Ellen Dean, to tell him about Heathcliff and the old families of the area. She says Heathcliff is very rich and a miser, though he has no family, since his son is dead. The girl living at Wuthering Heights was the daughter of Ellen's former employers, the Lintons, and her name was Catherine. She is the daughter of the late Mrs. Catherine Linton, was born an Earnshaw, thus Hareton's aunt. Heathcliff's wife was Mr. Linton's sister. Ellen is fond of the younger Catherine, and worries about her unhappy situation. The narrative switches to Ellen's voice, whose language is much plainer than Lockwood's. She is a discreet narrator, rarely reminding the listener of her presence in the story, so that the events she recounts feel immediate. She says she grew up at Wuthering Heights, where her mother worked as a wet nurse. One day, Mr. Earnshaw offered to bring his children Hindley and Catherine a present each from his upcoming trip to Liverpool. Hindley asked for a fiddle and Catherine for a whip, because she was already an excellent horsewoman. When Earnshaw returned, however, he brought with him a \"dirty, ragged, black-haired child\" found starving on the streets. The presents had been lost or broken. The boy was named Heathcliff and taken into the family, though he was not entirely welcomed by Mrs. Earnshaw, Ellen, and Hindley. Heathcliff and Catherine became very close, and he became Earnshaw's favorite. Hindley felt that his place was usurped, and took it out on Heathcliff, who was hardened and stoic. For example, Earnshaw gave them each a colt, and Heathcliff chose the finest, which went lame. Heathcliff then claimed Hindley's, and when Hindley threw a heavy iron at him, Heathcliff threatened to tell Earnshaw about it if he didn't get the colt", "analysis": "This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a \"beneficent fairy,\" which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed."}

What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable--I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk. 'You have lived here a considerable time,' I commenced; 'did you not say sixteen years?' 'Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her; after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.' 'Indeed.' There ensued a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her own affairs, and those could hardly interest me. However, having studied for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated--'Ah, times are greatly changed since then!' 'Yes,' I remarked, 'you've seen a good many alterations, I suppose?' 'I have: and troubles too,' she said. 'Oh, I'll turn the talk on my landlord's family!' I thought to myself. 'A good subject to start! And that pretty girl-widow, I should like to know her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more probable, an exotic that the surly _indigenae_ will not recognise for kin.' With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so much inferior. 'Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?' I inquired. 'Rich, sir!' she returned. 'He has nobody knows what money, and every year it increases. Yes, yes, he's rich enough to live in a finer house than this: but he's very near--close-handed; and, if he had meant to flit to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more. It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!' 'He had a son, it seems?' 'Yes, he had one--he is dead.' 'And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?' 'Yes.' 'Where did she come from originally?' 'Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter: Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would remove here, and then we might have been together again.' 'What! Catherine Linton?' I exclaimed, astonished. But a minute's reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine. 'Then,' I continued, 'my predecessor's name was Linton?' 'It was.' 'And who is that Earnshaw: 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; but I should like to hear how she is!' 'Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think, not very happy.' 'Oh dear, I don't wonder! And how did you like the master?' 'A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean. Is not that his character? 'Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better.' 'He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl. Do you know anything of his history?' 'It's a cuckoo's, sir--I know all about it: except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first. And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock! The unfortunate lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated.' 'Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to sit and chat an hour.' 'Oh, certainly, sir! I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit as long as you please. But you've caught cold: I saw you shivering, and you must have some gruel to drive it out.' The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday. She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable. Before I came to live here, she commenced--waiting no farther invitation to her story--I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to. One fine summer morning--it was the beginning of harvest, I remember--Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came down-stairs, dressed for a journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me--for I sat eating my porridge with them--and he said, speaking to his son, 'Now, my bonny man, I'm going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!' Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said good-bye, and set off. It seemed a long while to us all--the three days of his absence--and often did little Cathy ask when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then it grew dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed to stay up; and, just about eleven o'clock, the door-latch was raised quietly, and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killed--he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms. 'And at the end of it to be flighted to death!' he said, opening his great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms. 'See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e'en take it as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil.' We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children. Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored: then, both began searching their father's pockets for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family. On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened him 'Heathcliff': it was the name of a son who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged. He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. 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. So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries. I sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble. He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing to me, and praised me for my care. I was vain of his commendations, and softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley lost his last ally: still I couldn't dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes. As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one. Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley-- 'You must exchange horses with me: I don't like mine; and if you won't I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week, and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.' Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. 'You'd better do it at once,' he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): 'you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with interest.' 'Off, dog!' cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. 'Throw it,' he replied, standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.' Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. 'Take my colt, Gipsy, then!' said young Earnshaw. '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!' Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall; he was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could. I was surprised to witness how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention; exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered the house. I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises on the horse: he minded little what tale was told since he had what he wanted. He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will hear.

Chapter 4

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Lockwood is bored and a little weak after his adventures, so he asks his housekeeper, Ellen Dean, to tell him about Heathcliff and the old families of the area. She says Heathcliff is very rich and a miser, though he has no family, since his son is dead. The girl living at Wuthering Heights was the daughter of Ellen's former employers, the Lintons, and her name was Catherine. She is the daughter of the late Mrs. Catherine Linton, was born an Earnshaw, thus Hareton's aunt. Heathcliff's wife was Mr. Linton's sister. Ellen is fond of the younger Catherine, and worries about her unhappy situation. The narrative switches to Ellen's voice, whose language is much plainer than Lockwood's. She is a discreet narrator, rarely reminding the listener of her presence in the story, so that the events she recounts feel immediate. She says she grew up at Wuthering Heights, where her mother worked as a wet nurse. One day, Mr. Earnshaw offered to bring his children Hindley and Catherine a present each from his upcoming trip to Liverpool. Hindley asked for a fiddle and Catherine for a whip, because she was already an excellent horsewoman. When Earnshaw returned, however, he brought with him a "dirty, ragged, black-haired child" found starving on the streets. The presents had been lost or broken. The boy was named Heathcliff and taken into the family, though he was not entirely welcomed by Mrs. Earnshaw, Ellen, and Hindley. Heathcliff and Catherine became very close, and he became Earnshaw's favorite. Hindley felt that his place was usurped, and took it out on Heathcliff, who was hardened and stoic. For example, Earnshaw gave them each a colt, and Heathcliff chose the finest, which went lame. Heathcliff then claimed Hindley's, and when Hindley threw a heavy iron at him, Heathcliff threatened to tell Earnshaw about it if he didn't get the colt

This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a "beneficent fairy," which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/05.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_0_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-5", "summary": "Earnshaw grew old and sick, and with his illness he became irritable and somewhat obsessed with the idea that people disliked his favorite, Heathcliff. Heathcliff was spoiled to keep Earnshaw happy, and Hindley, who became more and more bitter about the situation, was sent away to college. Joseph, already \"the wearisomest, self-righteous pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself, and fling the curses to his neighbors\" used his religious influence over Earnshaw to distance him from his children. Earnshaw thought Hindley was worthless, and didn't like Cathy's playfulness and high spirits, so in his last days he was irritable and discontented. Cathy was \"much too fond\" of Heathcliff, and liked to order people around. Heathcliff would do anything she asked. Cathy's father was harsh to her and she became hardened to his reproofs. Finally Earnshaw died one evening when Cathy had been resting her head against his knee and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. When she went to kiss her father good night, she discovered he was dead and the two children began to cry, but that night Ellen saw that they had managed to comfort each other with \"better thoughts than could have hit on\" imagining the old man in heaven", "analysis": "This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a \"beneficent fairy,\" which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed."}

In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it. At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. 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. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. 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. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. 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. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know. Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!' That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven. But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair--it pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and saying, 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?' But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to 'frame up-stairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that evening--he had summut to do.' 'I shall bid father good-night first,' said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss directly--she screamed out--'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!' And they both set up a heart-breaking cry. I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.

Chapter 5

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Earnshaw grew old and sick, and with his illness he became irritable and somewhat obsessed with the idea that people disliked his favorite, Heathcliff. Heathcliff was spoiled to keep Earnshaw happy, and Hindley, who became more and more bitter about the situation, was sent away to college. Joseph, already "the wearisomest, self-righteous pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself, and fling the curses to his neighbors" used his religious influence over Earnshaw to distance him from his children. Earnshaw thought Hindley was worthless, and didn't like Cathy's playfulness and high spirits, so in his last days he was irritable and discontented. Cathy was "much too fond" of Heathcliff, and liked to order people around. Heathcliff would do anything she asked. Cathy's father was harsh to her and she became hardened to his reproofs. Finally Earnshaw died one evening when Cathy had been resting her head against his knee and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. When she went to kiss her father good night, she discovered he was dead and the two children began to cry, but that night Ellen saw that they had managed to comfort each other with "better thoughts than could have hit on" imagining the old man in heaven

This chapter introduces the reader to the frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to Heathcliff --now about forty years old--living with only his servants at Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized ways of living. Bronte begins to develop the natural setting of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing Emily Bronte's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights: they are not kept for pets. The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual, an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of freedom or respect. Lockwood continues to lose face: his conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a "beneficent fairy," which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social ideals and natural realities . If the chapter was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel continues. It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time. In this chapter, the narrative turns to the past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style. She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Bronte demonstrates her versatility by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's distinctive style of speech. Considering character development, it is interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since, as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive. The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false, oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of heaven of the grieving children. Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that Emily Bronte watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed.

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all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/06.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_1_part_1.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 6

chapter 6

{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10", "summary": "Hindley returns home, unexpectedly bringing his wife, a flighty woman with a strange fear of death and symptoms of consumption. Hindley also brought home new manners and rules, and informed the servants that they would have to live in inferior quarters. Most importantly, he treated Heathcliff as a servant, stopping his education and making him work in the fields like any farm boy. Heathcliff did not mind too much at first because Cathy taught him what she learned, and worked and played with him in the fields. They stayed away from Hindley as much as possible and grew up uncivilized and free. It was one of their chief amusements,\" Ellen recalls, \"to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at\". One day they ran off after being punished, and at night Heathcliff returned. He told Ellen what had happened. He and Cathy ran to the Grange to see how people lived there, and they saw the Linton children Edgar and Isabella in a beautiful room, crying after an argument over who could hold the pet dog. Amused and scornful, Heathcliff and Cathy laughed; the Lintons heard them and called for their parents. After making frightening noises, Cathy and Heathcliff tried to escape, but a bulldog bit Cathy's leg and refused to let go. She told Heathcliff to escape but he would not leave her, and tried to pry the animal's jaws open. Mr. and Mrs. Linton mistook them for thieves and brought them inside. When Edgar Linton recognized Cathy as Miss Earnshaw, the Lintons expressed their disgust at the children's wild manners and especially at Heathcliff's being allowed to keep Cathy company. They coddled Cathy and drove Heathcliff out; he went back to Wuthering Heights on foot after assuring himself that Cathy was all right. When Hindley found out, he welcomed the chance to separate Cathy and Heathcliff, so Cathy was to stay for a prolonged visit with the Lintons while her leg healed and Heathcliff was forbidden to speak to her", "analysis": "In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: \"I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!\" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: \"When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?\" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: \"she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?\" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he \"had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one\" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: \"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\" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella \"like a sparrow's egg\" , and he is \"an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone\" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to \"a dog in the manger\" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, \"a runaway servant\" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen."}

Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and--a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left--he brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father. She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly--'Are they gone yet?' Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping--and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know; but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first. Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back-kitchen, and leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention. She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm. Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him. He would not even have seen after their going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper. But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge; and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures. One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting-room, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere. We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible: and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night. The household went to bed; and I, too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return. In a while, I distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone. 'Where is Miss Catherine?' I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope?' 'At Thrushcross Grange,' he answered; 'and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.' 'Well, you will catch it!' I said: 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?' 'Let me get off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly,' he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued--'Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?' 'Probably not,' I responded. 'They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct.' 'Don't cant, Nelly,' he said: 'nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping--Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw--ah! it was beautiful--a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sisters had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your good children were doing? Isabella--I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy--lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange--not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley's blood!' 'Hush, hush!' I interrupted. 'Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?' 'I told you we laughed,' he answered. 'The Lintons heard us, and with one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and then a cry, "Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa, oh!" They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell down. "Run, Heathcliff, run!" she whispered. "They have let the bull-dog loose, and he holds me!" The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard his abominable snorting. She did not yell out--no! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting--"Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!" He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added, making a clutch at me, "who looks an out-and-outer! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun." "No, no, Robert," said the old fool. "The rascals knew that yesterday was my rent-day: they thought to have me cleverly. Come in; I'll furnish them a reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water, Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be afraid, it is but a boy--yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?" He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping--"Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't he, Edgar?" 'While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere. "That's Miss Earnshaw?" he whispered to his mother, "and look how Skulker has bitten her--how her foot bleeds!" '"Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!" cried the dame; "Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning--surely it is--and she may be lamed for life!" '"What culpable carelessness in her brother!" exclaimed Mr. Linton, turning from me to Catherine. "I've understood from Shielders"' (that was the curate, sir) '"that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism. But who is this? Where did she pick up this companion? Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool--a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway." '"A wicked boy, at all events," remarked the old lady, "and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton? I'm shocked that my children should have heard it." 'I recommenced cursing--don't be angry, Nelly--and so Robert was ordered to take me off. I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly, secured the door again. The curtains were still looped up at one corner, and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out. She sat on the sofa quietly. Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her treatment and mine. Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance. Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons--a dim reflection from her own enchanting face. I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?' 'There will more come of this business than you reckon on,' I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light. 'You are incurable, Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if he won't.' My words came truer than I desired. 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.

Chapter 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10

Hindley returns home, unexpectedly bringing his wife, a flighty woman with a strange fear of death and symptoms of consumption. Hindley also brought home new manners and rules, and informed the servants that they would have to live in inferior quarters. Most importantly, he treated Heathcliff as a servant, stopping his education and making him work in the fields like any farm boy. Heathcliff did not mind too much at first because Cathy taught him what she learned, and worked and played with him in the fields. They stayed away from Hindley as much as possible and grew up uncivilized and free. It was one of their chief amusements," Ellen recalls, "to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at". One day they ran off after being punished, and at night Heathcliff returned. He told Ellen what had happened. He and Cathy ran to the Grange to see how people lived there, and they saw the Linton children Edgar and Isabella in a beautiful room, crying after an argument over who could hold the pet dog. Amused and scornful, Heathcliff and Cathy laughed; the Lintons heard them and called for their parents. After making frightening noises, Cathy and Heathcliff tried to escape, but a bulldog bit Cathy's leg and refused to let go. She told Heathcliff to escape but he would not leave her, and tried to pry the animal's jaws open. Mr. and Mrs. Linton mistook them for thieves and brought them inside. When Edgar Linton recognized Cathy as Miss Earnshaw, the Lintons expressed their disgust at the children's wild manners and especially at Heathcliff's being allowed to keep Cathy company. They coddled Cathy and drove Heathcliff out; he went back to Wuthering Heights on foot after assuring himself that Cathy was all right. When Hindley found out, he welcomed the chance to separate Cathy and Heathcliff, so Cathy was to stay for a prolonged visit with the Lintons while her leg healed and Heathcliff was forbidden to speak to her

In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: "I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: "When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: "she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he "had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: "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" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella "like a sparrow's egg" , and he is "an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to "a dog in the manger" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, "a runaway servant" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_1_part_3.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10", "summary": "Hindley's wife Frances gave birth to a child, Hareton, but did not survive long afterwards: she had consumption. Despite the doctor's warnings, Hindley persisted in believing that she would recover, and she seemed to think so too, always saying she felt better, but she died a few weeks after Hareton's birth. Ellen was happy to take care of the baby. Hindley \"grew desperate; his sorrow was of a kind that will not lament, he neither wept nor prayed--he cursed and defied--execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation\". The household more or less collapsed into violent confusion--respectable neighbors ceased to visit, except for Edgar, entranced by Catherine. Heathcliff's ill treatment and the bad example posed by Hindley made him \"daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. Catherine disliked having Edgar visit Wuthering Heights because she had a hard time behaving consistently when Edgar and Heathcliff met, or when they talked about each other. Edgar's presence made her feel as though she had to behave like a Linton, which was not natural for her. One day when Hindley was away, Heathcliff was offended to find Catherine dressing for Edgar's visit. He asked her to turn Edgar away and spend the time with him instead but she refused. Edgar was by this time a gentle, sweet young man. He came and Heathcliff left, but Ellen stayed as a chaperone, much to Catherine's annoyance. She revealed her bad character by pinching Ellen, who was glad to have a chance to show Edgar what Catherine was like, and cried out. Catherine denied having pinched her, blushing with rage, and slapped her, then slapped Edgar for reproving her. He said he would go; she, recovering her senses, asked him to stay, and he was too weak and enchanted by her stronger will to leave. Brought closer by the quarrel, the two \"confess themselves lovers\". Ellen heard Hindley come home drunk, and out of precaution unloaded his gun", "analysis": "In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: \"I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!\" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: \"When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?\" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: \"she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?\" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he \"had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one\" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: \"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\" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella \"like a sparrow's egg\" , and he is \"an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone\" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to \"a dog in the manger\" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, \"a runaway servant\" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen."}

On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran. 'Oh, such a grand bairn!' she panted out. 'The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says missis must go: he says she's been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You're to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night. I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!' 'But is she very ill?' I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet. 'I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,' replied the girl, 'and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She's out of her head for joy, it's such a beauty! If I were her I'm certain I should not die: I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps forward, and says he--"Earnshaw, it's a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son. When she came, I felt convinced we shouldn't keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the winter will probably finish her. Don't take on, and fret about it too much: it can't be helped. And besides, you should have known better than to choose such a rush of a lass!"' 'And what did the master answer?' I inquired. 'I think he swore: but I didn't mind him, I was straining to see the bairn,' and she began again to describe it rapturously. I, as zealous as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was very sad for Hindley's sake. 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. When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door; and, as I passed in, I asked, 'how was the baby?' 'Nearly ready to run about, Nell!' he replied, putting on a cheerful smile. 'And the mistress?' I ventured to inquire; 'the doctor says she's--' 'Damn the doctor!' he interrupted, reddening. 'Frances is quite right: she'll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going up-stairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must--tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.' I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, 'I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won't speak: but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!' Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn't put him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, 'I know you need not--she's well--she does not want any more attendance from you! She never was in a consumption. It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool.' He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up to-morrow, a fit of coughing took her--a very slight one--he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead. As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; and because it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove. The master's bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad _were_ possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the country-side; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature! I own I did not like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression. He was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his wife's on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was. Can you make that out? Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the figure almost too graceful. I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual. I marvelled much how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of Catherine Earnshaw. 'A very agreeable portrait,' I observed to the house-keeper. 'Is it like?' 'Yes,' she answered; 'but he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.' Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her five-weeks' residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality; gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first--for she was full of ambition--and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian,' and 'worse than a brute,' she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise. Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He had a terror of Earnshaw's reputation, and shrunk from encountering him; and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility: the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if he could not be gracious, kept out of the way. I rather think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends meeting at all; 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. I've had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds ill-natured: but she was so proud it became really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened into more humility. She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to confide in me: there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser. Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of. In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning. His childhood's sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances. Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him. On the before-named occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother's absence, and was then preparing to receive him. 'Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?' asked Heathcliff. 'Are you going anywhere?' 'No, it is raining,' she answered. 'Why have you that silk frock on, then?' he said. 'Nobody coming here, I hope?' 'Not that I know of,' stammered Miss: 'but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were gone.' 'Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,' observed the boy. 'I'll not work any more to-day: I'll stay with you.' 'Oh, but Joseph will tell,' she suggested; 'you'd better go!' 'Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will take him till dark, and he'll never know.' So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down. Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted brows--she found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion. 'Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,' she said, at the conclusion of a minute's silence. 'As it rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good.' 'Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,' he persisted; 'don't turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I'm on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they--but I'll not--' 'That they what?' cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance. 'Oh, Nelly!' she added petulantly, jerking her head away from my hands, 'you've combed my hair quite out of curl! That's enough; let me alone. What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?' '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.' 'Yes--very foolish: as if I took notice!' replied Catherine, in a peevish tone. 'And where is the sense of that?' 'To show that I _do_ take notice,' said Heathcliff. 'And should I always be sitting with you?' she demanded, growing more irritated. 'What good do I get? What do you talk about? You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!' 'You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy!' exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation. 'It's no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,' she muttered. Her companion rose up, but he hadn't time to express his feelings further, for a horse's feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summon she had received. Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than we talk here, and softer. 'I'm not come too soon, am I?' he said, casting a look at me: I had begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser. 'No,' answered Catherine. 'What are you doing there, Nelly?' 'My work, Miss,' I replied. (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.) She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, 'Take yourself and your dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don't commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!' 'It's a good opportunity, now that master is away,' I answered aloud: 'he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I'm sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me.' 'I hate you to be fidgeting in _my_ presence,' exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff. 'I'm sorry for it, Miss Catherine,' was my response; and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation. She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm. I've said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, 'Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me, and I'm not going to bear it.' 'I didn't touch you, you lying creature!' cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze. 'What's that, then?' I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her. She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water. 'Catherine, love! Catherine!' interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed. 'Leave the room, Ellen!' she repeated, trembling all over. Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out complaints against 'wicked aunt Cathy,' which drew her fury on to his unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip. 'That's right!' I said to myself. 'Take warning and begone! It's a kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition.' 'Where are you going?' demanded Catherine, advancing to the door. He swerved aside, and attempted to pass. 'You must not go!' she exclaimed, energetically. 'I must and shall!' he replied in a subdued voice. 'No,' she persisted, grasping the handle; 'not yet, Edgar Linton: sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won't be miserable for you!' 'Can I stay after you have struck me?' asked Linton. Catherine was mute. 'You've made me afraid and ashamed of you,' he continued; 'I'll not come here again!' Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle. 'And you told a deliberate untruth!' he said. 'I didn't!' she cried, recovering her speech; 'I did nothing deliberately. Well, go, if you please--get away! And now I'll cry--I'll cry myself sick!' She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there he lingered. I resolved to encourage him. 'Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,' I called out. 'As bad as any marred child: you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to grieve us.' 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! And so it was: he turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacy--had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers. Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master's fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun.

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10

Hindley's wife Frances gave birth to a child, Hareton, but did not survive long afterwards: she had consumption. Despite the doctor's warnings, Hindley persisted in believing that she would recover, and she seemed to think so too, always saying she felt better, but she died a few weeks after Hareton's birth. Ellen was happy to take care of the baby. Hindley "grew desperate; his sorrow was of a kind that will not lament, he neither wept nor prayed--he cursed and defied--execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation". The household more or less collapsed into violent confusion--respectable neighbors ceased to visit, except for Edgar, entranced by Catherine. Heathcliff's ill treatment and the bad example posed by Hindley made him "daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. Catherine disliked having Edgar visit Wuthering Heights because she had a hard time behaving consistently when Edgar and Heathcliff met, or when they talked about each other. Edgar's presence made her feel as though she had to behave like a Linton, which was not natural for her. One day when Hindley was away, Heathcliff was offended to find Catherine dressing for Edgar's visit. He asked her to turn Edgar away and spend the time with him instead but she refused. Edgar was by this time a gentle, sweet young man. He came and Heathcliff left, but Ellen stayed as a chaperone, much to Catherine's annoyance. She revealed her bad character by pinching Ellen, who was glad to have a chance to show Edgar what Catherine was like, and cried out. Catherine denied having pinched her, blushing with rage, and slapped her, then slapped Edgar for reproving her. He said he would go; she, recovering her senses, asked him to stay, and he was too weak and enchanted by her stronger will to leave. Brought closer by the quarrel, the two "confess themselves lovers". Ellen heard Hindley come home drunk, and out of precaution unloaded his gun

In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: "I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: "When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: "she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he "had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: "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" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella "like a sparrow's egg" , and he is "an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to "a dog in the manger" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, "a runaway servant" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_1_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 10

chapter 10

{"name": "Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10", "summary": "Catherine got along surprisingly well with her husband and Isabella, mostly because they never opposed her. She had \"seasons of gloom and silence\" though. Edgar took these for the results of her serious illness. When they had been married almost a year, Heathcliff came back. Nelly was outside that evening and he asked her to tell Catherine someone wanted to see her. He was quite changed: a tall and athletic man who looked as though he might have been in the army, with gentlemanly manners and educated speech, though his eyes contained a \"half-civilized ferocity\". Catherine was overjoyed and didn't understand why Edgar didn't share her happiness. Heathcliff stayed for tea, to Edgar's peevish irritation. It transpired that Heathcliff was staying at Wuthering Heights, paying Hindley generously, but winning his host's money at cards. Catherine wouldn't let Heathcliff actually hurt her brother. In the following weeks, Heathcliff often visited the Grange. Edgar Linton's sister, Isabella, a \"charming young lady of eighteen\" became infatuated with Heathcliff, to her brother's dismay. Isabella got angry at Catherine for keeping Heathcliff to herself, and Catherine warned her that Heathcliff was a very bad person to fall in love with and that Isabella was no match for him: \"I never say to him to let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them, I say \"Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged\"; and he'd crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. Catherine teased Isabella by telling Heathcliff in her presence that Isabella loved him. Humiliated, Isabella tried to run away, but Catherine held her. Isabella scratched Catherine's arm and managed to escape, and Heathcliff, alone with Catherine, expressed interest in marrying Isabella for her money and to enrage Edgar. He said he would beat Isabella if they were married because of her \"mawkish, waxen face\"", "analysis": "In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: \"I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!\" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: \"When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?\" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: \"she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?\" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he \"had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one\" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: \"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\" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella \"like a sparrow's egg\" , and he is \"an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone\" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to \"a dog in the manger\" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, \"a runaway servant\" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen."}

A charming introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring! Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse--the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes: I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years; and the heroine was married. I'll ring: she'll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came. 'It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,' she commenced. 'Away, away with it!' I replied; 'I desire to have--' 'The doctor says you must drop the powders.' 'With all my heart! Don't interrupt me. Come and take your seat here. Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting out of your pocket--that will do--now continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways?' 'He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I couldn't give my word for any. I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning?' 'Much.' 'That's good news.' * * * * * I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect. She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we _must_ be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,--'Nelly, is that you?' It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. 'Who can it be?' I thought. 'Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no resemblance to his.' 'I have waited here an hour,' he resumed, while I continued staring; 'and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I'm not a stranger!' A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. 'What!' I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. 'What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it?' 'Yes, Heathcliff,' he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. 'Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her--your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her.' 'How will she take it?' I exclaimed. 'What will she do? The surprise bewilders me--it will put her out of her head! And you _are_ Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there's no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier?' 'Go and carry my message,' he interrupted, impatiently. 'I'm in hell till you do!' He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door. They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side. Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, 'A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am.' 'What does he want?' asked Mrs. Linton. 'I did not question him,' I answered. 'Well, close the curtains, Nelly,' she said; 'and bring up tea. I'll be back again directly.' She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was. 'Some one mistress does not expect,' I replied. 'That Heathcliff--you recollect him, sir--who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's.' 'What! the gipsy--the ploughboy?' he cried. 'Why did you not say so to Catherine?' 'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,' I said. 'She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her.' Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly: 'Don't stand there, love! Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular.' Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew up-stairs, breathless and wild; too excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity. 'Oh, Edgar, Edgar!' she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come back--he is!' And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze. 'Well, well,' cried her husband, crossly, 'don't strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic!' 'I know you didn't like him,' she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight. 'Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now. Shall I tell him to come up?' 'Here,' he said, 'into the parlour?' 'Where else?' she asked. He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression--half angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness. 'No,' she added, after a while; 'I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders. Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If so, give directions. I'll run down and secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real!' She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her. '_You_ bid him step up,' he said, addressing me; 'and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.' I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace. My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak. 'Sit down, sir,' he said, at length. 'Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.' 'And I also,' answered Heathcliff, 'especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.' He took a seat opposite 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. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself. 'I shall think it a dream to-morrow!' she cried. 'I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!' 'A little more than you have thought of me,' he murmured. 'I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan--just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you'll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!' 'Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,' interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. 'Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to-night; and I'm thirsty.' She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine's cup was never filled: she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton? 'No, to Wuthering Heights,' he answered: 'Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning.' Mr. Earnshaw invited _him_! and _he_ called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak? I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away. About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me. 'I cannot rest, Ellen,' she said, by way of apology. 'And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky, because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.' 'What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?' I answered. 'As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised: it's human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them.' 'But does it not show great weakness?' pursued she. '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. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same.' 'You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton,' said I. 'They humour you: I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you.' 'And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly?' she returned, laughing. 'No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.' I advised her to value him the more for his affection. 'I do,' she answered, 'but he needn't resort to whining for trifles. It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently!' 'What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?' I inquired. 'He is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!' 'He explained it,' she replied. 'I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living; and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening: to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other.' 'It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!' said I. 'Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?' 'None for my friend,' she replied: 'his strong head will keep him from danger; a little for Hindley: but he can't be made morally worse than he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence. Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I. However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! 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; and, as a proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good-night! I'm an angel!' In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine. Heathcliff--Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future--used the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. My master's uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space. His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition: to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing. We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which made her unhappy. 'How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?' cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion. 'You are surely losing your reason. When have I been harsh, tell me?' 'Yesterday,' sobbed Isabella, 'and now!' 'Yesterday!' said her sister-in-law. 'On what occasion?' 'In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!' 'And that's your notion of harshness?' said Catherine, laughing. 'It was no hint that your company was superfluous? We didn't care whether you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears.' 'Oh, no,' wept the young lady; 'you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there!' 'Is she sane?' asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. 'I'll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it could have had for you.' 'I don't mind the conversation,' she answered: 'I wanted to be with--' 'Well?' said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence. 'With him: and I won't be always sent off!' she continued, kindling up. 'You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!' 'You are an impertinent little monkey!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise. 'But I'll not believe this idiotcy! It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliff--that you consider him an agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?' 'No, you have not,' said the infatuated girl. 'I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!' 'I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!' Catherine declared, emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely. 'Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond--a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because _I_ should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend--so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap.' Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation. 'For shame! for shame!' she repeated, angrily. 'You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!' 'Ah! you won't believe me, then?' said Catherine. 'You think I speak from wicked selfishness?' 'I'm certain you do,' retorted Isabella; 'and I shudder at you!' 'Good!' cried the other. 'Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.'-- 'And I must suffer for her egotism!' she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. 'All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?' 'Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,' I said. 'He's a bird of bad omen: no mate for you. Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago--it was Joseph who told me--I met him at Gimmerton: "Nelly," he said, "we's hae a crowner's 'quest enow, at ahr folks'. One on 'em 's a'most getten his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a cawlf. That's maister, yeah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand 'sizes. He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he! He fair likes--he langs to set his brazened face agean 'em! And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he's a rare 'un. He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a raight divil's jest. Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t' Grange? This is t' way on 't:--up at sun-down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le-light till next day at noon: then, t'fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame; un' the knave, why he can caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip wi' t' wife. I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!" Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?' 'You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!' she replied. 'I'll not listen to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world!' Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time to reflect. The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips. Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable. 'Come in, that's right!' exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire. 'Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose. Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered. Nay, it's not Nelly; don't look at her! My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar's brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off,' she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. 'We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!' 'Catherine!' said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, 'I'd thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression.' As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor. 'By no means!' cried Mrs. Linton in answer. 'I won't be named a dog in the manger again. You _shall_ stay: now then! Heathcliff, why don't you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I'm sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable.' 'I think you belie her,' said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. 'She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!' And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldn't bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red. 'There's a tigress!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. 'Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution--you must beware of your eyes.' 'I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,' he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. 'But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you?' 'I assure you I was,' she returned. 'She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don't notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.' 'And I like her too ill to attempt it,' said he, 'except in a very ghoulish fashion. You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Linton's.' 'Delectably!' observed Catherine. 'They are dove's eyes--angel's!' 'She's her brother's heir, is she not?' he asked, after a brief silence. 'I should be sorry to think so,' returned his companion. 'Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods; remember _this_ neighbour's goods are mine.' 'If they were _mine_, they would be none the less that,' said Heathcliff; 'but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise.' From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening. I saw him smile to himself--grin rather--and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment. I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be called _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy.

Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-10

Catherine got along surprisingly well with her husband and Isabella, mostly because they never opposed her. She had "seasons of gloom and silence" though. Edgar took these for the results of her serious illness. When they had been married almost a year, Heathcliff came back. Nelly was outside that evening and he asked her to tell Catherine someone wanted to see her. He was quite changed: a tall and athletic man who looked as though he might have been in the army, with gentlemanly manners and educated speech, though his eyes contained a "half-civilized ferocity". Catherine was overjoyed and didn't understand why Edgar didn't share her happiness. Heathcliff stayed for tea, to Edgar's peevish irritation. It transpired that Heathcliff was staying at Wuthering Heights, paying Hindley generously, but winning his host's money at cards. Catherine wouldn't let Heathcliff actually hurt her brother. In the following weeks, Heathcliff often visited the Grange. Edgar Linton's sister, Isabella, a "charming young lady of eighteen" became infatuated with Heathcliff, to her brother's dismay. Isabella got angry at Catherine for keeping Heathcliff to herself, and Catherine warned her that Heathcliff was a very bad person to fall in love with and that Isabella was no match for him: "I never say to him to let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them, I say "Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged"; and he'd crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. Catherine teased Isabella by telling Heathcliff in her presence that Isabella loved him. Humiliated, Isabella tried to run away, but Catherine held her. Isabella scratched Catherine's arm and managed to escape, and Heathcliff, alone with Catherine, expressed interest in marrying Isabella for her money and to enrage Edgar. He said he would beat Isabella if they were married because of her "mawkish, waxen face"

In this chapter we first hear young Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: "I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood!" He admires the comparative luxury of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the spoiled children: "When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted?" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely natural and inescapable: "she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not, Nelly?" He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same kind of courage. The image of the two civilized children inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside. Through this use of parallelism, Bronte turns the window glass into a kind of mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages, their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship--Edgar and Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable. This chapter marks the end of Cathy and Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds--the moors with Heathcliff and the parlor with Edgar--is a central driving force for the novel and eventually results in tragedy. Emily Bronte had experienced a personal inability to remain true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route. Just as the window separated the Wuthering Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is valuable for economic reasons , for social ones , and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness. Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack of firm foundations: Ellen says that he "had room in his heart for only two idols--his wife and himself--he doted on both and adored one" Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after death. Emily Bronte's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel. This is the first time we really see Cathy behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones. The atmosphere of careless violence, despair, and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house with Hindley's blood much earlier. The definition of love for Cathy and Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Bronte's original creation. It is not based on appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but rather a shared being. Cathy says: "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" . In this sense, her decision to marry Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself. Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs away. Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair, so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff--he should be glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case--but it is a comparison that makes sense to her. Catherine makes several analogies to the natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella "like a sparrow's egg" , and he is "an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone" . Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary one: she compares Catherine to "a dog in the manger" for keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite differently despite superficial similarities. There are also important differences between the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff, "a runaway servant" , should be entertained in the kitchen, not the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the gentry and one for the lower classes . Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while Edgar coldly calls her Ellen.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_2_part_2.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 12

chapter 12

{"name": "Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15", "summary": "After three days in which Catherine stayed alone in her room, Edgar sat in the library, and Isabella moped in the garden, Catherine called Nelly for some food and water because she thought she was dying. She ate some toast, and was indignant to hear that Edgar wasn't frantic about her. She said: \"How strange. I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me--and they have all turned to enemies in a few hours\". It became clear to Ellen that Catherine was delirious, and thought she was back in her room at Wuthering Heights. After seeing her reflection in a mirror, Catherine became frightened because she thought there was no mirror there. She opened the window and talked to Heathcliff as though they were children again. Edgar came in and was very concerned for Catherine, and angry at Ellen for not having told him what was going on. Going to fetch a doctor, Ellen noticed that Isabella's little dog almost dead, hanging by a handkerchief on the gate. She rescued it, and found Dr. Kenneth, who told her that he had seen Isabella walking for hours in the park with Heathcliff. Moreover, Dr. Kenneth had heard a rumor that Isabella and Heathcliff were planning to run away together. Ellen rushed back to the Grange found that Isabella had indeed disappeared, and a little boy told her he had seen the girl riding away with Heathcliff. Ellen told Edgar, hoping he would rescue his sister from her ill-considered elopement, but he coldly refused to do so", "analysis": "Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a \"lamb,\" a \"sucking leveret,\" and a \"milk-blooded coward\" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: \"...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!\" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: \"I am not angry, but 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\" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: \"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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: \"He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me\" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a \"hero of romance\" . For doing so, Isabella is called a \"pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach\" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: \"The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture\" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he \"foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species\" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part."}

While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books that he never opened--wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation--and _she_ fasted pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet; I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as I thought at first. Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar's ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning. 'Oh, I will die,' she exclaimed, 'since no one cares anything about me. I wish I had not taken that.' Then a good while after I heard her murmur, 'No, I'll not die--he'd be glad--he does not love me at all--he would never miss me!' 'Did you want anything, ma'am?' I inquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated manner. 'What is that apathetic being doing?' she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face. 'Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead?' 'Neither,' replied I; 'if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is continually among his books, since he has no other society.' I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder. 'Among his books!' she cried, confounded. 'And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered?' continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall. 'Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet--in play, perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I'll choose between these two: either to starve at once--that would be no punishment unless he had a heart--or to recover, and leave the country. Are you speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life?' 'Why, ma'am,' I answered, 'the master has no idea of your being deranged; and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger.' 'You think not? Cannot you tell him I will?' she returned. 'Persuade him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!' 'No, you forget, Mrs. Linton,' I suggested, 'that you have eaten some food with a relish this evening, and to-morrow you will perceive its good effects.' 'If I were only sure it would kill him,' she interrupted, 'I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids--and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all turned to enemies in a few hours: they have, I'm positive; the people here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces! Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be so dreadful to watch Catherine go. And Edgar standing solemnly by to see it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to his house, and going back to his _books_! What in the name of all that feels has he to do with _books_, when I am dying?' She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north-east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species: her mind had strayed to other associations. 'That's a turkey's,' she murmured to herself; 'and this is a wild duck's; and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows--no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock's; and this--I should know it among a thousand--it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.' 'Give over with that baby-work!' I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. 'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow.' I went here and there collecting it. 'I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really _were_ that withered hag, and I should think I _was_ under Penistone Crags; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.' 'The black press? where is that?' I asked. 'You are talking in your sleep!' 'It's against the wall, as it always is,' she replied. 'It _does_ appear odd--I see a face in it!' 'There's no press in the room, and never was,' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her. 'Don't _you_ see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl. 'It's behind there still!' she pursued, anxiously. 'And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!' I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass. 'There's nobody here!' I insisted. 'It was _yourself_, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a while since.' 'Myself!' she gasped, 'and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful!' Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek--the shawl had dropped from the frame. 'Why, what is the matter?' cried I. 'Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glass--the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and there am I too by your side.' Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame. 'Oh, dear! I thought I was at home,' she sighed. 'I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don't say anything; but stay with me. I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.' 'A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am,' I answered: 'and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again.' 'Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!' she went on bitterly, wringing her hands. 'And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice. Do let me feel it--it comes straight down the moor--do let me have one breath!' To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child. 'How long is it since I shut myself in here?' she asked, suddenly reviving. 'It was Monday evening,' I replied, 'and this is Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, at present.' 'What! of the same week?' she exclaimed. 'Only that brief time?' 'Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,' observed I. 'Well, it seems a weary number of hours,' she muttered doubtfully: 'it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?' 'Because I won't give you your death of cold,' I answered. 'You won't give me a chance of life, you mean,' she said, sullenly. 'However, I'm not helpless yet; I'll open it myself.' And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible--still she asserted she caught their shining. 'Look!' she cried eagerly, 'that's my room with the candle in it, and the trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!' She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. 'He's considering--he'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard. You are slow! Be content, you always followed me!' Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour. 'Oh, sir!' I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber. 'My poor mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all; pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she's hard to guide any way but her own.' 'Catherine ill?' he said, hastening to us. 'Shut the window, Ellen! Catherine! why--' He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified astonishment. 'She's been fretting here,' I continued, 'and eating scarcely anything, and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening, and so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it ourselves; but it is nothing.' I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned. 'It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?' he said sternly. 'You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!' And he took his wife in his arms, and looked at her with anguish. At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her. 'Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?' she said, with angry animation. 'You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations now--I see we shall--but they can't keep me from my narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I'm bound before spring is over! There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me!' 'Catherine, what have you done?' commenced the master. 'Am I nothing to you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath--' 'Hush!' cried Mrs. Linton. 'Hush, this moment! You mention that name and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What you touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill-top before you lay hands on me again. I don't want you, Edgar: I'm past wanting you. Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone.' 'Her mind wanders, sir,' I interposed. 'She has been talking nonsense the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and she'll rally. Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.' 'I desire no further advice from you,' answered Mr. Linton. 'You knew your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change!' I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another's wicked waywardness. 'I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be headstrong and domineering,' cried I: 'but I didn't know that you wished to foster her fierce temper! I didn't know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant's wages! Well, it will teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself!' 'The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen Dean,' he replied. 'You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?' said I. 'Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to Miss, and to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison the mistress against you?' Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation. 'Ah! Nelly has played traitor,' she exclaimed, passionately. 'Nelly is my hidden enemy. You witch! So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us! Let me go, and I'll make her rue! I'll make her howl a recantation!' A maniac's fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to disengage herself from Linton's arms. I felt no inclination to tarry the event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I quitted the chamber. In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly, evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world. My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the animal, and lifted it into the garden. I had seen it follow its mistress up-stairs when she went to bed; and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so. While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought: though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o'clock in the morning. Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street; and my account of Catherine Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately. He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before. 'Nelly Dean,' said he, 'I can't help fancying there's an extra cause for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We've odd reports up here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a trifle; and that sort of people should not either. It's hard work bringing them through fevers, and such things. How did it begin?' 'The master will inform you,' I answered; 'but you are acquainted with the Earnshaws' violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all. I may say this; it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That's her account, at least: for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up. Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions.' 'Mr. Linton will be sorry?' observed Kenneth, interrogatively. 'Sorry? he'll break his heart should anything happen!' I replied. 'Don't alarm him more than necessary.' 'Well, I told him to beware,' said my companion; 'and he must bide the consequences of neglecting my warning! Hasn't he been intimate with Mr. Heathcliff lately?' 'Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange,' answered I, 'though more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because the master likes his company. At present he's discharged from the trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he'll be taken in again.' 'And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?' was the doctor's next question. 'I'm not in her confidence,' returned I, reluctant to continue the subject. 'No, she's a sly one,' he remarked, shaking his head. 'She keeps her own counsel! But she's a real little fool. I have it from good authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with him! My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that: when it was to be he didn't hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp!' This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet. I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me. On ascending to Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty. Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly. _I_ could not pursue them, however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with confusion; still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second grief! I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay in a troubled sleep: her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy; he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully expressive features. The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me, he signified the threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect. I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she slept: her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sister-in-law. I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting up-stairs, open-mouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying: 'Oh, dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master, master, our young lady--' 'Hold your noise!' cried, I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner. 'Speak lower, Mary--What is the matter?' said Mr. Linton. 'What ails your young lady?' 'She's gone, she's gone! Yon' Heathcliff's run off wi' her!' gasped the girl. 'That is not true!' exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. 'It cannot be: how has the idea entered your head? Ellen Dean, go and seek her. It is incredible: it cannot be.' As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion. 'Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,' she stammered, 'and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange. I thought he meant for missis's sickness, so I answered, yes. Then says he, "There's somebody gone after 'em, I guess?" I stared. He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse's shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith's lass had got up to spy who they were: she knew them both directly. And she noticed the man--Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob'dy could mistake him, besides--put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment. The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.' I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room; confirming, when I returned, the servant's statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word. 'Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back,' I inquired. 'How should we do?' 'She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she had a right to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.' And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it.

Chapter 12

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After three days in which Catherine stayed alone in her room, Edgar sat in the library, and Isabella moped in the garden, Catherine called Nelly for some food and water because she thought she was dying. She ate some toast, and was indignant to hear that Edgar wasn't frantic about her. She said: "How strange. I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me--and they have all turned to enemies in a few hours". It became clear to Ellen that Catherine was delirious, and thought she was back in her room at Wuthering Heights. After seeing her reflection in a mirror, Catherine became frightened because she thought there was no mirror there. She opened the window and talked to Heathcliff as though they were children again. Edgar came in and was very concerned for Catherine, and angry at Ellen for not having told him what was going on. Going to fetch a doctor, Ellen noticed that Isabella's little dog almost dead, hanging by a handkerchief on the gate. She rescued it, and found Dr. Kenneth, who told her that he had seen Isabella walking for hours in the park with Heathcliff. Moreover, Dr. Kenneth had heard a rumor that Isabella and Heathcliff were planning to run away together. Ellen rushed back to the Grange found that Isabella had indeed disappeared, and a little boy told her he had seen the girl riding away with Heathcliff. Ellen told Edgar, hoping he would rescue his sister from her ill-considered elopement, but he coldly refused to do so

Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a "lamb," a "sucking leveret," and a "milk-blooded coward" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: "...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: "I am not angry, but 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" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: "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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: "He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a "hero of romance" . For doing so, Isabella is called a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: "The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he "foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_2_part_3.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 13

chapter 13

{"name": "Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15", "summary": "In the next two months Catherine \"encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever\" , but it became clear that she would never really recover. She was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote Edgar an apology and a plea for forgiveness, to which he gave no reply. She later sent Ellen a longer letter asking whether Heathcliff were a demon or crazy, and recounting her experiences. She found Wuthering Heights dirty, uncivilized and unwelcoming: Joseph was rude to her, Hareton was disobedient, Hindley was a half-demented wreck of a man, and Heathcliff treated her cruelly. He refused to let her sleep in his room, which meant she had to stay in a tiny garret. Hindley had a pistol with a blade on it, with which he dreamed of killing Heathcliff, and Isabella coveted it for the power it would have given her. She was miserable and regretted her marriage heartily", "analysis": "Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a \"lamb,\" a \"sucking leveret,\" and a \"milk-blooded coward\" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: \"...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!\" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: \"I am not angry, but 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\" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: \"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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: \"He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me\" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a \"hero of romance\" . For doing so, Isabella is called a \"pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach\" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: \"The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture\" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he \"foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species\" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part."}

For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxiety--in fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity--he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self. The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together. 'These are the earliest flowers at the Heights,' she exclaimed. 'They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?' 'The snow is quite gone down here, darling,' replied her husband; 'and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors: the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full. 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.' 'I shall never be there but once more,' said the invalid; 'and then you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were happy to-day.' Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding. We knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially removed by a change of scene. The master told me to light a fire in the many-weeks' deserted parlour, and to set an easy-chair in the sunshine by the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects round her: which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations investing her hated sick chamber. By evening she seemed greatly exhausted; yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till another room could be prepared. To obviate the fatigue of mounting and descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present--on the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm. Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger's grip, by the birth of an heir. I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff. 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. Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter, which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon. I'll read it: for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living. * * * * * DEAR ELLEN, it begins,--I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you. Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again--that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine! _I can't follow it though_--(these words are underlined)--they need not expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please; taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection. The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions: the first is,--How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recognise any sentiment which those around share with me. The second question I have great interest in; it is this--Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar. Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream! The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors; by that, I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour, to inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farm-house, and your old fellow-servant, Joseph, issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under-lip, and turn away. Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables; reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle. Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen--a dingy, untidy hole; I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth. 'This is Edgar's legal nephew,' I reflected--'mine in a manner; I must shake hands, and--yes--I must kiss him. It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning.' I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said--'How do you do, my dear?' He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend. 'Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?' was my next essay at conversation. An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not 'frame off' rewarded my perseverance. 'Hey, Throttler, lad!' whispered the little wretch, rousing a half-bred bull-dog from its lair in a corner. 'Now, wilt thou be ganging?' he asked authoritatively. Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and replied--'Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it? Mincing un' munching! How can I tell whet ye say?' 'I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!' I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness. 'None o' me! I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt. I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and _his_ eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty annihilated. 'What's your business here?' he demanded, grimly. 'Who are you?' 'My name was Isabella Linton,' I replied. 'You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I suppose, by your permission.' 'Is he come back, then?' asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf. 'Yes--we came just now,' I said; 'but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.' 'It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!' growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the 'fiend' deceived him. I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re-fastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter-dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom! Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again. You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles: I could not overpass them! I questioned with myself--where must I turn for comfort? and--mind you don't tell Edgar, or Catherine--above every sorrow beside, this rose pre-eminent: despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff! I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling. I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed--'I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maid-servant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me!' 'We have none,' he answered; 'you must wait on yourself!' 'Where must I sleep, then?' I sobbed; I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness. 'Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber,' said he; 'open that door--he's in there.' I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone--'Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt--don't omit it!' 'Well!' I said. 'But why, Mr. Earnshaw?' I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff. 'Look here!' he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel. 'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. 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!' I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me: how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument! I took it from his hand, and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment. 'I don't care if you tell him,' said he. '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! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!' You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits. He is clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least. I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's ill-bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, '_I'll_ make the porridge!' I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit. 'Mr. Earnshaw,' I continued, 'directs me to wait on myself: I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve.' 'Gooid Lord!' he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. 'If there's to be fresh ortherings--just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev' a _mistress_ set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver _did_ think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place--but I doubt it's nigh at hand!' This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation. 'Thear!' he ejaculated. 'Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge to-neeght; they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in bowl un' all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then ye'll hae done wi' 't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved out!' It _was_ rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that 'the barn was every bit as good' as I, 'and every bit as wollsome,' and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug. 'I shall have my supper in another room,' I said. 'Have you no place you call a parlour?' '_Parlour_!' he echoed, sneeringly, '_parlour_! Nay, we've noa _parlours_. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un' if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us.' 'Then I shall go up-stairs,' I answered; 'show me a chamber.' I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed. 'Here's a rahm,' he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. 'It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There's a pack o' corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye're feared o' muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't.' The 'rahm' was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle. 'Why, man,' I exclaimed, facing him angrily, 'this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bed-room.' '_Bed-rume_!' he repeated, in a tone of mockery. 'Yah's see all t' _bed-rumes_ thear is--yon's mine.' He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigo-coloured quilt, at one end. 'What do I want with yours?' I retorted. 'I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?' 'Oh! it's Maister _Hathecliff's_ ye're wanting?' cried he, as if making a new discovery. 'Couldn't ye ha' said soa, at onst? un' then, I mud ha' telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut see--he allas keeps it locked, un' nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln.' 'You've a nice house, Joseph,' I could not refrain from observing, 'and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose--there are other rooms. For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!' He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting, before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one. There was a carpet--a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,--'This here is t' maister's.' My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted. I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose. 'Whear the divil?' began the religious elder. 'The Lord bless us! The Lord forgie us! Whear the _hell_ wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome nowt! Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er. There's not another hoile to lig down in i' th' hahse!' I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground; and then seated myself at the stairs'-head, hid my face in my hands, and cried. 'Ech! ech!' exclaimed Joseph. 'Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brooken pots; un' then we's hear summut; we's hear how it's to be. Gooid-for-naught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Chrustmas, flinging t' precious gifts o'God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But I'm mista'en if ye shew yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I nobbut wish he may.' And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with him; and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge; while I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief. Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage; my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a scutter down-stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,--'They's rahm for boath ye un' yer pride, now, I sud think i' the hahse. It's empty; ye may hev' it all to yerseln, un' Him as allus maks a third, i' sich ill company!' Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation; and the minute I flung myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept. My slumber was deep and sweet, though over far too soon. Mr. Heathcliff awoke me; he had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing there? I told him the cause of my staying up so late--that he had the key of our room in his pocket. The adjective _our_ gave mortal offence. He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine; and he'd--but I'll not repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct: he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence! I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him. I do hate him--I am wretched--I have been a fool! Beware of uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange. I shall expect you every day--don't disappoint me!--ISABELLA.

Chapter 13

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15

In the next two months Catherine "encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever" , but it became clear that she would never really recover. She was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote Edgar an apology and a plea for forgiveness, to which he gave no reply. She later sent Ellen a longer letter asking whether Heathcliff were a demon or crazy, and recounting her experiences. She found Wuthering Heights dirty, uncivilized and unwelcoming: Joseph was rude to her, Hareton was disobedient, Hindley was a half-demented wreck of a man, and Heathcliff treated her cruelly. He refused to let her sleep in his room, which meant she had to stay in a tiny garret. Hindley had a pistol with a blade on it, with which he dreamed of killing Heathcliff, and Isabella coveted it for the power it would have given her. She was miserable and regretted her marriage heartily

Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a "lamb," a "sucking leveret," and a "milk-blooded coward" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: "...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: "I am not angry, but 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" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: "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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: "He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a "hero of romance" . For doing so, Isabella is called a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: "The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he "foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_2_part_4.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15", "summary": "Ellen, distressed by Edgar's refusal to console Isabella, went to visit her at Wuthering Heights. She told Isabella and Heathcliff that Catherine would \"never be what she was\" and that Heathcliff should not bother her anymore. Heathcliff asserted that he would not leave her to Edgar's lukewarm care, and that she loved him much more than her husband. He said that if he had been in Edgar's place he would never have interfered with Catherine's friendships, although he would kill the friend the moment Catherine no longer cared about him. Ellen urged Heathcliff to treat Isabella better, and he expressed his scorn and hatred for his wife. He said Isabella knew what he was when she married him: she had seen him hanging her pet dog. Isabella told Ellen that she hated Heathcliff, and he ordered her upstairs so he could talk to Ellen. Alone with her, he told her that if she did not arrange an interview for him with Catherine, he would force his way in armed, and she agreed to give Catherine a letter from him", "analysis": "Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a \"lamb,\" a \"sucking leveret,\" and a \"milk-blooded coward\" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: \"...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!\" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: \"I am not angry, but 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\" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: \"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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: \"He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me\" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a \"hero of romance\" . For doing so, Isabella is called a \"pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach\" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: \"The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture\" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he \"foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species\" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part."}

As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me. 'Forgiveness!' said Linton. '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.' 'And you won't write her a little note, sir?' I asked, imploringly. 'No,' he answered. 'It is needless. My communication with Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist!' Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said--'If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us.' 'Oh, I have nothing,' I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. 'My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up.' Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil. 'Mrs. Linton is now just recovering,' I said; 'she'll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you'll shun crossing her way again: nay, you'll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you 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!' 'That is quite possible,' remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: 'quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his _duty_ and _humanity_? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I _will_ see her! What do you say?' 'I say, Mr. Heathcliff,' I replied, 'you must not: you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether.' 'With your aid that may be avoided,' he continued; 'and should there be danger of such an event--should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence--why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: 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. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!' 'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.' 'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?' he said. 'Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future--_death_ and _hell_: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. 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. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?' 'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,' cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. 'No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!' 'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?' observed Heathcliff, scornfully. 'He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity.' 'He is not aware of what I suffer,' she replied. 'I didn't tell him that.' 'You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?' 'To say that I was married, I did write--you saw the note.' 'And nothing since?' 'No.' 'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,' I remarked. 'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say.' 'I should guess it was her own,' said Heathcliff. 'She degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.' 'Well, sir,' returned I, 'I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.' 'She abandoned them under a delusion,' he answered; 'picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdity--of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!' 'Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, 'this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?' 'Take care, Ellen!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. 'Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before; and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. 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!' 'There--that will do for the present!' said Heathcliff. 'If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance: she's near the point which would suit me. No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go up-stairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way: up-stairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child!' He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering--'I have no pity! I have no pity! 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.' 'Do you understand what the word pity means?' I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. 'Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?' 'Put that down!' he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. 'You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm: I don't desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there to-night; and every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief.' I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. 'The commonest occurrence startles her painfully,' I said. 'She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he'll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!' 'In that case I'll take measures to secure you, woman!' exclaimed Heathcliff; 'you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it: you must prepare her--ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from _duty_ and _humanity_! From _pity_ and _charity_! He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares? Let us settle it at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!' Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn't be there, and my fellow-servants should be equally out of the way. Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness: and then I remembered Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand. But here is Kenneth; I'll go down, and tell him how much better you are. My history is _dree_, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning. Dree, and dreary! I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. But never mind! I'll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean's bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes. I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15

Ellen, distressed by Edgar's refusal to console Isabella, went to visit her at Wuthering Heights. She told Isabella and Heathcliff that Catherine would "never be what she was" and that Heathcliff should not bother her anymore. Heathcliff asserted that he would not leave her to Edgar's lukewarm care, and that she loved him much more than her husband. He said that if he had been in Edgar's place he would never have interfered with Catherine's friendships, although he would kill the friend the moment Catherine no longer cared about him. Ellen urged Heathcliff to treat Isabella better, and he expressed his scorn and hatred for his wife. He said Isabella knew what he was when she married him: she had seen him hanging her pet dog. Isabella told Ellen that she hated Heathcliff, and he ordered her upstairs so he could talk to Ellen. Alone with her, he told her that if she did not arrange an interview for him with Catherine, he would force his way in armed, and she agreed to give Catherine a letter from him

Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a "lamb," a "sucking leveret," and a "milk-blooded coward" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: "...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: "I am not angry, but 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" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: "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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: "He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a "hero of romance" . For doing so, Isabella is called a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: "The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he "foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_2_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 15

chapter 15

{"name": "Chapter 15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-15", "summary": "The Sunday after Ellen's visit to Wuthering Heights, while most people were at church, she gave Catherine Heathcliff's letter. Catherine was changed by her sickness: she was beautiful in an unearthly way and her eyes \"appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond\". Ellen had left the door open, so Heathcliff walked in and Catherine eagerly waited for him to find the right room. Their reunion was bitter-sweet: though passionately glad to be reunited, Catherine accused Heathcliff of having killed her, and Heathcliff warned her not to say such things when he would be tortured by them after her death--besides, she had been at fault by abandoning him. She asked him to forgive her, since she would not be at peace after death, and he answered: \"It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands. I love my murderer--but yours. How can I. They held each other closely and wept until Ellen warned them that Linton was returning. Heathcliff wanted to leave, but Catherine insisted that he stay, since she was dying and would never see him again. He consented to stay, and \"in the midst of the agitation, was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed. She's fainted or dead, so much the better. Linton came in, and Heathcliff handed him Catherine's body and told him to take care of her: \"Unless you be a fiend, help her first then you shall speak to me. He told Nelly he would wait outside for news of Catherine's welfare, and left", "analysis": "Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a \"lamb,\" a \"sucking leveret,\" and a \"milk-blooded coward\" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: \"...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!\" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: \"I am not angry, but 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\" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: \"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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: \"He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me\" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a \"hero of romance\" . For doing so, Isabella is called a \"pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach\" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: \"The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture\" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he \"foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species\" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part."}

Another week over--and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I'll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style. In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place; and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and didn't want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was, that it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to church. There was a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went up-stairs. Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual. Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond--you would have said out of this world. Then, the paleness of her face--its haggard aspect having vanished as she recovered flesh--and the peculiar expression arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened; and--invariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should think--refuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay. A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had laid it there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of smiles and kisses. At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good. Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all; but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no recognition of material things either by ear or eye. 'There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,' I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee. 'You must read it immediately, because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal?' 'Yes,' she answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened it--it was very short. 'Now,' I continued, 'read it.' She drew away her hand, and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed that at last I resumed--'Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff.' There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it; and when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning eagerness. 'Well, he wishes to see you,' said I, guessing her need of an interpreter. 'He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring.' As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms. He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there--she was fated, sure to die. 'Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?' was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt. 'What now?' said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me--and thriven on it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?' Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down. '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?' 'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth. The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin. '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? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?' 'I shall not be at peace,' moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly-- '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!' Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us. Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed; addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:-- 'Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave. _That_ is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not _my_ Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul. And,' added she musingly, 'the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. 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. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me--very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for _you_. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I _wonder_ he won't be near me!' She went on to herself. 'I thought he wished it. Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff.' In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity. A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently: she put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly-- '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 deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you--they'll damn you. You loved me--then what _right_ had you to leave me? What right--answer me--for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? 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. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you--oh, God! would _you_ like to live with your soul in the grave?' 'Let me alone. Let me alone,' sobbed Catherine. 'If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!' 'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love _my_ murderer--but _yours_! How can I?' They were silent--their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this. I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch. 'Service is over,' I announced. 'My master will be here in half an hour.' Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never moved. Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer. 'Now he is here,' I exclaimed. 'For heaven's sake, hurry down! You'll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick; and stay among the trees till he is fairly in.' 'I must go, Cathy,' said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms. 'But if I live, I'll see you again before you are asleep. I won't stray five yards from your window.' 'You must not go!' she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. 'You _shall_ not, I tell you.' 'For one hour,' he pleaded earnestly. 'Not for one minute,' she replied. 'I _must_--Linton will be up immediately,' persisted the alarmed intruder. He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act--she clung fast, gasping: there was mad resolution in her face. 'No!' she shrieked. 'Oh, don't, don't go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!' 'Damn the fool! There he is,' cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. 'Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips.' And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the stairs--the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified. 'Are you going to listen to her ravings?' I said, passionately. 'She does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for--master, mistress, and servant.' I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise. In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down. 'She's fainted, or dead,' I thought: 'so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.' Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his arms. 'Look there!' he said. 'Unless you be a fiend, help her first--then you shall speak to me!' He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night. 'I shall not refuse to go out of doors,' he answered; 'but I shall stay in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow. I shall be under those larch-trees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not.' He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence.

Chapter 15

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The Sunday after Ellen's visit to Wuthering Heights, while most people were at church, she gave Catherine Heathcliff's letter. Catherine was changed by her sickness: she was beautiful in an unearthly way and her eyes "appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond". Ellen had left the door open, so Heathcliff walked in and Catherine eagerly waited for him to find the right room. Their reunion was bitter-sweet: though passionately glad to be reunited, Catherine accused Heathcliff of having killed her, and Heathcliff warned her not to say such things when he would be tortured by them after her death--besides, she had been at fault by abandoning him. She asked him to forgive her, since she would not be at peace after death, and he answered: "It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands. I love my murderer--but yours. How can I. They held each other closely and wept until Ellen warned them that Linton was returning. Heathcliff wanted to leave, but Catherine insisted that he stay, since she was dying and would never see him again. He consented to stay, and "in the midst of the agitation, was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed. She's fainted or dead, so much the better. Linton came in, and Heathcliff handed him Catherine's body and told him to take care of her: "Unless you be a fiend, help her first then you shall speak to me. He told Nelly he would wait outside for news of Catherine's welfare, and left

Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and Hindley reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental. The strain imposed on the three characters--Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff--has finally resulted in outright violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed and cultivated as he does. Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a "lamb," a "sucking leveret," and a "milk-blooded coward" . The first two insults are natural images that might easily come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the 'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about personality. In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational: "...supposing at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I groveled!" Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the true, deep emotions in Bronte's world. Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other characters--who certainly have many faults, though not that one. Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is horrified by it. It is worth noting the unfortunate position of women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity. This chapter includes a great deal of criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is extremely unconvincing: "I am not angry, but 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" . Edgar is angry, of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him. Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior: "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... I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: "He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse--it is not in him to be loved like me" . Bronte has always associated the Lintons with material wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as well. Isabella's case is somewhat different. Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Bronte makes it very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should in no way be considered a "hero of romance" . For doing so, Isabella is called a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach" . In this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance: through Heathcliff's character, Bronte suggests that brutality should never be considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive--she simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself. The passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel, though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and they belonged together. Ellen says: "The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearsome picture" . Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and he left bruises on her arm. Later, he "foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. did not feel as though were in the company of a member of own species" . Love appears to be a form of madness. Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/17.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_3_part_1.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 16

chapter 16

{"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20", "summary": "Around midnight, Catherine gave birth to a daughter. Catherine Earnshaw died two hours later without recovering consciousness. No one cared for the infant at first, and Ellen wished it had been a boy: with no son, Edgar's heir was Isabella, Heathcliff's wife. Catherine's corpse looked peaceful and beautiful, and Ellen decided that she had found heaven at last. She went outside to tell Heathcliff and found him leaning motionless against an ash tree. He knew Catherine was dead, and asked Ellen how it had happened, attempting to conceal his anguish. Ellen was not fooled, and told him that Cahterine had died peacefully, like a girl falling asleep. Heathcliff cursed Catherine and begged her to haunt him so he would not be left in \"this abyss, where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my soul. He dashed his head against the tree and howled \"like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears. Ellen was appalled. On Tuesday, when Catherine's body was still lying in the Grange, strewn with flowers, Heathcliff took advantage of Edgar's short absence from the bedchamber to see her again, and to replace Edgar's hair in Catherine's locket with some of his own. Ellen noticed the change, and enclosed both locks of hair together. Catherine was buried on Friday in a green slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where, Ellen said, her husband now lies as well", "analysis": "The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, \"where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness\" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: \"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\" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding \"a silent combat with his inward agony\" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his \"heart and nerves.\" Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him."}

About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months' child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter's distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be. Next morning--bright and cheerful out of doors--stole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but _his_ was the hush of exhausted anguish, and _hers_ of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: 'Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!' I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant. Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd give a great deal to know. I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded: Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker. The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange; unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished, yet feared, to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know. He was there--at least, a few yards further in the park; leant against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke:--'She's dead!' he said; 'I've not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief away--don't snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!' I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others. When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground. 'Yes, she's dead!' I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks. '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!' 'Did _she_ take due warning, then?' asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer. 'Did she die like a saint? Come, give me a true history of the event. How did--?' He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare. 'How did she die?' he resumed, at last--fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends. 'Poor wretch!' I thought; 'you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation.' 'Quietly as a lamb!' I answered, aloud. 'She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep; and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!' 'And--did she ever mention me?' he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear to hear. 'Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody from the time you left her,' I said. 'She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a gentle dream--may she wake as kindly in the other world!' 'May she wake in torment!' he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. 'Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not _there_--not in heaven--not perished--where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered _do_ haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts _have_ wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only _do_ not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I _cannot_ live without my life! I _cannot_ live without my soul!' He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassion--it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console! Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing-room. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and--a circumstance concealed from all but me--Heathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose. I held no communication with him: still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together. Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants. Isabella was not asked. The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves.

Chapter 16

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Around midnight, Catherine gave birth to a daughter. Catherine Earnshaw died two hours later without recovering consciousness. No one cared for the infant at first, and Ellen wished it had been a boy: with no son, Edgar's heir was Isabella, Heathcliff's wife. Catherine's corpse looked peaceful and beautiful, and Ellen decided that she had found heaven at last. She went outside to tell Heathcliff and found him leaning motionless against an ash tree. He knew Catherine was dead, and asked Ellen how it had happened, attempting to conceal his anguish. Ellen was not fooled, and told him that Cahterine had died peacefully, like a girl falling asleep. Heathcliff cursed Catherine and begged her to haunt him so he would not be left in "this abyss, where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my soul. He dashed his head against the tree and howled "like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears. Ellen was appalled. On Tuesday, when Catherine's body was still lying in the Grange, strewn with flowers, Heathcliff took advantage of Edgar's short absence from the bedchamber to see her again, and to replace Edgar's hair in Catherine's locket with some of his own. Ellen noticed the change, and enclosed both locks of hair together. Catherine was buried on Friday in a green slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where, Ellen said, her husband now lies as well

The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: "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" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his inward agony" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him.

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all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/19.txt

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Wuthering Heights.chapter 18

chapter 18

{"name": "Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20", "summary": "In the next twelve years, Cathy Linton grew up to be \"the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house\". She was fair like a Linton, except for her mother's dark eyes. High-spirited but gentle, she seemed to combine the good qualities of both the Lintons and the Earnshaws, though she was a little saucy because she was accustomed to getting her way. Her father kept her within the park of the Grange, but she dreamed of going to see some cliffs, Penistone Craggs, which were located not too far away on the moor. When Isabella fell ill, she wrote to Edgar to come visit her, so he was gone for three weeks. One day Cathy asked Ellen to give her some food for a ramble around the grounds--she was pretending to be an Arabian merchant going across the desert with her caravan of a pony and three dogs. She left the grounds, however, and later Ellen went after her on the road to Penistone Crags, which passed Wuthering Heights. She found Cathy safe and sound there--Heathcliff wasn't home, and the housekeeper had taken her in-- chattering to Hareton, now 18 years old. After Ellen arrived, Cathy offended Hareton by asking whether he was the master's son, and when he said he wasn't, deciding that he must be a servant. The housekeeper told Cathy that Hareton was her cousin, which made her cry. Hareton offered her a puppy to console her, which she refused. Ellen told Cathy that her father didn't want her to go to Wuthering Heights, and asked her not to tell Edgar about the incident, to which Cathy readily agreed", "analysis": "The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, \"where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness\" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: \"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\" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding \"a silent combat with his inward agony\" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his \"heart and nerves.\" Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him."}

The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were the happiest of my life: my greatest troubles in their passage rose from our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in common with all children, rich and poor. For the rest, after the first six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's dust. She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house: a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair. Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble her: for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never fierce: it was deep and tender. However, it must be acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts. A propensity to be saucy was one; and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be good tempered or cross. If a servant chanced to vex her, it was always--'I shall tell papa!' And if he reproved her, even by a look, you would have thought it a heart-breaking business: I don't believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her. He took her education entirely on himself, and made it an amusement. Fortunately, curiosity and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar: she learned rapidly and eagerly, and did honour to his teaching. Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself. Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one else. Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel, the only building she had approached or entered, except her own home. Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her: she was a perfect recluse; and, apparently, perfectly contented. Sometimes, indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe-- 'Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills? I wonder what lies on the other side--is it the sea?' 'No, Miss Cathy,' I would answer; 'it is hills again, just like these.' 'And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?' she once asked. The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice; especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow. I explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree. 'And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?' she pursued. 'Because they are a great deal higher up than we are,' replied I; 'you could not climb them, they are too high and steep. In winter the frost is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have found snow under that black hollow on the north-east side!' 'Oh, you have been on them!' she cried gleefully. 'Then I can go, too, when I am a woman. Has papa been, Ellen?' 'Papa would tell you, Miss,' I answered, hastily, 'that they are not worth the trouble of visiting. The moors, where you ramble with him, are much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world.' 'But I know the park, and I don't know those,' she murmured to herself. 'And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest point: my little pony Minny shall take me some time.' One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a desire to fulfil this project: she teased Mr. Linton about it; and he promised she should have the journey when she got older. But Miss Catherine measured her age by months, and, 'Now, am I old enough to go to Penistone Crags?' was the constant question in her mouth. The road thither wound close by Wuthering Heights. Edgar had not the heart to pass it; so she received as constantly the answer, 'Not yet, love: not yet.' I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her husband. Her family were of a delicate constitution: she and Edgar both lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts. What her last illness was, I am not certain: I conjecture, they died of the same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close. She wrote to inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a four-months' indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible; for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands. Her hope was that Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her: his father, she would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or education. My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her request: reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to answer this; commanding Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park, even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied. He was away three weeks. The first day or two my charge sat in a corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing: in that quiet state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an interval of impatient, fretful weariness; and being too busy, and too old then, to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might entertain herself. I used to send her on her travels round the grounds--now on foot, and now on a pony; indulging her with a patient audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned. The summer shone in full prime; and she took such a taste for this solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful tales. I did not fear her breaking bounds; because the gates were generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone, if they had stood wide open. Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced. Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o'clock, and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan; and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts: a horse, and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers. I got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her wide-brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned; but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction: I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds. I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady. 'I saw her at morn,' he replied: 'she would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight.' You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me directly she must have started for Penistone Crags. 'What will become of her?' I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the high-road. I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect, far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. 'And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them,' I reflected, 'and been killed, or broken some of her bones?' My suspense was truly painful; and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered: she had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw. 'Ah,' said she, 'you are come a-seeking your little mistress! Don't be frightened. She's here safe: but I'm glad it isn't the master.' 'He is not at home then, is he?' I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm. 'No, no,' she replied: 'both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit.' I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton--now a great, strong lad of eighteen--who stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment: comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth. 'Very well, Miss!' I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance. 'This is your last ride, till papa comes back. I'll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!' 'Aha, Ellen!' she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side. 'I shall have a pretty story to tell to-night; and so you've found me out. Have you ever been here in your life before?' 'Put that hat on, and home at once,' said I. 'I'm dreadfully grieved at you, Miss Cathy: you've done extremely wrong! It's no use pouting and crying: that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the country after you. To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in; and you stealing off so! It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith in you any more.' 'What have I done?' sobbed she, instantly checked. 'Papa charged me nothing: he'll not scold me, Ellen--he's never cross, like you!' 'Come, come!' I repeated. 'I'll tie the riband. Now, let us have no petulance. Oh, for shame! You thirteen years old, and such a baby!' This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and retreating to the chimney out of my reach. 'Nay,' said the servant, 'don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean. We made her stop: she'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be uneasy. Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should: it's a wild road over the hills.' Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too awkward to speak; though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion. 'How long am I to wait?' I continued, disregarding the woman's interference. 'It will be dark in ten minutes. Where is the pony, Miss Cathy? And where is Phoenix? I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so please yourself.' 'The pony is in the yard,' she replied, 'and Phoenix is shut in there. He's bitten--and so is Charlie. I was going to tell you all about it; but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear.' I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue. Hareton and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still; till I cried, in great irritation,--'Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is you'd be glad enough to get out.' 'It's _your_ father's, isn't it?' said she, turning to Hareton. 'Nay,' he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully. He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his own. 'Whose then--your master's?' she asked. He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and turned away. 'Who is his master?' continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me. 'He talked about "our house," and "our folk." I thought he had been the owner's son. And he never said Miss: he should have done, shouldn't he, if he's a servant?' Hareton grew black as a thunder-cloud at this childish speech. I silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for departure. 'Now, get my horse,' she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stable-boys at the Grange. 'And you may come with me. I want to see where the goblin-hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the _fairishes_, as you call them: but make haste! What's the matter? Get my horse, I say.' 'I'll see thee damned before I be _thy_ servant!' growled the lad. 'You'll see me _what_!' asked Catherine in surprise. 'Damned--thou saucy witch!' he replied. 'There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company,' I interposed. 'Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin to dispute with him. Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone.' '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!' Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprang into her eyes with indignation. 'You bring the pony,' she exclaimed, turning to the woman, 'and let my dog free this moment!' 'Softly, Miss,' answered she addressed; 'you'll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.' '_He_ my cousin!' cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh. 'Yes, indeed,' responded her reprover. 'Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things,' she pursued in great trouble. 'Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman's son. That my--' she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown. '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.' 'He's not--he's not my cousin, Ellen!' she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea. I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's return would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion concerning her rude-bred kindred. Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought. Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew. I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow; who was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill; thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that course of oppression: he had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to ill-treatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrow-minded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their 'offald ways,' so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property. If the lad swore, he wouldn't correct him: nor however culpably he behaved. It gave Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths: he allowed that the lad was ruined: that his soul was abandoned to perdition; but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it. Hareton's blood would be required at his hands; and there lay immense consolation in that thought. Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations. I don't pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little. The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was _near_, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls. The master was too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is yet. This, however, is not making progress with my story. Miss Cathy rejected the peace-offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and Phoenix. They came limping and hanging their heads; and we set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us. I could not wring from my little lady how she had spent the day; except that, as I supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags; and she arrived without adventure to the gate of the farm-house, when Hareton happened to issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train. They had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them: that formed an introduction. Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was going; and asked him to show her the way: finally, beguiling him to accompany her. He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty other queer places. But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant; and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by calling him her cousin. Then the language he had held to her rankled in her heart; she who was always 'love,' and 'darling,' and 'queen,' and 'angel,' with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a stranger! She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father. I explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn't bear that prospect: she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake. After all, she was a sweet little girl.

Chapter 18

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20

In the next twelve years, Cathy Linton grew up to be "the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house". She was fair like a Linton, except for her mother's dark eyes. High-spirited but gentle, she seemed to combine the good qualities of both the Lintons and the Earnshaws, though she was a little saucy because she was accustomed to getting her way. Her father kept her within the park of the Grange, but she dreamed of going to see some cliffs, Penistone Craggs, which were located not too far away on the moor. When Isabella fell ill, she wrote to Edgar to come visit her, so he was gone for three weeks. One day Cathy asked Ellen to give her some food for a ramble around the grounds--she was pretending to be an Arabian merchant going across the desert with her caravan of a pony and three dogs. She left the grounds, however, and later Ellen went after her on the road to Penistone Crags, which passed Wuthering Heights. She found Cathy safe and sound there--Heathcliff wasn't home, and the housekeeper had taken her in-- chattering to Hareton, now 18 years old. After Ellen arrived, Cathy offended Hareton by asking whether he was the master's son, and when he said he wasn't, deciding that he must be a servant. The housekeeper told Cathy that Hareton was her cousin, which made her cry. Hareton offered her a puppy to console her, which she refused. Ellen told Cathy that her father didn't want her to go to Wuthering Heights, and asked her not to tell Edgar about the incident, to which Cathy readily agreed

The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: "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" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his inward agony" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_3_part_4.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20", "summary": "Isabella died, and Edgar returned home with his half-orphaned nephew, Linton, a \"pale, delicate, effeminate boy\" with a \"sickly peevishness\" in his appearance. Cathy was excited to see her cousin, and took to babying him when she saw that he was sickly and childish. That very evening, Joseph came to demand the child on Heathcliff's behalf--Linton was, after all, Heathcliff's son. Ellen told him Edgar was asleep, but Joseph went into Edgar's room and insisted on taking Linton. Edgar wished to keep Linton at the Grange, but could not legally claim him, so he could only put it off until the next morning", "analysis": "The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, \"where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness\" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: \"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\" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding \"a silent combat with his inward agony\" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his \"heart and nerves.\" Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him."}

A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master's return. Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter, and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew. Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back; and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of her 'real' cousin. The evening of their expected arrival came. Since early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now attired in her new black frock--poor thing! her aunt's death impressed her with no definite sorrow--she obliged me, by constant worrying, to walk with her down through the grounds to meet them. 'Linton is just six months younger than I am,' she chattered, as we strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under shadow of the trees. 'How delightful it will be to have him for a playfellow! Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was lighter than mine--more flaxen, and quite as fine. I have it carefully preserved in a little glass box; and I've often thought what a pleasure it would be to see its owner. Oh! I am happy--and papa, dear, dear papa! Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run.' She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was impossible: she couldn't be still a minute. 'How long they are!' she exclaimed. 'Ah, I see, some dust on the road--they are coming! No! When will they be here? May we not go a little way--half a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile? Do say Yes: to that clump of birches at the turn!' I refused staunchly. At length her suspense was ended: the travelling carriage rolled in sight. Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the window. He descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves. While they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton. He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been winter. A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had. The latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to close the door, and leave him undisturbed; for the journey had fatigued him. Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the servants. 'Now, darling,' said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted at the bottom of the front steps: 'your cousin is not so strong or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time since; therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with you directly. And don't harass him much by talking: let him be quiet this evening, at least, will you?' 'Yes, yes, papa,' answered Catherine: 'but I do want to see him; and he hasn't once looked out.' The carriage stopped; and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the ground by his uncle. 'This is your cousin Cathy, Linton,' he said, putting their little hands together. 'She's fond of you already; and mind you don't grieve her by crying to-night. 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.' 'Let me go to bed, then,' answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine's salute; and he put his fingers to remove incipient tears. 'Come, come, there's a good child,' I whispered, leading him in. 'You'll make her weep too--see how sorry she is for you!' 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. All three entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready. I proceeded to remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table; but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh. My master inquired what was the matter. 'I can't sit on a chair,' sobbed the boy. 'Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea,' answered his uncle patiently. He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his fretful ailing charge. Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down. Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side. At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby. This pleased him, for he was not much better: he dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile. 'Oh, he'll do very well,' said the master to me, after watching them a minute. 'Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen. 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.' 'Ay, if we can keep him!' I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be. Our doubts were presently decided--even earlier than I expected. I had just taken the children up-stairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep--he would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case--I had come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with the master. 'I shall ask him what he wants first,' I said, in considerable trepidation. 'A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the instant they have returned from a long journey. I don't think the master can see him.' Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat. 'Good-evening, Joseph,' I said, coldly. 'What business brings you here to-night?' 'It's Maister Linton I mun spake to,' he answered, waving me disdainfully aside. 'Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular to say, I'm sure he won't hear it now,' I continued. 'You had better sit down in there, and entrust your message to me.' 'Which is his rahm?' pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed doors. I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day. Mr. Linton had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition-- 'Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back 'bout him.' Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow overcast his features: he would have pitied the child on his own account; but, 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. No plan offered itself: the very exhibition of any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory: there was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was not going to rouse him from his sleep. 'Tell Mr. Heathcliff,' he answered calmly, 'that his son shall come to Wuthering Heights to-morrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is very precarious.' 'Noa!' said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. 'Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I mun tak' him--soa now ye knaw!' 'You shall not to-night!' answered Linton decisively. 'Walk down stairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have said. Ellen, show him down. Go--' And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room of him and closed the door. 'Varrah weell!' shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. 'To-morn, he's come hisseln, and thrust _him_ out, if ye darr!'

Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20

Isabella died, and Edgar returned home with his half-orphaned nephew, Linton, a "pale, delicate, effeminate boy" with a "sickly peevishness" in his appearance. Cathy was excited to see her cousin, and took to babying him when she saw that he was sickly and childish. That very evening, Joseph came to demand the child on Heathcliff's behalf--Linton was, after all, Heathcliff's son. Ellen told him Edgar was asleep, but Joseph went into Edgar's room and insisted on taking Linton. Edgar wished to keep Linton at the Grange, but could not legally claim him, so he could only put it off until the next morning

The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: "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" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his inward agony" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_3_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 20

chapter 20

{"name": "Chapter 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20", "summary": "The next morning, Ellen woke Linton early and took him over to Wuthering Heights, promising dishonestly that it was only for a little while. Linton was surprised to hear he had a father, since Isabella had never spoken of Heathcliff. When they arrived, Heathcliff and Joseph expressed their contempt for the delicate boy. Heathcliff told Linton that his mother was a \"wicked slut\" because she did not tell Linton about his father. Ellen asked Heathcliff to be kind to the boy, and he said that he would indeed have him carefully tended, mostly because Linton was heir to the Grange, so he wanted him to live at least until Edgar was dead and he inherited. So when Linton refused to eat the homely oatmeal Joseph offered him, Heathcliff ordered that his son be given tea and boiled milk instead. When Ellen left, Linton begged her not to leave him there", "analysis": "The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, \"where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness\" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: \"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\" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding \"a silent combat with his inward agony\" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his \"heart and nerves.\" Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him."}

To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony; and, said he--'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.' Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o'clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling; but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late journey. 'My father!' he cried, in strange perplexity. 'Mamma never told me I had a father. Where does he live? I'd rather stay with uncle.' 'He lives a little distance from the Grange,' I replied; 'just beyond those hills: not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty. And you should be glad to go home, and to see him. You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you.' 'But why have I not heard of him before?' asked Linton. 'Why didn't mamma and he live together, as other people do?' 'He had business to keep him in the north,' I answered, 'and your mother's health required her to reside in the south.' 'And why didn't mamma speak to me about him?' persevered the child. 'She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago. How am I to love papa? I don't know him.' 'Oh, all children love their parents,' I said. 'Your mother, perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you. Let us make haste. An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much preferable to an hour's more sleep.' 'Is _she_ to go with us,' he demanded, 'the little girl I saw yesterday?' 'Not now,' replied I. 'Is uncle?' he continued. 'No, I shall be your companion there,' I said. Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study. 'I won't go without uncle,' he cried at length: 'I can't tell where you mean to take me.' I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to meet his father; still he obstinately resisted any progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance in coaxing him out of bed. The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive assurances that his absence should be short: that Mr. Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally ill-founded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way. The pure heather-scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny, relieved his despondency after a while. He began to put questions concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and liveliness. 'Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?' he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue. '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 what is my father like?' he asked. 'Is he as young and handsome as uncle?' 'He's as young,' said I; 'but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether. He'll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he'll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own.' 'Black hair and eyes!' mused Linton. 'I can't fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I?' 'Not much,' I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyes--his mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit. 'How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me!' he murmured. 'Has he ever seen me? If he has, I must have been a baby. I remember not a single thing about him!' 'Why, Master Linton,' said I, 'three hundred miles is a great distance; and ten years seem very different in length to a grown-up person compared with what they do to you. It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity; and now it is too late. Don't trouble him with questions on the subject: it will disturb him, for no good.' The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden-gate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door. It was half-past six; the family had just finished breakfast: the servant was clearing and wiping down the table. Joseph stood by his master's chair telling some tale concerning a lame horse; and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield. 'Hallo, Nelly!' said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me. 'I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself. You've brought it, have you? Let us see what we can make of it.' He got up and strode to the door: Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping curiosity. Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three. 'Sure-ly,' said Joseph after a grave inspection, 'he's swopped wi' ye, Maister, an' yon's his lass!' Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh. 'God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!' he exclaimed. 'Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that's worse than I expected--and the devil knows I was not sanguine!' I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter. He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or whether it were intended for him: indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father. But he clung to me with growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding him 'come hither' he hid his face on my shoulder and wept. 'Tut, tut!' said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin. 'None of that nonsense! We're not going to hurt thee, Linton--isn't that thy name? Thou art thy mother's child, entirely! Where is my share in thee, puling chicken?' He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector. 'Do you know me?' asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble. 'No,' said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear. 'You've heard of me, I daresay?' 'No,' he replied again. 'No! What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me! You are my son, then, I'll tell you; and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed. Now, don't wince, and colour up! Though it is something to see you have not white blood. Be a good lad; and I'll do for you. Nelly, if you be tired you may sit down; if not, get home again. I guess you'll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and this thing won't be settled while you linger about it.' '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.' 'I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear,' he said, laughing. 'Only nobody else must be kind to him: I'm jealous of monopolising his affection. And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some breakfast. Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work. Yes, Nell,' he added, when they had departed, 'my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his successor. Besides, he's _mine_, and I want the triumph of seeing _my_ descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children to till their fathers' lands for wages. That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives! But that consideration is sufficient: he's as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master tends his own. I have a room up-stairs, furnished for him in handsome style; I've engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from twenty miles' distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn. I've ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I've arranged everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his associates. I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with the whey-faced, whining wretch!' While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milk-porridge, and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw the old man-servant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child; though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour. 'Cannot ate it?' repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. 'But Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little 'un; and what wer gooid enough for him's gooid enough for ye, I's rayther think!' 'I _sha'n't_ eat it!' answered Linton, snappishly. 'Take it away.' Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us. 'Is there aught ails th' victuals?' he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff's nose. 'What should ail them?' he said. 'Wah!' answered Joseph, 'yon dainty chap says he cannut ate 'em. But I guess it's raight! His mother wer just soa--we wer a'most too mucky to sow t' corn for makking her breead.' 'Don't mention his mother to me,' said the master, angrily. 'Get him something that he can eat, that's all. What is his usual food, Nelly?' I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father's selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I'll console Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheep-dog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words-- 'Don't leave me! I'll not stay here! I'll not stay here!' Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief guardianship ended.

Chapter 20

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-16-20

The next morning, Ellen woke Linton early and took him over to Wuthering Heights, promising dishonestly that it was only for a little while. Linton was surprised to hear he had a father, since Isabella had never spoken of Heathcliff. When they arrived, Heathcliff and Joseph expressed their contempt for the delicate boy. Heathcliff told Linton that his mother was a "wicked slut" because she did not tell Linton about his father. Ellen asked Heathcliff to be kind to the boy, and he said that he would indeed have him carefully tended, mostly because Linton was heir to the Grange, so he wanted him to live at least until Edgar was dead and he inherited. So when Linton refused to eat the homely oatmeal Joseph offered him, Heathcliff ordered that his son be given tea and boiled milk instead. When Ellen left, Linton begged her not to leave him there

The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness" But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: "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" . It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom. Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his inward agony" , but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know that Emily Bronte herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness. Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Bronte and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally. Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together under somewhat fraternal conditions. Bronte's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail. We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her daughter's life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy. Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton . The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Bronte distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless 'lady' of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin. Bronte's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him.

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Wuthering Heights.chapter 21

chapter 21

{"name": "Chapter 21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25", "summary": "Cathy missed her cousin when she woke up that morning, but time made her forget him. Linton grew up to be a selfish and disagreeable boy, continually complaining about his health. On Cathy's sixteenth birthday she and Ellen went out on the moors, and strayed onto Heathcliff's land, where he found them. He invited them to come to Wuthering Heights, telling Ellen that he wanted Linton and Cathy to marry so he would be doubly sure of inheriting the Grange. Cathy was glad to see her cousin, though she was somewhat taken back by his invalidish behavior. Hareton, at Heathcliff's request, showed Cathy around the farm, though he was shy of her and she teased him unkindly. Linton mocked Hareton's lack of education in front of Cathy, showing himself to be mean-spirited. Later, Cathy told her father where she had been, and asked him why he had not allowed the cousins to see each other. Heathcliff had told her that Edgar was still angry at him because he thought Heathcliff too poor to marry Isabella. Edgar told her of Heathcliff's wickedness, and forbade her to return to Wuthering Heights. Cathy was unhappy, and began a secret correspondence with Linton. By the time Ellen discovered it, they were writing love letters--affected ones on Linton's part, that Ellen suspected had been partially dictated by Heathcliff. Ellen confronted Cathy and burned the letters, threatening to tell her father if Cathy continued to write to Linton", "analysis": "Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel."}

We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however, 'if I can get him'; and there were no hopes of that. This promise poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him. When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together. There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour: or else lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort. 'And I never know such a fainthearted creature,' added the woman; 'nor one so careful of hisseln. He _will_ go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph's bacca-pipe is poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk, milk for ever--heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter; and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him--Hareton is not bad-natured, though he's rough--they're sure to part, one swearing and the other crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then he won't go into danger of temptation: he never enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him up-stairs directly.' I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village? She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor; she lives there still. Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour. 'So make haste, Ellen!' she cried. 'I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made their nests yet.' 'That must be a good distance up,' I answered; 'they don't breed on the edge of the moor.' 'No, it's not,' she said. 'I've gone very near with papa.' I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content. 'Well,' said I, 'where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be at them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.' 'Oh, a little further--only a little further, Ellen,' was her answer, continually. 'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.' But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself. Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he was reproving the poacher. 'I've neither taken any nor found any,' she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. 'I didn't mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs.' Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who 'papa' was? 'Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,' she replied. 'I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way.' 'You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?' he said, sarcastically. 'And what are you?' inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker. 'That man I've seen before. Is he your son?' She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever. 'Miss Cathy,' I interrupted, 'it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently. We really must go back.' 'No, that man is not my son,' answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside. 'But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house? You'll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome.' I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to the proposal: it was entirely out of the question. 'Why?' she asked, aloud. 'I'm tired of running, and the ground is dewy: I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen his son. He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags. Don't you?' 'I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongue--it will be a treat for her to look in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall walk with me, Nelly.' 'No, she's not going to any such place,' I cried, struggling to release my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the door-stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her appointed companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by the road-side, and vanished. 'Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong,' I continued: 'you know you mean no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever we return; and I shall have the blame.' 'I want her to see Linton,' he answered; 'he's looking better these few days; it's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon persuade her to keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?' '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,' I replied. 'My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole scope,' he said. 'That the two cousins may fall in love, and get married. I'm acting generously to your master: his young chit has no expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton.' 'If Linton died,' I answered, 'and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine would be the heir.' 'No, she would not,' he said. 'There is no clause in the will to secure it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about.' 'And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me again,' I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming. Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path, hastened to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury. Linton stood on the hearth. He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes. He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen. His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun. 'Now, who is that?' asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. 'Can you tell?' 'Your son?' she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the other. 'Yes, yes,' answered he: 'but is this the only time you have beheld him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. Linton, don't you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?' 'What, Linton!' cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name. 'Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! Are you Linton?' The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in the appearance of each. 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. Linton's looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing. After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone. 'And you are my uncle, then!' she cried, reaching up to salute him. 'I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?' 'I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,' he answered. 'There--damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton: they are thrown away on me.' 'Naughty Ellen!' exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses. 'Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering. But I'll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us?' 'Of course,' replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. 'But stay,' he continued, turning towards the young lady. 'Now I think of it, I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he'll put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it.' 'Why did you quarrel?' asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen. '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.' 'That's wrong!' said the young lady: 'some time I'll tell him so. But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come here, then; he shall come to the Grange.' 'It will be too far for me,' murmured her cousin: 'to walk four miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every morning, but once or twice a week.' The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt. 'I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me. 'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!--Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from _her_ love. I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.--Linton!' 'Yes, father,' answered the boy. 'Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.' 'Wouldn't you rather sit here?' asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again. 'I don't know,' she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active. He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered. The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair. 'Oh, I'll ask _you_, uncle,' cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper's assertion. 'That is not my cousin, is he?' 'Yes,' he, replied, 'your mother's nephew. Don't you like him!' Catherine looked queer. 'Is he not a handsome lad?' he continued. The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming-- 'You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a--What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use any bad words; and don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can.' He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation. 'I've tied his tongue,' observed Heathcliff. 'He'll not venture a single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect me at his age--nay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid: so "gaumless," as Joseph calls it?' 'Worse,' I replied, 'because more sullen with it.' 'I've a pleasure in him,' he continued, reflecting aloud. 'He has satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself. 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. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak. Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine. 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. _Mine_ has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. _His_ had first-rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing. I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own that I've outmatched Hindley there. 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!' Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply, because I saw that he expected none. Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue. His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap. 'Get up, you idle boy!' he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness. 'Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives.' Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown. 'It's some damnable writing,' he answered. 'I cannot read it.' 'Can't read it?' cried Catherine; 'I can read it: it's English. But I want to know why it is there.' Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited. 'He does not know his letters,' he said to his cousin. 'Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?' 'Is he all as he should be?' asked Miss Cathy, seriously; 'or is he simple: not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can hardly understand him, I'm sure!' 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: my giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of amusement. 'Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?' tittered Linton. 'Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!' 'If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!' retorted the angry boor, retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification! for he was conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it. Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door-way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill-nature they evinced. I began to dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap. We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner; but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted: but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them. 'Aha!' she cried, 'you take papa's side, Ellen: you are partial I know; or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really extremely angry; only I'm so pleased I can't show it! But you must hold your tongue about _my_ uncle; he's my uncle, remember; and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with him.' And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night, because she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin; and still I was not altogether sorry: I thought the burden of directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me. But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will. 'Papa!' she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, 'guess whom I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started! you've not done right, have you, now? I saw--but listen, and you shall hear how I found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about Linton's coming back!' She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences; and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy? 'It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff,' she answered. 'Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy?' he said. '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. I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my account; so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again. I meant to explain this some time as you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it.' 'But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa,' observed Catherine, not at all convinced; 'and he didn't object to our seeing each other: he said I might come to his house when I pleased; only I must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella. And you won't. _You_ are the one to be blamed: he is willing to let us be friends, at least; Linton and I; and you are not.' My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her uncle-in-law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's death. 'She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him!' was his constant bitter reflection; and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer. Miss Cathy--conversant with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed--was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view of human nature--excluded from all her studies and all her ideas till now--that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject. He merely added: 'You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and family; now return to your old employments and amusements, and think no more about them.' Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside. 'Oh, fie, silly child!' I exclaimed. 'If you had any real griefs you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine. Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world: how would you feel, then? Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more.' 'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen,' she answered, 'it's for him. He expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he'll be so disappointed: and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come!' 'Nonsense!' said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no further about you.' 'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?' she asked, rising to her feet. 'And just send those books I promised to lend him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen?' 'No, indeed! no, indeed!' replied I with decision. 'Then he would write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see that it is done.' 'But how can one little note--?' she recommenced, putting on an imploring countenance. 'Silence!' I interrupted. 'We'll not begin with your little notes. Get into bed.' She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my entrance. 'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine,' I said, 'if you write it; and at present I shall put out your candle.' I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my hand and a petulant 'cross thing!' I then quitted her again, and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came from the village; but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards. Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it. One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence--daily almost, it must have been--from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love-letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer. Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin's: very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single 'Oh!' and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance. Mr. Linton looked up. 'What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?' he said. His tone and look assured her _he_ had not been the discoverer of the hoard. 'No, papa!' she gasped. 'Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs--I'm sick!' I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out. 'Oh, Ellen! you have got them,' she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. 'Oh, give them to me, and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa, Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do it any more!' With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up. 'So,' I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems: you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him? I hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you must have led the way in writing such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain.' 'I didn't! I didn't!' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. 'I didn't once think of loving him till--' '_Loving_!' cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. '_Loving_! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the library; and we'll see what your father says to such _loving_.' She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them--do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scold--for I esteemed it all girlish vanity--I at length relented in a measure, and asked,--'If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?' 'We don't send playthings,' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame. 'Nor anything at all, then, my lady?' I said. 'Unless you will, here I go.' 'I promise, Ellen!' she cried, catching my dress. 'Oh, put them in the fire, do, do!' But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two. 'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!' I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney. 'I will have one, you cruel wretch!' she screamed, darting her hand into the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the expense of her fingers. 'Very well--and I will have some to exhibit to papa!' I answered, shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door. She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to finish the immolation. It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, 'Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them.' And, henceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets.

Chapter 21

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25

Cathy missed her cousin when she woke up that morning, but time made her forget him. Linton grew up to be a selfish and disagreeable boy, continually complaining about his health. On Cathy's sixteenth birthday she and Ellen went out on the moors, and strayed onto Heathcliff's land, where he found them. He invited them to come to Wuthering Heights, telling Ellen that he wanted Linton and Cathy to marry so he would be doubly sure of inheriting the Grange. Cathy was glad to see her cousin, though she was somewhat taken back by his invalidish behavior. Hareton, at Heathcliff's request, showed Cathy around the farm, though he was shy of her and she teased him unkindly. Linton mocked Hareton's lack of education in front of Cathy, showing himself to be mean-spirited. Later, Cathy told her father where she had been, and asked him why he had not allowed the cousins to see each other. Heathcliff had told her that Edgar was still angry at him because he thought Heathcliff too poor to marry Isabella. Edgar told her of Heathcliff's wickedness, and forbade her to return to Wuthering Heights. Cathy was unhappy, and began a secret correspondence with Linton. By the time Ellen discovered it, they were writing love letters--affected ones on Linton's part, that Ellen suspected had been partially dictated by Heathcliff. Ellen confronted Cathy and burned the letters, threatening to tell her father if Cathy continued to write to Linton

Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/23.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_4_part_2.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 22

chapter 22

{"name": "Chapter 22", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25", "summary": "That fall, Edgar caught a cold that confined him to the house all winter. Cathy grew sadder after the end of her little romance, and told Ellen that she was afraid of being alone after Ellen and her father die. Taking a walk, Cathy ended up briefly stranded outside of the wall of the park, when Heathcliff rode by. He told her that Linton was dying of a broken heart, and that if she were kind, she would visit him. Ellen told her that Heathcliff was probably lying and couldn't be trusted, but the next day Cathy persuaded her to accompany her on a visit to Wuthering Heights", "analysis": "Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel."}

Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission. Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his. On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November--a fresh watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds--dark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain--I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers. She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited--and that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs--my nursery lore--to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express. 'Look, Miss!' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree. 'Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?' Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length--'No, I'll not touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?' 'Yes,' I observed, 'about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you.' 'No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face. 'Catherine, why are you crying, love?' I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder. 'You mustn't cry because papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.' She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs. 'Oh, it will be something worse,' she said. 'And what shall I do when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words, Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead.' 'None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied. 'It's wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?' 'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation. 'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied. 'She wasn't as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy! I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make.' 'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness,' answered my companion. 'I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll never--never--oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him. 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.' 'Good words,' I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.' As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes and black-berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending. I, like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming--'Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side!' 'Stay where you are,' I answered; 'I have my bundle of keys in my pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go.' Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped also. 'Who is that?' I whispered. 'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my companion, anxiously. 'Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain.' 'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine. 'Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the same.' 'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. (He it was.) 'I don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns out. 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. Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily; and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!' 'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?' I called from the inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger.' 'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your double-dealing,' he added aloud. 'How could _you_ lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save him!' The lock gave way and I issued out. 'I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. 'And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin.' 'Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit. He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed--'Miss Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call.' I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness. Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true. The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together; and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had produced: it was just what he intended. 'You may be right, Ellen,' she answered; 'but I shall never feel at ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't write, and convince him that I shall not change.' What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We parted that night--hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was founded on fact.

Chapter 22

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25

That fall, Edgar caught a cold that confined him to the house all winter. Cathy grew sadder after the end of her little romance, and told Ellen that she was afraid of being alone after Ellen and her father die. Taking a walk, Cathy ended up briefly stranded outside of the wall of the park, when Heathcliff rode by. He told her that Linton was dying of a broken heart, and that if she were kind, she would visit him. Ellen told her that Heathcliff was probably lying and couldn't be trusted, but the next day Cathy persuaded her to accompany her on a visit to Wuthering Heights

Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/24.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_4_part_3.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 23

chapter 23

{"name": "Chapter 23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25", "summary": "At Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Ellen heard \"a peevish voice\" calling Joseph for more hot coals for the fire. Following the sound of the voice, they discovered Linton, who greeted them rather ungraciously: \"No don't kiss me. It takes my breath dear me. He complained that writing to Cathy had been very tiring, and that the servants didn't take care of him as they ought, and that he hated them. He said that he wished Cathy would marry him, because wives always loved their husbands, upon which Cathy answered that this was not always so. Her father had told her that Isabella had not loved Heathcliff. Upon hearing this, Linton became angry and answered that Catherine's mother had loved Heathcliff and not Edgar. Cathy pushed his chair and he coughed for a long time, for which she was very sorry. Linton took advantage of her regret and bullied her like a true hypochondriac, making her promise to return the next day to nurse him. When Cathy and Ellen were on their way home, Ellen expressed her disapproval of Linton and said he would die young--a \"small loss\". She added that Cathy should on no account marry him. Cathy was not so sure he would die, and was much more friendly toward him. Ellen caught a cold and was confined to her room. Cathy spent almost all her time taking care of her and Edgar, but she was free in the evenings. As Ellen later found out, she used this time to visit Linton", "analysis": "Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel."}

The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning--half frost, half drizzle--and temporary brooks crossed our path--gurgling from the uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own affirmation. Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder. 'Na--ay!' he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. 'Na--ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough.' 'Joseph!' cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner room. 'How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now. Joseph! come this moment.' Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew Linton's tones, and entered. 'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death!' said the boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant. He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him. 'Is that you, Miss Linton?' he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'No--don't kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those--those _detestable_ creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold!' I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper. 'Well, Linton,' murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, 'are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?' 'Why didn't you come before?' he asked. 'You should have come, instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you' (looking at me) 'step into the kitchen and see?' I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied--'Nobody is out there but Joseph.' 'I want to drink,' he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable! And I'm obliged to come down here--they resolved never to hear me up-stairs.' 'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?' I asked, perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances. 'Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,' he cried. 'The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.' Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind. 'And are you glad to see me?' asked she, reiterating her former question and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile. 'Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours!' he replied. 'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you don't despise me, do you, Miss--?' 'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young lady. 'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?' 'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help me, wouldn't you?' 'Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother.' 'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he, more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that.' 'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely. '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.' Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false. 'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly. '_My_ papa scorns yours!' cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking fool.' 'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did.' 'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me.' 'She did,' cried my young lady. 'Well, I'll tell you something!' said Linton. 'Your mother hated your father: now then.' 'Oh!' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue. 'And she loved mine,' added he. 'You little liar! I hate you now!' she panted, and her face grew red with passion. 'She did! she did!' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant, who stood behind. 'Hush, Master Heathcliff!' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too, I suppose.' 'It isn't: you hold your tongue!' he answered. 'She did, she did, Catherine! she did, she did!' Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire. 'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired, after waiting ten minutes. 'I wish _she_ felt as I do,' he replied: 'spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was better to-day: and there--' his voice died in a whimper. '_I_ didn't strike you!' muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent another burst of emotion. He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice. 'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton,' she said at length, racked beyond endurance. 'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you, Linton? Don't let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! speak to me.' 'I can't speak to you,' he murmured; 'you've hurt me so that I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd know what it was; but _you'll_ be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights!' And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself. 'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,' I said, 'it won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she never come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get quieter when we leave you.' 'Must I go?' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. 'Do you want me to go, Linton?' 'You can't alter what you've done,' he replied pettishly, shrinking from her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever.' 'Well, then, I must go?' she repeated. 'Let me alone, at least,' said he; 'I can't bear your talking.' She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her. 'I shall lift him on to the settle,' I said, 'and he may roll about as he pleases: we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then, there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still.' She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably. 'I can't do with that,' he said; 'it's not high enough.' Catherine brought another to lay above it. 'That's too high,' murmured the provoking thing. 'How must I arrange it, then?' she asked despairingly. He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support. 'No, that won't do,' I said. 'You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot remain five minutes longer.' 'Yes, yes, we can!' replied Cathy. 'He's good and patient now. He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn't come, if I have hurt you.' 'You must come, to cure me,' he answered. 'You ought to come, because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when you entered as I am at present--was I?' 'But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.--I didn't do it all,' said his cousin. 'However, we'll be friends now. And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?' 'I told you I did,' he replied impatiently. 'Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together. Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad--one of those you promised to teach me; or a story. I'd rather have a ballad, though: begin.' Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner. 'And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?' asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly. 'No,' I answered, 'nor next day neither.' She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear. 'You won't go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!' I commenced, when we were out of the house. 'You are not dreaming of it, are you?' She smiled. 'Oh, I'll take good care,' I continued: 'I'll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else.' 'I can get over the wall,' she said laughing. 'The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost seventeen: I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling when he's good. I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other? Don't you like him, Ellen?' 'Like him!' I exclaimed. 'The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.' My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings. 'He's younger than I,' she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, 'and he ought to live the longest: he will--he must live as long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north; I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?' 'Well, well,' I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves; for listen, Miss,--and mind, I'll keep my word,--if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived.' 'It has been revived,' muttered Cathy, sulkily. 'Must not be continued, then,' I said. 'We'll see,' was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear. We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since. My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers, instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.

Chapter 23

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25

At Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Ellen heard "a peevish voice" calling Joseph for more hot coals for the fire. Following the sound of the voice, they discovered Linton, who greeted them rather ungraciously: "No don't kiss me. It takes my breath dear me. He complained that writing to Cathy had been very tiring, and that the servants didn't take care of him as they ought, and that he hated them. He said that he wished Cathy would marry him, because wives always loved their husbands, upon which Cathy answered that this was not always so. Her father had told her that Isabella had not loved Heathcliff. Upon hearing this, Linton became angry and answered that Catherine's mother had loved Heathcliff and not Edgar. Cathy pushed his chair and he coughed for a long time, for which she was very sorry. Linton took advantage of her regret and bullied her like a true hypochondriac, making her promise to return the next day to nurse him. When Cathy and Ellen were on their way home, Ellen expressed her disapproval of Linton and said he would die young--a "small loss". She added that Cathy should on no account marry him. Cathy was not so sure he would die, and was much more friendly toward him. Ellen caught a cold and was confined to her room. Cathy spent almost all her time taking care of her and Edgar, but she was free in the evenings. As Ellen later found out, she used this time to visit Linton

Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/26.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_4_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 25

chapter 25

{"name": "Chapter 25", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25", "summary": "Chapter 25", "analysis": "Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel."}

'These things happened last winter, sir,' said Mrs. Dean; 'hardly more than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months' end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them! Yet, who knows how long you'll be a stranger? You're too young to rest always contented, living by yourself; and I some way fancy no one could see Catherine Linton and not love her. You smile; but why do you look so lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why--?' 'Stop, my good friend!' I cried. 'It may be very possible that _I_ should love her; but would she love me? I doubt it too much to venture my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my home is not here. I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was Catherine obedient to her father's commands?' 'She was,' continued the housekeeper. 'Her affection for him was still the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger: he spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he could bequeath to guide her. He said to me, a few days afterwards, "I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell me, sincerely, what you think of him: is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect of improvement, as he grows a man?" '"He's very delicate, sir," I replied; "and scarcely likely to reach manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his father; and if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond her control: unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent. However, master, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him and see whether he would suit her: it wants four years and more to his being of age."' Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and the sparely-scattered gravestones. 'I've prayed often,' he half soliloquised, 'for the approach of what is coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it. I thought the memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks, to be carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow! 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. What can I do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I'd not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff's son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss. I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should Linton be unworthy--only a feeble tool to his father--I cannot abandon her to him! 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. Darling! I'd rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.' 'Resign her to God as it is, sir,' I answered, 'and if we should lose you--which may He forbid--under His providence, I'll stand her friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don't fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.' Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt sure of his recovering. On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed--'You'll surely not go out to-night, sir?' He answered,--'No, I'll defer it this year a little longer.' He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and, had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would have permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange; but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided. That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own. Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company, then. 'I do not ask,' he said, 'that she may visit here; but am I never to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her towards the Heights; and let us exchange a few words, in your presence! We have done nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me: you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself. Dear uncle! send me a kind note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross Grange. I believe an interview would convince you that my father's character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also. You inquire after my health--it is better; but while I remain cut off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?' Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his request; because he could not accompany Catherine. He said, in summer, perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family. Linton complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations: but his father kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with empty promises. Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining. Though he had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain--or at least return in a short time to--the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had any one, I believe: no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursuing his object. I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened with defeat by death.

Chapter 25

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-25

Chapter 25

Trespassing becomes an important issue in this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton, just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild, dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration, such as Cathy Linton's first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered. Often in literature, land and women are identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange. See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a discussion of children left alone in the world--Cathy Linton is not the only character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions, and has nothing to do with Edgar's relationshipwith his daughter. Emily Bronte was especially conscious of the position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother, like Cathy's mother, died when she was very young, and Emily's older sister Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby birds that died of starvation after Heathcliff caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Bronte's continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival. In this chapter, Bronte explores the intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful. The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters. However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However, the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be carelessly equated. Ellen points out to Lockwood that these events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues with the narrative. Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him--Cathy would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton, asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved. Edgar could not consent, because he could not walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without complaining about his health and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to leave the Grange when he died--but he would not have wished it if he knew that Linton was dying as fast as he was. The prominent presence of tuberculosis in this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to be the cause of Bronte's own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley's wife Frances tried hard to pretend that she was not sick. In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Bronte lays the groundwork for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the novel.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/27.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_5_part_1.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 26

chapter 26

{"name": "Chapter 26", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30", "summary": "When Ellen and Cathy rode to meet Linton, they had to go quite close to Wuthering Heights to find him. He was evidently very ill, though he claimed to be better: \"his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them, transforming to haggard wildness, the languid expression they once possessed\". Linton had a hard time making conversation with Cathy, and was clearly not enjoying their talk, so she decided to leave. Surprisingly, Linton then looked anxiously towards Wuthering Heights and begged her to stay longer, and to tell her father he was in \"tolerable health\". Cathy half-heartedly agreed, and Linton soon fell into some kind of slumber. He woke suddenly and seemed to be terrified that his father might come. Eventually, Cathy and Ellen returned home, perplexed by his strange behavior", "analysis": "This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been \"dissolved into earth, or worse\" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell \"which is which\" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship."}

Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads. On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,--'Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights: and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.' 'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,' I observed: 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once.' 'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,' answered my companion; 'our excursion shall lie towards home.' But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--'Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning. How ill you do look!' Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse than usual? 'No--better--better!' he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed. 'But you have been worse,' persisted his cousin; 'worse than when I saw you last; you are thinner, and--' 'I'm tired,' he interrupted, hurriedly. 'It is too hot for walking, let us rest here. And, in the morning, I often feel sick--papa says I grow so fast.' Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her. 'This is something like your paradise,' said she, making an effort at cheerfulness. 'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park, and try mine.' Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal, unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would remain another half-hour, at least. 'But I think,' said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six months; you have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I could amuse you, I'd willingly stay.' 'Stay to rest yourself,' he replied. 'And, Catherine, don't think or say that I'm _very_ unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that make me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me. Tell uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?' 'I'll tell him that _you_ say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you are,' observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of what was evidently an untruth. 'And be here again next Thursday,' continued he, shunning her puzzled gaze. 'And give him my thanks for permitting you to come--my best thanks, Catherine. And--and, if you _did_ meet my father, and he asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely silent and stupid: don't look sad and downcast, as you are doing--he'll be angry.' 'I care nothing for his anger,' exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be its object. 'But I do,' said her cousin, shuddering. '_Don't_ provoke him against me, Catherine, for he is very hard.' 'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired. 'Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred?' Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me: she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and annoy. 'Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?' she whispered in my ear, at last. 'I can't tell why we should stay. He's asleep, and papa will be wanting us back.' 'Well, we must not leave him asleep,' I answered; 'wait till he wakes, and be patient. You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated!' 'Why did _he_ wish to see me?' returned Catherine. 'In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious mood. It's just as if it were a task he was compelled to perform--this interview--for fear his father should scold him. But I'm hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure; whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance. And, though I'm glad he's better in health, I'm sorry he's so much less pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me.' 'You think _he is_ better in health, then?' I said. 'Yes,' she answered; 'because he always made such a great deal of his sufferings, you know. He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell papa; but he's better, very likely.' 'There you differ with me, Miss Cathy,' I remarked; 'I should conjecture him to be far worse.' Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if any one had called his name. 'No,' said Catherine; 'unless in dreams. I cannot conceive how you manage to doze out of doors, in the morning.' 'I thought I heard my father,' he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us. 'You are sure nobody spoke?' 'Quite sure,' replied his cousin. 'Only Ellen and I were disputing concerning your health. Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we separated in winter? If you be, I'm certain one thing is not stronger--your regard for me: speak,--are you?' The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered, 'Yes, yes, I am!' And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner. Cathy rose. 'For to-day we must part,' she said. 'And I won't conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting; though I'll mention it to nobody but you: not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff.' 'Hush,' murmured Linton; 'for God's sake, hush! He's coming.' And he clung to Catherine's arm, striving to detain her; but at that announcement she hastily disengaged herself, and whistled to Minny, who obeyed her like a dog. 'I'll be here next Thursday,' she cried, springing to the saddle. 'Good-bye. Quick, Ellen!' And so we left him, scarcely conscious of our departure, so absorbed was he in anticipating his father's approach. Before we reached home, Catherine's displeasure softened into a perplexed sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague, uneasy doubts about Linton's actual circumstances, physical and social: in which I partook, though I counselled her not to say much; for a second journey would make us better judges. My master requested an account of our ongoings. His nephew's offering of thanks was duly delivered, Miss Cathy gently touching on the rest: I also threw little light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide and what to reveal.

Chapter 26

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30

When Ellen and Cathy rode to meet Linton, they had to go quite close to Wuthering Heights to find him. He was evidently very ill, though he claimed to be better: "his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them, transforming to haggard wildness, the languid expression they once possessed". Linton had a hard time making conversation with Cathy, and was clearly not enjoying their talk, so she decided to leave. Surprisingly, Linton then looked anxiously towards Wuthering Heights and begged her to stay longer, and to tell her father he was in "tolerable health". Cathy half-heartedly agreed, and Linton soon fell into some kind of slumber. He woke suddenly and seemed to be terrified that his father might come. Eventually, Cathy and Ellen returned home, perplexed by his strange behavior

This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been "dissolved into earth, or worse" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/28.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_5_part_2.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 27

chapter 27

{"name": "Chapter 27", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30", "summary": "A week later, Ellen and Cathy were to visit Linton again. Edgar was much sicker, and Cathy didn't want to leave him, but he encouraged her relationship with Linton, hoping to ensure his daughter's welfare thereby. Linton \"received us with greater animation on this occasion; not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like fear\". Cathy was angry that she had had to leave her father, and she was disgusted by Linton's abject admissions of terror of his father. Heathcliff came upon them, and asked Ellen how much longer Edgar had to live: he was worried that Linton would die before Edgar, thus preventing the marriage. Heathcliff then ordered Linton to get up and bring Cathy into the house, which he did, against Cathy's will: \"Linton. implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial\". Heathcliff pushed Ellen into the house as well and locked the door behind them. When Cathy protested that she must get home to her father, Heathcliff slapped her brutally and made it clear that she wouldn't leave Wuthering Heights until she married Linton. Linton showed his true character: as Heathcliff said, \"He'll undertake to torture any number of cats if their teeth be drawn, and their claws pared\". Cathy and Heathcliff declared their mutual hatred. Ellen remained imprisoned separately from Cathy for five days with Hareton as her jailer: he gave her food but refused to speak to her beyond what was necessary. She did not know what was happening to Cathy", "analysis": "This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been \"dissolved into earth, or worse\" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell \"which is which\" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship."}

Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth rapid alteration of Edgar Linton's state. The havoc that months had previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours. Catherine we would fain have deluded yet; but her own quick spirit refused to delude her: it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful probability, gradually ripening into certainty. She had not the heart to mention her ride, when Thursday came round; I mentioned it for her, and obtained permission to order her out of doors: for the library, where her father stopped a short time daily--the brief period he could bear to sit up--and his chamber, had become her whole world. She grudged each moment that did not find her bending over his pillow, or seated by his side. Her countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my master gladly dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a happy change of scene and society; drawing comfort from the hope that she would not now be left entirely alone after his death. He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall, that, as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in mind; for Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character. And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from correcting the error; asking myself what good there would be in disturbing his last moments with information that he had neither power nor opportunity to turn to account. We deferred our excursion till the afternoon; a golden afternoon of August: every breath from the hills so full of life, that it seemed whoever respired it, though dying, might revive. Catherine's face was just like the landscape--shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient; and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that passing forgetfulness of its cares. We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected before. My young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was resolved to stay a very little while, I had better hold the pony and remain on horseback; but I dissented: I wouldn't risk losing sight of the charge committed to me a minute; so we climbed the slope of heath together. Master Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this occasion: not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like fear. 'It is late!' he said, speaking short and with difficulty. 'Is not your father very ill? I thought you wouldn't come.' '_Why_ won't you be candid?' cried Catherine, swallowing her greeting. 'Why cannot you say at once you don't want me? It is strange, Linton, that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose, apparently to distress us both, and for no reason besides!' Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half ashamed; but his cousin's patience was not sufficient to endure this enigmatical behaviour. 'My father _is_ very ill,' she said; 'and why am I called from his bedside? Why didn't you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn't keep it? Come! I desire an explanation: playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can't dance attendance on your affectations now!' 'My affectations!' he murmured; 'what are they? For heaven's sake, Catherine, don't look so angry! Despise me as much as you please; I am a worthless, cowardly wretch: I can't be scorned enough; but I'm too mean for your anger. Hate my father, and spare me for contempt.' 'Nonsense!' cried Catherine in a passion. 'Foolish, silly boy! And there! he trembles: as if I were really going to touch him! You needn't bespeak contempt, Linton: anybody will have it spontaneously at your service. Get off! I shall return home: it is folly dragging you from the hearth-stone, and pretending--what do we pretend? Let go my frock! If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn such pity. Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is. Rise, and don't degrade yourself into an abject reptile--_don't_!' With streaming face and an expression of agony, Linton had thrown his nerveless frame along the ground: he seemed convulsed with exquisite terror. 'Oh!' he sobbed, 'I cannot bear it! Catherine, Catherine, I'm a traitor, too, and I dare not tell you! But leave me, and I shall be killed! _Dear_ Catherine, my life is in your hands: and you have said you loved me, and if you did, it wouldn't harm you. You'll not go, then? kind, sweet, good Catherine! And perhaps you _will_ consent--and he'll let me die with you!' My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise him. The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and she grew thoroughly moved and alarmed. 'Consent to what?' she asked. 'To stay! tell me the meaning of this strange talk, and I will. You contradict your own words, and distract me! Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart. You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you? You wouldn't let any enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it? I'll believe you are a coward, for yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend.' 'But my father threatened me,' gasped the boy, clasping his attenuated fingers, 'and I dread him--I dread him! I _dare_ not tell!' 'Oh, well!' said Catherine, with scornful compassion, 'keep your secret: _I'm_ no coward. Save yourself: I'm not afraid!' Her magnanimity provoked his tears: he wept wildly, kissing her supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out. I was cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my good will; when, hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff almost close upon us, descending the Heights. He didn't cast a glance towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton's sobs to be audible; but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn't avoid doubting, he said-- 'It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly. How are you at the Grange? Let us hear. The rumour goes,' he added, in a lower tone, 'that Edgar Linton is on his death-bed: perhaps they exaggerate his illness?' 'No; my master is dying,' I replied: 'it is true enough. A sad thing it will be for us all, but a blessing for him!' 'How long will he last, do you think?' he asked. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Because,' he continued, looking at the two young people, who were fixed under his eye--Linton appeared as if he could not venture to stir or raise his head, and Catherine could not move, on his account--'because that lad yonder seems determined to beat me; and I'd thank his uncle to be quick, and go before him! Hallo! has the whelp been playing that game long? I _did_ give him some lessons about snivelling. Is he pretty lively with Miss Linton generally?' 'Lively? no--he has shown the greatest distress,' I answered. 'To see him, I should say, that instead of rambling with his sweetheart on the hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor.' 'He shall be, in a day or two,' muttered Heathcliff. 'But first--get up, Linton! Get up!' he shouted. 'Don't grovel on the ground there up, this moment!' Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless fear, caused by his father's glance towards him, I suppose: there was nothing else to produce such humiliation. He made several efforts to obey, but his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell back again with a moan. Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean against a ridge of turf. 'Now,' said he, with curbed ferocity, 'I'm getting angry and if you don't command that paltry spirit of yours--_damn_ you! get up directly!' 'I will, father,' he panted. 'Only, let me alone, or I shall faint. I've done as you wished, I'm sure. Catherine will tell you that I--that I--have been cheerful. Ah! keep by me, Catherine; give me your hand.' 'Take mine,' said his father; 'stand on your feet. There now--she'll lend you her arm: that's right, look at her. You would imagine I was the devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror. Be so kind as to walk home with him, will you? He shudders if I touch him.' 'Linton dear!' whispered Catherine, 'I can't go to Wuthering Heights: papa has forbidden me. He'll not harm you: why are you so afraid?' 'I can never re-enter that house,' he answered. 'I'm _not_ to re-enter it without you!' 'Stop!' cried his father. 'We'll respect Catherine's filial scruples. Nelly, take him in, and I'll follow your advice concerning the doctor, without delay.' 'You'll do well,' replied I. 'But I must remain with my mistress: to mind your son is not my business.' 'You are very stiff,' said Heathcliff, 'I know that: but you'll force me to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your charity. Come, then, my hero. Are you willing to return, escorted by me?' He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial. However I disapproved, I couldn't hinder her: indeed, how could she have refused him herself? What was filling him with dread we had no means of discerning; but there he was, powerless under its grip, and any addition seemed capable of shocking him into idiotcy. We reached the threshold; Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed--'My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable to-day: sit down, and allow me to shut the door.' He shut and locked it also. I started. 'You shall have tea before you go home,' he added. 'I am by myself. Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are off on a journey of pleasure; and, though I'm used to being alone, I'd rather have some interesting company, if I can get it. Miss Linton, take your seat by _him_. I give you what I have: the present is hardly worth accepting; but I have nothing else to offer. It is Linton, I mean. How she does stare! It's odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me! Had I been born where laws are less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement.' He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, 'By hell! I hate them.' 'I am not afraid of you!' exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear the latter part of his speech. She stepped close up; her black eyes flashing with passion and resolution. 'Give me that key: I will have it!' she said. 'I wouldn't eat or drink here, if I were starving.' Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table. He looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness; or, possibly, reminded, by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited it. She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out of his loosened fingers: but her action recalled him to the present; he recovered it speedily. 'Now, Catherine Linton,' he said, 'stand off, or I shall knock you down; and, that will make Mrs. Dean mad.' Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents again. 'We _will_ go!' she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause the iron muscles to relax; and finding that her nails made no impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply. Heathcliff glanced at me a glance that kept me from interfering a moment. Catherine was too intent on his fingers to notice his face. He opened them suddenly, and resigned the object of dispute; but, ere she had well secured it, he seized her with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall. At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously. 'You villain!' I began to cry, 'you villain!' A touch on the chest silenced me: I am stout, and soon put out of breath; and, what with that and the rage, I staggered dizzily back and felt ready to suffocate, or to burst a blood-vessel. The scene was over in two minutes; Catherine, released, put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not sure whether her ears were off or on. She trembled like a reed, poor thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered. 'I know how to chastise children, you see,' said the scoundrel, grimly, as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped to the floor. 'Go to Linton now, as I told you; and cry at your ease! I shall be your father, to-morrow--all the father you'll have in a few days--and you shall have plenty of that. You can bear plenty; you're no weakling: you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again!' Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that the correction had alighted on another than him. Mr. Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea himself. The cups and saucers were laid ready. He poured it out, and handed me a cup. 'Wash away your spleen,' he said. 'And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. I'm going out to seek your horses.' Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere. We tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside: we looked at the windows--they were too narrow for even Cathy's little figure. 'Master Linton,' I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, 'you know what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or I'll box your ears, as he has done your cousin's.' 'Yes, Linton, you must tell,' said Catherine. 'It was for your sake I came; and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse.' 'Give me some tea, I'm thirsty, and then I'll tell you,' he answered. 'Mrs. Dean, go away. I don't like you standing over me. Now, Catherine, you are letting your tears fall into my cup. I won't drink that. Give me another.' Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face. I felt disgusted at the little wretch's composure, since he was no longer in terror for himself. The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights; so I guessed he had been menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us there; and, that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears. 'Papa wants us to be married,' he continued, after sipping some of the liquid. 'And he knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now; and he's afraid of my dying if we wait; so we are to be married in the morning, and you are to stay here all night; and, if you do as he wishes, you shall return home next day, and take me with you.' 'Take you with her, pitiful changeling!' I exclaimed. '_You_ marry? Why, the man is mad! or he thinks us fools, every one. And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you? Are you cherishing the notion that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband? You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your dastardly puling tricks: and--don't look so silly, now! I've a very good mind to shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile conceit.' I did give him a slight shaking; but it brought on the cough, and he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine rebuked me. 'Stay all night? No,' she said, looking slowly round. 'Ellen, I'll burn that door down but I'll get out.' And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly, but Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again. He clasped her in his two feeble arms sobbing:--'Won't you have me, and save me? not let me come to the Grange? Oh, darling Catherine! you mustn't go and leave, after all. You _must_ obey my father--you _must_!' '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!' The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored to the boy his coward's eloquence. Catherine was near distraught: still, she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn, persuading him to subdue his selfish agony. While they were thus occupied, our jailor re-entered. 'Your beasts have trotted off,' he said, 'and--now Linton! snivelling again? What has she been doing to you? Come, come--have done, and get to bed. In a month or two, my lad, you'll be able to pay her back her present tyrannies with a vigorous hand. You're pining for pure love, are you not? nothing else in the world: and she shall have you! There, to bed! Zillah won't be here to-night; you must undress yourself. Hush! hold your noise! Once in your own room, I'll not come near you: you needn't fear. By chance, you've managed tolerably. I'll look to the rest.' He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and the latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze. The lock was re-secured. Heathcliff approached the fire, where my mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up, and instinctively raised her hand to her cheek: his neighbourhood revived a painful sensation. Anybody else would have been incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness, but he scowled on her and muttered--'Oh! you are not afraid of me? Your courage is well disguised: you seem damnably afraid!' 'I _am_ afraid now,' she replied, 'because, if I stay, papa will be miserable: and how can I endure making him miserable--when he--when he--Mr. Heathcliff, let _me_ go home! 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?' 'Let him dare to force you,' I cried. 'There's law in the land, thank God! there is; though we be in an out-of-the-way place. I'd inform if he were my own son: and it's felony without benefit of clergy!' 'Silence!' said the ruffian. 'To the devil with your clamour! I don't want _you_ to speak. Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow. 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.' 'Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I'm safe!' exclaimed Catherine, weeping bitterly. 'Or marry me now. Poor papa! Ellen, he'll think we're lost. What shall we do?' 'Not he! He'll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off for a little amusement,' answered Heathcliff. 'You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to the contrary. And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement at your age; and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that man _only_ your father. Catherine, his happiest days were over when your days began. He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did, at least); and it would just do if he cursed you as _he_ went out of it. I'd join him. I don't love you! How should I? Weep away. As far as I can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter; unless Linton make amends for other losses: and your provident parent appears to fancy he may. His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly. In his last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his; and kind to her when he got her. Careful and kind--that's paternal. But Linton requires his whole stock of care and kindness for himself. Linton can play the little tyrant well. He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, if their teeth be drawn and their claws pared. You'll be able to tell his uncle fine tales of his _kindness_, when you get home again, I assure you.' 'You're right there!' I said; 'explain your son's character. Show his resemblance to yourself: and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think twice before she takes the cockatrice!' 'I don't much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now,' he answered; 'because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along with her, till your master dies. I can detain you both, quite concealed, here. If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and you'll have an opportunity of judging!' 'I'll not retract my word,' said Catherine. 'I'll marry him within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards. 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. If papa thought I had left him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live? I've given over crying: but I'm going to kneel here, at your knee; and I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face till you look back at me! No, don't turn away! _do look_! you'll see nothing to provoke you. I don't hate you. I'm not angry that you struck me. Have you never loved _anybody_ in all your life, uncle? _never_? Ah! you must look once. I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me.' 'Keep your eft's fingers off; and move, or I'll kick you!' cried Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. 'I'd rather be hugged by a snake. How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I _detest_ you!' He shrugged his shoulders: shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh crept with aversion; and thrust back his chair; while I got up, and opened my mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse. But I was rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat that I should be shown into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered. It was growing dark--we heard a sound of voices at the garden-gate. Our host hurried out instantly: _he_ had his wits about him; _we_ had not. There was a talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone. 'I thought it had been your cousin Hareton,' I observed to Catherine. 'I wish he would arrive! Who knows but he might take our part?' 'It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange,' said Heathcliff, overhearing me. 'You should have opened a lattice and called out: but I could swear that chit is glad you didn't. She's glad to be obliged to stay, I'm certain.' At learning the chance we had missed, we both gave vent to our grief without control; and he allowed us to wail on till nine o'clock. Then he bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah's chamber; and I whispered my companion to obey: perhaps we might contrive to get through the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight. The window, however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was safe from our attempts; for we were fastened in as before. We neither of us lay down: Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched anxiously for morning; a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain to my frequent entreaties that she would try to rest. I seated myself in a chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many derelictions of duty; from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of my employers sprang. It was not the case, in reality, I am aware; but it was, in my imagination, that dismal night; and I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I. At seven o'clock he came, and inquired if Miss Linton had risen. She ran to the door immediately, and answered, 'Yes.' 'Here, then,' he said, opening it, and pulling her out. I rose to follow, but he turned the lock again. I demanded my release. 'Be patient,' he replied; 'I'll send up your breakfast in a while.' I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine asked why I was still shut up? He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away. I endured it two or three hours; at length, I heard a footstep: not Heathcliff's. 'I've brought you something to eat,' said a voice; 'oppen t' door!' Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me all day. 'Tak' it,' he added, thrusting the tray into my hand. 'Stay one minute,' I began. 'Nay,' cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could pour forth to detain him. And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the next night; and another, and another. Five nights and four days I remained, altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton once every morning; and he was a model of a jailor: surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion.

Chapter 27

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30

A week later, Ellen and Cathy were to visit Linton again. Edgar was much sicker, and Cathy didn't want to leave him, but he encouraged her relationship with Linton, hoping to ensure his daughter's welfare thereby. Linton "received us with greater animation on this occasion; not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like fear". Cathy was angry that she had had to leave her father, and she was disgusted by Linton's abject admissions of terror of his father. Heathcliff came upon them, and asked Ellen how much longer Edgar had to live: he was worried that Linton would die before Edgar, thus preventing the marriage. Heathcliff then ordered Linton to get up and bring Cathy into the house, which he did, against Cathy's will: "Linton. implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial". Heathcliff pushed Ellen into the house as well and locked the door behind them. When Cathy protested that she must get home to her father, Heathcliff slapped her brutally and made it clear that she wouldn't leave Wuthering Heights until she married Linton. Linton showed his true character: as Heathcliff said, "He'll undertake to torture any number of cats if their teeth be drawn, and their claws pared". Cathy and Heathcliff declared their mutual hatred. Ellen remained imprisoned separately from Cathy for five days with Hareton as her jailer: he gave her food but refused to speak to her beyond what was necessary. She did not know what was happening to Cathy

This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been "dissolved into earth, or worse" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship.

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Wuthering Heights.chapter 28

chapter 28

{"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30", "summary": "On the fifth afternoon of the captivity, Zillah released Ellen, explaining that Heathcliff said she could go home and that Cathy would follow in time to attend her father's funeral. Edgar was not dead yet, but soon would be. Ellen asked Linton where Catherine was, and he answered that she was shut upstairs, that they were married, and that he was glad she was being treated harshly. Apparently he resented that she hadn't wished to marry him. He was annoyed by her crying, and was glad when Heathcliff struck her as punishment. Ellen rebuked Linton for his selfishness and unkindness, and went to the Grange to get help. Edgar was glad to hear his daughter was safe and would be home soon: he was almost dead, at the age of 39. Upon hearing of Heathcliff's plot to take control of his estate, Edgar sent for Mr. Green, the local attorney, to change his will so that his money would be held in a trust for Cathy. However, Heathcliff bought off Mr. Green and the lawyer did not arrive until it was too late to change the will. The men sent to Wuthering Heights to rescue Cathy returned without her, having believed Heathcliff's tale that she was too sick to travel. Very early the next morning, however, Catherine came back by herself, joyful to hear that her father was still alive. She had convinced Linton to help her escape. Ellen asked her to tell Edgar that she would be content with Linton so that he could die happy, to which she agreed. Edgar died \"blissfully\". Catherine was stony-eyed with grief. Mr. Green, now employed by Heathcliff, gave all the servants but Ellen notice to quit, and hurried the funeral", "analysis": "This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been \"dissolved into earth, or worse\" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell \"which is which\" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship."}

On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approached--lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the room. It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm. 'Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean!' she exclaimed. 'Well! there is a talk about you at Gimmerton. I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you'd been found, and he'd lodged you here! What! and you must have got on an island, sure? And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean? But you're not so thin--you've not been so poorly, have you?' 'Your master is a true scoundrel!' I replied. 'But he shall answer for it. He needn't have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!' 'What do you mean?' asked Zillah. 'It's not his tale: they tell that in the village--about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to Earnshaw, when I come in--"Eh, they's queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I went off. It's a sad pity of that likely young lass, and cant Nelly Dean." He stared. I thought he had not heard aught, so I told him the rumour. The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said, "If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can tell her to flit, when you go up; here is the key. The bog-water got into her head, and she would have run home quite flighty; but I fixed her till she came round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire's funeral."' 'Mr. Edgar is not dead?' I gasped. 'Oh! Zillah, Zillah!' 'No, no; sit you down, my good mistress,' she replied; 'you're right sickly yet. He's not dead; Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another day. I met him on the road and asked.' Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened below, for the way was free. On entering the house, I looked about for some one to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with sunshine, and the door stood wide open; but nobody seemed at hand. As I hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes. 'Where is Miss Catherine?' I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching him thus, alone. He sucked on like an innocent. 'Is she gone?' I said. 'No,' he replied; 'she's upstairs: she's not to go; we won't let her.' 'You won't let her, little idiot!' I exclaimed. 'Direct me to her room immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply.' 'Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there,' he answered. 'He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine: she's my wife, and it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. 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!' He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to drop asleep. '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 believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That's fine gratitude, is it not?' The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his lips. 'Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?' I continued. 'Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any. And you say she's sick; and yet you leave her alone, up there in a strange house! 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! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see--an elderly woman, and a servant merely--and you, after pretending such affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you're a heartless, selfish boy!' 'I can't stay with her,' he answered crossly. 'I'll not stay by myself. She cries so I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn't sleep.' 'Is Mr. Heathcliff out?' I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin's mental tortures. 'He's in the court,' he replied, 'talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says uncle is dying, truly, at last. I'm glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn't hers! It's mine: papa says everything she has is mine. All her nice books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out; but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine. And then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young. That was yesterday--I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn't let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked out--that frightens her--she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait; the other she attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me; she refused, and he--he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.' 'And were you pleased to see her struck?' I asked: having my designs in encouraging his talk. 'I winked,' he answered: 'I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first--she deserved punishing for pushing me: but when papa was gone, she made me come to the window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth, and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can't speak for pain. I don't like to think so; but she's a naughty thing for crying continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I'm afraid of her.' 'And you can get the key if you choose?' I said. 'Yes, when I am up-stairs,' he answered; 'but I can't walk up-stairs now.' 'In what apartment is it?' I asked. 'Oh,' he cried, 'I shan't tell _you_ where it is. It is our secret. Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know. There! you've tired me--go away, go away!' And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut his eyes again. I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring a rescue for my young lady from the Grange. On reaching it, the astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar's door: but I bespoke the announcement of it myself. How changed I found him, even in those few days! He lay an image of sadness and resignation awaiting his death. Very young he looked: though his actual age was thirty-nine, one would have called him ten years younger, at least. He thought of Catherine; for he murmured her name. I touched his hand, and spoke. 'Catherine is coming, dear master!' I whispered; 'she is alive and well; and will be here, I hope, to-night.' I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence: he half rose up, looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon. As soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at the Heights. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in: which was not quite true. I uttered as little as possible against Linton; nor did I describe all his father's brutal conduct--my intentions being to add no bitterness, if I could help it, to his already over-flowing cup. He divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the personal property, as well as the estate, to his son: or rather himself; yet why he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together. However, he felt that his will had better be altered: instead of leaving Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children, if she had any, after her. By that means, it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die. Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney, and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young lady of her jailor. Both parties were delayed very late. The single servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his re-entrance; and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village that must be done; but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning. The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought word that Catherine was ill: too ill to quit her room; and Heathcliff would not suffer them to see her. I scolded the stupid fellows well for listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master; resolving to take a whole bevy up to the Heights, at day-light, and storm it literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us. Her father _shall_ see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be killed on his own doorstones in trying to prevent it! Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble. I had gone down-stairs at three o'clock to fetch a jug of water; and was passing through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front door made me jump. 'Oh! it is Green,' I said, recollecting myself--'only Green,' and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately. I put the jug on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon shone clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, 'Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive?' 'Yes,' I cried: 'yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with us again!' She wanted to run, breathless as she was, up-stairs to Mr. Linton's room; but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron. Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say, she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me she would not complain. I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed, then. All was composed, however: Catherine's despair was as silent as her father's joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy. He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so. Kissing her cheek, he murmured,--'I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!' and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a struggle. Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay in obeying my master's summons. Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his daughter's arrival. Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the place. He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit. He would have carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud protestations against any infringement of its directions. The funeral was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to stay at the Grange till her father's corpse had quitted it. She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the risk of liberating her. She heard the men I sent disputing at the door, and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff's answer. It drove her desperate. Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father re-ascended. He had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once. Catherine stole out before break of day. She dared not try the doors lest the dogs should raise an alarm; she visited the empty chambers and examined their windows; and, luckily, lighting on her mother's, she got easily out of its lattice, and on to the ground, by means of the fir-tree close by. Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his timid contrivances.

Chapter 28

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30

On the fifth afternoon of the captivity, Zillah released Ellen, explaining that Heathcliff said she could go home and that Cathy would follow in time to attend her father's funeral. Edgar was not dead yet, but soon would be. Ellen asked Linton where Catherine was, and he answered that she was shut upstairs, that they were married, and that he was glad she was being treated harshly. Apparently he resented that she hadn't wished to marry him. He was annoyed by her crying, and was glad when Heathcliff struck her as punishment. Ellen rebuked Linton for his selfishness and unkindness, and went to the Grange to get help. Edgar was glad to hear his daughter was safe and would be home soon: he was almost dead, at the age of 39. Upon hearing of Heathcliff's plot to take control of his estate, Edgar sent for Mr. Green, the local attorney, to change his will so that his money would be held in a trust for Cathy. However, Heathcliff bought off Mr. Green and the lawyer did not arrive until it was too late to change the will. The men sent to Wuthering Heights to rescue Cathy returned without her, having believed Heathcliff's tale that she was too sick to travel. Very early the next morning, however, Catherine came back by herself, joyful to hear that her father was still alive. She had convinced Linton to help her escape. Ellen asked her to tell Edgar that she would be content with Linton so that he could die happy, to which she agreed. Edgar died "blissfully". Catherine was stony-eyed with grief. Mr. Green, now employed by Heathcliff, gave all the servants but Ellen notice to quit, and hurried the funeral

This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been "dissolved into earth, or worse" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/30.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_5_part_4.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30", "summary": "Heathcliff came to the Grange to fetch Catherine to Wuthering Heights to take care of Linton, who was dying in terror of his father. When Ellen begged him to allow Cathy and Linton to live at the Grange, Heathcliff explained that he wanted to get a tenant for the estate. Catherine agreed to go because Linton was all she had to love, and explained that she pitied Heathcliff because no one loved him. Then she left the room. Heathcliff, in a strange mood, told Ellen what he had done the night before. He had bribed the sexton who was digging Edgar's grave to uncover his Catherine's coffin, so he could see her face again--he said it was hers yet. The sexton told him that the face would change if air blew on it, so he tore himself away from contemplating it, and struck one side of the coffin loose and bribed the sexton to put his body in with Catherine's when he was dead. Ellen was shocked, and scolded him for disturbing the dead, at which he replied that on the contrary she had haunted him night and day for eighteen years, and--\"yesternight, I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping my last sleep, by that sleeper, with my heart stopped, and my cheek frozen against hers\". Heathcliff then told Ellen what he had done the night after Catherine's burial. He had gone to the kirkyard and dug up the coffin \"to have her in his arms again\" , but while he was wrenching at the screws he suddenly felt sure of her living presence. He was consoled, but tortured as well: from that night for 18 years he constantly felt as though he could almost see her, but not quite. He tried sleeping in her room, but constantly opened his eyes to see if she were there, he felt so sure she was. Heathcliff finished his story, and Cathy sadly bade farewell to Ellen", "analysis": "This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been \"dissolved into earth, or worse\" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell \"which is which\" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship."}

The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the library; now musing mournfully--one of us despairingly--on our loss, now venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future. We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange; at least during Linton's life: he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper. That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for; and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my home and my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress; when a servant--one of the discarded ones, not yet departed--rushed hastily in, and said 'that devil Heathcliff' was coming through the court: should he fasten the door in his face? If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time. He made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name: he was master, and availed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight in, without saying a word. The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the library; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door. It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliff advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. There was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherine had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him. 'Stop!' he said, arresting her by the arm. 'No more runnings away! Where would you go? I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you'll be a dutiful daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I was embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business: he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you'll see by his look that he has received his due! I brought him down one evening, the day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him afterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves. In two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then my presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees me often, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and, whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he's your concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.' 'Why not let Catherine continue here,' I pleaded, 'and send Master Linton to her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them: they can only be a daily plague to your unnatural heart.' 'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want my children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her services for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after Linton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me to compel you.' 'I shall,' said Catherine. '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!' 'You are a boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like you well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment, as long as it lasts. It is not I who will make him hateful to you--it is his own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and its consequences: don't expect thanks for this noble devotion. I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as strong as I: the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for strength.' '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. You _are_ miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? _Nobody_ loves you--_nobody_ will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't be you!' Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies. 'You shall be sorry to be yourself presently,' said her father-in-law, 'if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and get your things!' She scornfully withdrew. In her absence I began to beg for Zillah's place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer it on no account. He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said--'I shall have that home. Not because I need it, but--' He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile--'I'll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again--it is hers yet!--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which!' 'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!' I exclaimed; 'were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?' 'I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; 'and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.' 'And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then?' I said. 'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid--but I'm better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter--all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills _me_; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. "If I can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home. 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. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It was fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers. I looked round impatiently--I felt her by me--I could _almost_ see her, and yet I _could not_! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning--from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she _must_ be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamber--I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night--to be always disappointed! It racked me! I've often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified--a little. It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!' Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead; his hair clung to it, wet with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence. I didn't like to hear him talk! After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture, took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at better advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled. 'Send that over to-morrow,' said Heathcliff to me; then turning to her, he added: 'You may do without your pony: it is a fine evening, and you'll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights; for what journeys you take, your own feet will serve you. Come along.' 'Good-bye, Ellen!' whispered my dear little mistress. As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice. 'Come and see me, Ellen; don't forget.' 'Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!' said her new father. 'When I wish to speak to you I'll come here. I want none of your prying at my house!' He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my heart, she obeyed. I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden. Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his: though she disputed the act at first evidently; and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley, whose trees concealed them.

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30

Heathcliff came to the Grange to fetch Catherine to Wuthering Heights to take care of Linton, who was dying in terror of his father. When Ellen begged him to allow Cathy and Linton to live at the Grange, Heathcliff explained that he wanted to get a tenant for the estate. Catherine agreed to go because Linton was all she had to love, and explained that she pitied Heathcliff because no one loved him. Then she left the room. Heathcliff, in a strange mood, told Ellen what he had done the night before. He had bribed the sexton who was digging Edgar's grave to uncover his Catherine's coffin, so he could see her face again--he said it was hers yet. The sexton told him that the face would change if air blew on it, so he tore himself away from contemplating it, and struck one side of the coffin loose and bribed the sexton to put his body in with Catherine's when he was dead. Ellen was shocked, and scolded him for disturbing the dead, at which he replied that on the contrary she had haunted him night and day for eighteen years, and--"yesternight, I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping my last sleep, by that sleeper, with my heart stopped, and my cheek frozen against hers". Heathcliff then told Ellen what he had done the night after Catherine's burial. He had gone to the kirkyard and dug up the coffin "to have her in his arms again" , but while he was wrenching at the screws he suddenly felt sure of her living presence. He was consoled, but tortured as well: from that night for 18 years he constantly felt as though he could almost see her, but not quite. He tried sleeping in her room, but constantly opened his eyes to see if she were there, he felt so sure she was. Heathcliff finished his story, and Cathy sadly bade farewell to Ellen

This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been "dissolved into earth, or worse" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/31.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Wuthering Heights/section_5_part_5.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 30

chapter 30

{"name": "Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30", "summary": "Ellen has now more or less reached the present time in her narrative, and tells Lockwood what Zillah told her about Cathy's reception at Wuthering Heights. Cathy spent all her time in Linton's room, and when she came out she asked Heathcliff to call a doctor, because Linton was very sick. Heathcliff replied: \"We know that. But his life is not worth a farthing\". Cathy was thus left to care for her dying cousin all by herself--Zillah, Hareton and Joseph would not help her--and became haggard and bewildered from lack of sleep. Finally Linton died, and when Heathcliff asked Cathy how she felt, she said: \"He's safe and I'm free. I should feel very well but you have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death. I feel like death. Hareton was sorry for her. Cathy was ill for the next two weeks. Heathcliff informed her that Linton had left all of his and his wife's property to himself. One day when Heathcliff was out, Cathy came downstairs. Hareton made shy, friendly advances, which she angrily rejected. He asked Zillah to ask Cathy to read for them but she refused on the grounds that she had been forsaken during Linton's illness, and had no reason to care for Hareton or Zillah. Hareton said that he had in fact asked Heathcliff to be allowed to relieve her of some of her duties, but was denied. Cathy was in no mood to forgive, however, and thus became the unfriendly young woman whom Lockwood had seen at Wuthering Heights. According to Zillah: \"She'll snap at the master himself, and as good dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows\". Ellen wanted to get a cottage and live there with Cathy, but Heathcliff would not permit it. Ellen now believes that the only way Cathy might escape from Wuthering Heights is to marry a second time", "analysis": "This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been \"dissolved into earth, or worse\" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell \"which is which\" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship."}

I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she left: Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her, and wouldn't let me pass. He said Mrs. Linton was 'thrang,' and the master was not in. Zillah has told me something of the way they go on, otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living. She thinks Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk. My young lady asked some aid of her when she first came; but Mr. Heathcliff told her to follow her own business, and let his daughter-in-law look after herself; and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrow-minded, selfish woman. Catherine evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect; repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong. I had a long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one day when we foregathered on the moor; and this is what she told me. 'The first thing Mrs. Linton did,' she said, 'on her arrival at the Heights, was to run up-stairs, without even wishing good-evening to me and Joseph; she shut herself into Linton's room, and remained till morning. Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent for? her cousin was very ill. '"We know that!" answered Heathcliff; "but his life is not worth a farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him." '"But I cannot tell how to do," she said; "and if nobody will help me, he'll die!" '"Walk out of the room," cried the master, "and let me never hear a word more about him! None here care what becomes of him; if you do, act the nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him." 'Then she began to bother me, and I said I'd had enough plague with the tiresome thing; we each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on Linton: Mr. Heathcliff bid me leave that labour to her. 'How they managed together, I can't tell. I fancy he fretted a great deal, and moaned hisseln night and day; and she had precious little rest: one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes. She sometimes came into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain beg assistance; but I was not going to disobey the master: I never dare disobey him, Mrs. Dean; and, though I thought it wrong that Kenneth should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or complain, and I always refused to meddle. Once or twice, after we had gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again and seen her sitting crying on the stairs'-top; and then I've shut myself in quick, for fear of being moved to interfere. I did pity her then, I'm sure: still I didn't wish to lose my place, you know. 'At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me out of my wits, by saying, "Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying--I'm sure he is, this time. Get up, instantly, and tell him." 'Having uttered this speech, she vanished again. I lay a quarter of an hour listening and trembling. Nothing stirred--the house was quiet. 'She's mistaken, I said to myself. He's got over it. I needn't disturb them; and I began to doze. But my sleep was marred a second time by a sharp ringing of the bell--the only bell we have, put up on purpose for Linton; and the master called to me to see what was the matter, and inform them that he wouldn't have that noise repeated. 'I delivered Catherine's message. He cursed to himself, and in a few minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room. I followed. Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands folded on her knees. Her father-in-law went up, held the light to Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him; afterwards he turned to her. '"Now--Catherine," he said, "how do you feel?" 'She was dumb. '"How do you feel, Catherine?" he repeated. '"He's safe, and I'm free," she answered: "I should feel well--but," she continued, with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, "you have left me so long to struggle against death alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!" 'And she looked like it, too! I gave her a little wine. Hareton and Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and heard our talk from outside, now entered. Joseph was fain, I believe, of the lad's removal; Hareton seemed a thought bothered: though he was more taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton. But the master bid him get off to bed again: we didn't want his help. He afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself. 'In the morning, he sent me to tell her she must come down to breakfast: she had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she was ill; at which I hardly wondered. I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he replied,--"Well, let her be till after the funeral; and go up now and then to get her what is needful; and, as soon as she seems better, tell me."' Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah; who visited her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled. Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton's will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week's absence, when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor, he could not meddle with. However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them in his wife's right and his also: I suppose legally; at any rate, Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession. 'Nobody,' said Zillah, 'ever approached her door, except that once, but I; and nobody asked anything about her. The first occasion of her coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon. She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a Quaker: she couldn't comb them out. 'Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays:' the kirk, you know, has no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean; and they call the Methodists' or Baptists' place (I can't say which it is) at Gimmerton, a chapel. 'Joseph had gone,' she continued, 'but I thought proper to bide at home. Young folks are always the better for an elder's over-looking; and Hareton, with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour. I let him know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been always used to see the Sabbath respected; so he had as good leave his guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed. He coloured up at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes. The train-oil and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to give her his company; and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be presentable; so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion. He grew sullen, and began to swear. 'Now, Mrs. Dean,' Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner, 'you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton; and happen you're right: but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her, now? She's as poor as you or I: poorer, I'll be bound: you're saying, and I'm doing my little all that road.' Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid; and she flattered him into a good humour; so, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former insults, he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's account. 'Missis walked in,' she said, 'as chill as an icicle, and as high as a princess. I got up and offered her my seat in the arm-chair. No, she turned up her nose at my civility. Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come to the settle, and sit close by the fire: he was sure she was starved. '"I've been starved a month and more," she answered, resting on the word as scornful as she could. 'And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both of us. Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and discovered a number of books on the dresser; she was instantly upon her feet again, stretching to reach them: but they were too high up. Her cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage to help her; she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand. 'That was a great advance for the lad. She didn't thank him; still, he felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained; nor was he daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his finger: he contented himself with going a bit farther back and looking at her instead of the book. She continued reading, or seeking for something to read. His attention became, by degrees, quite centred in the study of her thick silky curls: her face he couldn't see, and she couldn't see him. And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching; he put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in such a taking. '"Get away this moment! How dare you touch me? Why are you stopping there?" she cried, in a tone of disgust. "I can't endure you! I'll go upstairs again, if you come near me." 'Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do: he sat down in the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another half hour; finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me. '"Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I'm stalled of doing naught; and I do like--I could like to hear her! Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask of yourseln." '"Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am," I said, immediately. "He'd take it very kind--he'd be much obliged." 'She frowned; and looking up, answered-- '"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! I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you! When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off. But I won't complain to you! I'm driven down here by the cold; not either to amuse you or enjoy your society." '"What could I ha' done?" began Earnshaw. "How was I to blame?" '"Oh! you are an exception," answered Mrs. Heathcliff. "I never missed such a concern as you." '"But I offered more than once, and asked," he said, kindling up at her pertness, "I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you--" '"Be silent! I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your disagreeable voice in my ear!" said my lady. 'Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him! and unslinging his gun, restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer. He talked now, freely enough; and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude: but the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to condescend to our company, more and more. However, I took care there should be no further scorning at my good nature: ever since, I've been as stiff as herself; and she has no lover or liker among us: and she does not deserve one; for, let them say the least word to her, and she'll curl back without respect of any one. She'll snap at the master himself, and as good as dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows.' At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me: but Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton in an independent house; and I can see no remedy, at present, unless she could marry again; and that scheme it does not come within my province to arrange. * * * * * Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story. Notwithstanding the doctor's prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look out for another tenant to take the place after October. I would not pass another winter here for much.

Chapter 30

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-26-30

Ellen has now more or less reached the present time in her narrative, and tells Lockwood what Zillah told her about Cathy's reception at Wuthering Heights. Cathy spent all her time in Linton's room, and when she came out she asked Heathcliff to call a doctor, because Linton was very sick. Heathcliff replied: "We know that. But his life is not worth a farthing". Cathy was thus left to care for her dying cousin all by herself--Zillah, Hareton and Joseph would not help her--and became haggard and bewildered from lack of sleep. Finally Linton died, and when Heathcliff asked Cathy how she felt, she said: "He's safe and I'm free. I should feel very well but you have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death. I feel like death. Hareton was sorry for her. Cathy was ill for the next two weeks. Heathcliff informed her that Linton had left all of his and his wife's property to himself. One day when Heathcliff was out, Cathy came downstairs. Hareton made shy, friendly advances, which she angrily rejected. He asked Zillah to ask Cathy to read for them but she refused on the grounds that she had been forsaken during Linton's illness, and had no reason to care for Hareton or Zillah. Hareton said that he had in fact asked Heathcliff to be allowed to relieve her of some of her duties, but was denied. Cathy was in no mood to forgive, however, and thus became the unfriendly young woman whom Lockwood had seen at Wuthering Heights. According to Zillah: "She'll snap at the master himself, and as good dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows". Ellen wanted to get a cottage and live there with Cathy, but Heathcliff would not permit it. Ellen now believes that the only way Cathy might escape from Wuthering Heights is to marry a second time

This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill Linton's last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly hopeless, and the mere fact that Bronte invented it testifies to the darkness of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel, such that he seems to draw vitality from his son's misery. This chapter provides further evidence of Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy's pain and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here: in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only leave her vulnerable to his plans. One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green's willingness to be bought by the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff's. Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been "dissolved into earth, or worse" he would have been no less comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit--and this could just as well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which" This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was Heathcliff. Some believe that difficult and painful experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy's short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and Hareton's relationship.

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Wuthering Heights.chapter 32

chapter 32

{"name": "Chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-31-34", "summary": "In the fall of 1802, later that year, Lockwood returns to the Grange because he is passing through the area on a hunting trip. He finds the Grange more or less empty: Ellen is now at Wuthering Heights, and an old woman had replaced her. Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights to see what has changed. He notices flowers growing around the old farm house, and overhears a pleasant lesson from indoors. Cathy, sounding \"sweet as a silver bell\" is teaching Hareton, now respectably dressed, to read. The lesson is interspersed with kisses and very kind words. Lockwood doesn't want to disturb them, and goes around to the kitchen to find Ellen singing and Joseph complaining as usual. Ellen is glad to see Lockwood and tells them that he will have to settle the rent with her, since she is acting for Cathy. Heathcliff has been dead for three months. Ellen tells Lockwood what has happened in his absence. A fortnight after Lockwood left the Grange the previous spring, Nelly was summoned to Wuthering Heights, where she gladly went, hoping to keep Cathy out of Heathcliff's way. She was pleased to see Cathy, but saddened by the way the young woman's personality had changed. One day when Cathy, Ellen, and Hareton were sitting in the kitchen, Cathy grew tired of the animosity between herself and her cousin and offered him a book, which he refused. She left it close to him, but he never touched it. Hareton was injured in a shooting accident in March, and since Heathcliff didn't like to see him, he spent a lot of time sitting in the kitchen, where Cathy found many reasons to go. Finally her efforts at reconciliation succeeded, and they became loving friends, much to Joseph's indignation", "analysis": "Books take on an important role in the relationship between Hareton and Catherine: Hareton's illiteracy is the most glaring result of Heathcliff's mistreatment of him, designed to reduce him to rustic ignorance. Hareton never rebels against Heathcliff, but his contact with Catherine, who was carefully educated by her father, makes him extremely conscious of his shortcomings. One might wonder how great the value of book-learning is in this novel: Linton, who can read, is obviously inferior to his more vigorous cousin Hareton, which might lead one to think that Bronte is championing native energy over imposed refinement. However, for Catherine and Hareton to become close it is absolutely necessary for Hareton to wish to educate himself, and in the last chapter their love will be symbolized in the joint reading of a book. Similarly, Heathcliff's youthful degradation really begins when he ceases to follow Catherine's lessons. It appears that book-learning is not enough to make a person good, but that the lack of it is enough to make someone ridiculous. Literacy is, in short, a basic and essential quality. Cathy and Hareton's is not surprising given Bronte's preoccupation with symmetry.. At the beginning of the story, Hindley and Catherine inhabited Wuthering Heights and Edgar and Isabella inhabited the Grange. The obvious symmetrical plot would have been: Hindley married Isabella producing a son, while Catherine married Edgar, producing Cathy. Then Cathy and her male cousin would marry, unifying the two houses completely, and Cathy Linton would become Catherine Earnshaw, taking her mother's maiden name. The harmony of this plot was disrupted by the introduction of Heathcliff, an alien figure who destroyed the potential marital balance. By the end of the novel, however, Heathcliff and his issue are eliminated, and the unifying marriage between the Linton and Earnshaw families will take place after all, as though Heathcliff had never existed. The union between Isabella and Heathcliff should not have taken place, so naturally Linton Heathcliff was a mistake, an unlikable and weakly being. Cathy Linton's marriage to Linton Heathcliff was likewise a mistake, forced by Heathcliff, and in order to preserve the integrity of the pattern, their marriage was childless. For harmony to be reinstated, no descendants of Heathcliff must remain by the end of the novel. Another beauty of Bronte's plot is that the three names that Lockwood reads when he stays at Wuthering Heights in Chapter 3--Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff, and Catherine Linton--are all assumed at one point or another by each of the two Catherines. The first Catherine is named Earnshaw, then Linton when she marries Edgar, then perhaps Heathcliff when she and Heathcliff are finally united in the grave. Her daughter is first Catherine Linton, then Heathcliff, then Earnshaw. This chapter offers us an extraordinary window into Heathcliff's mind. Whenever he looks at something, he sees Catherine in it, and he hears her voice in every sound. This is Bronte's conception of true haunting, which seems to bear far more resemblance to madness than it does to scary noises in the dark. It is mainly an interior phenomenon: if the ghost of Catherine is at work, she has found her home in Heathcliff's mind, and her vocation in distorting his perception and his ability to communicate with the outside world. An essential question for thinking about this novel is: does it end happily or not, and why? Is the novel on the side of the Grange and civilization, since Catherine and Hareton move there after Heathcliff dies? Or should we miss the passionate intensity of Wuthering Heights? Who wins? It seems at first that the Grange wins, and yet we should remember that Heathcliff achieves his version of heaven as well. Several film versions of Wuthering Heights prefer to delete the whole second half of the novel, ending dramatically with Catherine's death--they find that the restabilizing second half detracts from the romance and power of the first part. Is this the case? Did Bronte add the second half because society would not have accepted the first half alone? When considering these questions, it is important to keep in mind the novel's carefully designed, symmetrical structure. This might lead to the conclusion that civilization really does win, since the marriage of Cathy and Hareton is the final and necessary conclusion to two generations of unrest, and all traces of Heathcliff disappear. In another sense, however, Cathy and Hareton resemble the earlier Catherine and Heathcliff, purified of their wilder and more antisocial elements. Their marriage could be an echo of the marriage that never took place between Catherine and Heathcliff. This is supported by the fact that the story begins and ends with a Catherine Earnshaw, and that the name Hareton is very similar to Heathcliff. In another reading, one might remember that Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff belonged above all to the natural and immaterial world, whereas the Lintons belonged to a material society. The reunion in death of the two lovers constitutes their achievement of complete freedom--as far as they are concerned, it hardly matters what happens on earth. Heathcliff's realization at the end of the novel that he no longer cares about getting revenge on Hindley and Edgar, both long dead, supports this interpretation. One might also conclude that Emily Bronte was really more drawn to her wild characters--Catherine and Heathcliff--but realized that their extreme personalities posed a great threat to the existence of peaceful life on earth. Perhaps she eliminated them because she was unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the world for such a wild ideal, whatever its appeal. In this case the ambiguous conclusion of the novel may represent an inner conflict in the author herself."}

1802.--This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside public-house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,--'Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest.' 'Gimmerton?' I repeated--my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. 'Ah! I know. How far is it from this?' 'Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road,' he answered. A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again. Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours. I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was sweet, warm weather--too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath. I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe. 'Is Mrs. Dean within?' I demanded of the dame. 'Mistress Dean? Nay!' she answered, 'she doesn't bide here: shoo's up at th' Heights.' 'Are you the housekeeper, then?' I continued. 'Eea, aw keep th' hause,' she replied. 'Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay all night.' 'T' maister!' she cried in astonishment. 'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha' send word. They's nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t' place: nowt there isn't!' She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed. I would go out for a walk; and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary. She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return. Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted the court. 'All well at the Heights?' I inquired of the woman. 'Eea, f'r owt ee knaw!' she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders. I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front--one fading, and the other brightening--as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock--it yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees. Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a coal-district, a fine red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered. 'Con-_trary_!' said a voice as sweet as a silver bell. 'That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or I'll pull your hair!' 'Contrary, then,' answered another, in deep but softened tones. 'And now, kiss me, for minding so well.' 'No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.' The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention. Its owner stood behind; her light, shining ringlets blending, at intervals, with his brown looks, as she bent to superintend his studies; and her face--it was lucky he could not see her face, or he would never have been so steady. I could; and I bit my lip in spite, at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides staring at its smiting beauty. The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses; which, however, he generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very mean and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen. There was unobstructed admittance on that side also; and at the door sat my old friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from musical accents. 'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn to neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!' said the tenant of the kitchen, in answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. 'It's a blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld! Oh! ye're a raight nowt; and shoo's another; and that poor lad 'll be lost atween ye. Poor lad!' he added, with a groan; 'he's witched: I'm sartin on't. Oh, Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer rullers!' 'No! or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose,' retorted the singer. 'But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and never mind me. This is "Fairy Annie's Wedding"--a bonny tune--it goes to a dance.' Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced; and recognising me directly, she jumped to her feet, crying--'Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood! How could you think of returning in this way? All's shut up at Thrushcross Grange. You should have given us notice!' 'I've arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay,' I answered. 'I depart again to-morrow. And how are you transplanted here, Mrs. Dean? tell me that.' 'Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went to London, and stay till you returned. But, step in, pray! Have you walked from Gimmerton this evening?' 'From the Grange,' I replied; 'and while they make me lodging room there, I want to finish my business with your master; because I don't think of having another opportunity in a hurry.' 'What business, sir?' said Nelly, conducting me into the house. 'He's gone out at present, and won't return soon.' 'About the rent,' I answered. 'Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle,' she observed; 'or rather with me. She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act for her: there's nobody else.' I looked surprised. 'Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see,' she continued. 'Heathcliff dead!' I exclaimed, astonished. 'How long ago?' 'Three months since: but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I'll tell you all about it. Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you?' 'I want nothing: I have ordered supper at home. You sit down too. I never dreamt of his dying! Let me hear how it came to pass. You say you don't expect them back for some time--the young people?' 'No--I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles: but they don't care for me. At least, have a drink of our old ale; it will do you good: you seem weary.' She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have followers at her time of life? And then, to get them jocks out o' t' maister's cellar! He fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it.' She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness. And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff's history. He had a 'queer' end, as she expressed it. I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My first interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had altered so much since our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted me, and he was tired of seeing Catherine: I must make the little parlour my sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement; and, by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles, that had formed her amusement at the Grange; and flattered myself we should get on in tolerable comfort. The delusion did not last long. Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew on; for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her frequently, and she complained of loneliness: she preferred quarrelling with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude. I did not mind their skirmishes: but Hareton was often obliged to seek the kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself! and though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him--and though he was always as sullen and silent as possible--after a while, she changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder how he could endure the life he lived--how he could sit a whole evening staring into the fire, and dozing. 'He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?' she once observed, 'or a cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me!' Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look again. 'He's, perhaps, dreaming now,' she continued. 'He twitched his shoulder as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen.' 'Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you up-stairs, if you don't behave!' I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his fist, as if tempted to use it. 'I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,' she exclaimed, on another occasion. 'He is afraid I shall laugh at him. Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once; and, because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it: was he not a fool?' 'Were not you naughty?' I said; 'answer me that.' 'Perhaps I was,' she went on; 'but I did not expect him to be so silly. Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I'll try!' She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck. 'Well, I shall put it here,' she said, 'in the table-drawer; and I'm going to bed.' Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed. But he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to her great disappointment. I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness and indolence: her conscience reproved her for frightening him off improving himself: she had done it effectually. But her ingenuity was at work to remedy the injury: while I ironed, or pursued other such stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me. When Hareton was there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book lying about: that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire, the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it. On fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the court or garden the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and said she was tired of living: her life was useless. Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment. Owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen. His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and tranquillity, till he made it up again. It suited Catherine to have him there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up-stairs more than ever: and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might accompany me. On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen. Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window-panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate. At a notice that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but, presently, I heard her begin--'I've found out, Hareton, that I want--that I'm glad--that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not grown so cross to me, and so rough.' Hareton returned no answer. 'Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?' she continued. 'Get off wi' ye!' he growled, with uncompromising gruffness. 'Let me take that pipe,' she said, cautiously advancing her hand and abstracting it from his mouth. Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the fire. He swore at her and seized another. 'Stop,' she cried, 'you must listen to me first; and I can't speak while those clouds are floating in my face.' 'Will you go to the devil!' he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be!' 'No,' she persisted, 'I won't: I can't tell what to do to make you talk to me; and you are determined not to understand. When I call you stupid, I don't mean anything: I don't mean that I despise you. Come, you shall take notice of me, Hareton: you are my cousin, and you shall own me.' 'I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your damned mocking tricks!' he answered. 'I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you again. Side out o' t' gate, now, this minute!' Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip, and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob. 'You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. 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: 'why have I made him angry, by taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and despised me, and--Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you worried me out of the kitchen!' 'I didn't know you took my part,' she answered, drying her eyes; 'and I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me: what can I do besides?' She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He blackened and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct, must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the window, quite demurely. I shook my head reprovingly, and then she blushed and whispered--'Well! what should I have done, Ellen? He wouldn't shake hands, and he wouldn't look: I must show him some way that I like him--that I want to be friends.' Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful, for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes. Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to 'Mr. Hareton Earnshaw,' she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the present to its destined recipient. 'And tell him, if he'll take it, I'll come and teach him to read it right,' she said; 'and, if he refuse it, I'll go upstairs, and never tease him again.' I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my employer. Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee. He did not strike it off, either. I returned to my work. Catherine leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed: all his rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him: he could not summon courage, at first, to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured petition. 'Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking that little word.' He muttered something inaudible. 'And you'll be my friend?' added Catherine, interrogatively. 'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life,' he answered; 'and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.' 'So you won't be my friend?' she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and creeping close up. I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies. The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home. He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder; and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity: it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day's transactions. At length he summoned Hareton from his seat. 'Tak' these in to t' maister, lad,' he said, 'and bide there. I's gang up to my own rahm. This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us: we mun side out and seearch another.' 'Come, Catherine,' I said, 'we must "side out" too: I've done my ironing. Are you ready to go?' 'It is not eight o'clock!' she answered, rising unwillingly. 'Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I'll bring some more to-morrow.' 'Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak' into th' hahse,' said Joseph, 'and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!' Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing up-stairs: lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton. The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point--one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed--they contrived in the end to reach it. You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's heart. But now, I'm glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there won't be a happier woman than myself in England!

Chapter 32

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420090808/https://www.gradesaver.com/wuthering-heights/study-guide/summary-chapters-31-34

In the fall of 1802, later that year, Lockwood returns to the Grange because he is passing through the area on a hunting trip. He finds the Grange more or less empty: Ellen is now at Wuthering Heights, and an old woman had replaced her. Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights to see what has changed. He notices flowers growing around the old farm house, and overhears a pleasant lesson from indoors. Cathy, sounding "sweet as a silver bell" is teaching Hareton, now respectably dressed, to read. The lesson is interspersed with kisses and very kind words. Lockwood doesn't want to disturb them, and goes around to the kitchen to find Ellen singing and Joseph complaining as usual. Ellen is glad to see Lockwood and tells them that he will have to settle the rent with her, since she is acting for Cathy. Heathcliff has been dead for three months. Ellen tells Lockwood what has happened in his absence. A fortnight after Lockwood left the Grange the previous spring, Nelly was summoned to Wuthering Heights, where she gladly went, hoping to keep Cathy out of Heathcliff's way. She was pleased to see Cathy, but saddened by the way the young woman's personality had changed. One day when Cathy, Ellen, and Hareton were sitting in the kitchen, Cathy grew tired of the animosity between herself and her cousin and offered him a book, which he refused. She left it close to him, but he never touched it. Hareton was injured in a shooting accident in March, and since Heathcliff didn't like to see him, he spent a lot of time sitting in the kitchen, where Cathy found many reasons to go. Finally her efforts at reconciliation succeeded, and they became loving friends, much to Joseph's indignation

Books take on an important role in the relationship between Hareton and Catherine: Hareton's illiteracy is the most glaring result of Heathcliff's mistreatment of him, designed to reduce him to rustic ignorance. Hareton never rebels against Heathcliff, but his contact with Catherine, who was carefully educated by her father, makes him extremely conscious of his shortcomings. One might wonder how great the value of book-learning is in this novel: Linton, who can read, is obviously inferior to his more vigorous cousin Hareton, which might lead one to think that Bronte is championing native energy over imposed refinement. However, for Catherine and Hareton to become close it is absolutely necessary for Hareton to wish to educate himself, and in the last chapter their love will be symbolized in the joint reading of a book. Similarly, Heathcliff's youthful degradation really begins when he ceases to follow Catherine's lessons. It appears that book-learning is not enough to make a person good, but that the lack of it is enough to make someone ridiculous. Literacy is, in short, a basic and essential quality. Cathy and Hareton's is not surprising given Bronte's preoccupation with symmetry.. At the beginning of the story, Hindley and Catherine inhabited Wuthering Heights and Edgar and Isabella inhabited the Grange. The obvious symmetrical plot would have been: Hindley married Isabella producing a son, while Catherine married Edgar, producing Cathy. Then Cathy and her male cousin would marry, unifying the two houses completely, and Cathy Linton would become Catherine Earnshaw, taking her mother's maiden name. The harmony of this plot was disrupted by the introduction of Heathcliff, an alien figure who destroyed the potential marital balance. By the end of the novel, however, Heathcliff and his issue are eliminated, and the unifying marriage between the Linton and Earnshaw families will take place after all, as though Heathcliff had never existed. The union between Isabella and Heathcliff should not have taken place, so naturally Linton Heathcliff was a mistake, an unlikable and weakly being. Cathy Linton's marriage to Linton Heathcliff was likewise a mistake, forced by Heathcliff, and in order to preserve the integrity of the pattern, their marriage was childless. For harmony to be reinstated, no descendants of Heathcliff must remain by the end of the novel. Another beauty of Bronte's plot is that the three names that Lockwood reads when he stays at Wuthering Heights in Chapter 3--Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff, and Catherine Linton--are all assumed at one point or another by each of the two Catherines. The first Catherine is named Earnshaw, then Linton when she marries Edgar, then perhaps Heathcliff when she and Heathcliff are finally united in the grave. Her daughter is first Catherine Linton, then Heathcliff, then Earnshaw. This chapter offers us an extraordinary window into Heathcliff's mind. Whenever he looks at something, he sees Catherine in it, and he hears her voice in every sound. This is Bronte's conception of true haunting, which seems to bear far more resemblance to madness than it does to scary noises in the dark. It is mainly an interior phenomenon: if the ghost of Catherine is at work, she has found her home in Heathcliff's mind, and her vocation in distorting his perception and his ability to communicate with the outside world. An essential question for thinking about this novel is: does it end happily or not, and why? Is the novel on the side of the Grange and civilization, since Catherine and Hareton move there after Heathcliff dies? Or should we miss the passionate intensity of Wuthering Heights? Who wins? It seems at first that the Grange wins, and yet we should remember that Heathcliff achieves his version of heaven as well. Several film versions of Wuthering Heights prefer to delete the whole second half of the novel, ending dramatically with Catherine's death--they find that the restabilizing second half detracts from the romance and power of the first part. Is this the case? Did Bronte add the second half because society would not have accepted the first half alone? When considering these questions, it is important to keep in mind the novel's carefully designed, symmetrical structure. This might lead to the conclusion that civilization really does win, since the marriage of Cathy and Hareton is the final and necessary conclusion to two generations of unrest, and all traces of Heathcliff disappear. In another sense, however, Cathy and Hareton resemble the earlier Catherine and Heathcliff, purified of their wilder and more antisocial elements. Their marriage could be an echo of the marriage that never took place between Catherine and Heathcliff. This is supported by the fact that the story begins and ends with a Catherine Earnshaw, and that the name Hareton is very similar to Heathcliff. In another reading, one might remember that Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff belonged above all to the natural and immaterial world, whereas the Lintons belonged to a material society. The reunion in death of the two lovers constitutes their achievement of complete freedom--as far as they are concerned, it hardly matters what happens on earth. Heathcliff's realization at the end of the novel that he no longer cares about getting revenge on Hindley and Edgar, both long dead, supports this interpretation. One might also conclude that Emily Bronte was really more drawn to her wild characters--Catherine and Heathcliff--but realized that their extreme personalities posed a great threat to the existence of peaceful life on earth. Perhaps she eliminated them because she was unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the world for such a wild ideal, whatever its appeal. In this case the ambiguous conclusion of the novel may represent an inner conflict in the author herself.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/02.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_1_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 2

chapter 2

{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-2", "summary": "Lockwood ventures back through \"heath and mud\" for another visit to Wuthering Heights. The gate is locked, so he jumps over it, only to find the front door locked too. He is clearly not one to take no for an answer, so he knocks until Joseph yells at him through the door. Standing in the snow, Lockwood finally gets the attention of a young man who lets him into the kitchen. There he finds a woman he addresses as \"Mrs. Heathcliff.\" She only speaks to tell him he should not have left the house and that the aggressive pack of dogs does not belong to her. Lockwood spends a good amount of time checking out the \"missis.\" She's blonde, young, and skinny, but has a look of scorn that even Lockwood can't fail to notice. Also joining them in the kitchen is the young man who let him into the house. It's not clear who he is--he looks like a \"common labourer\" but doesn't treat the missis with much respect, so now Lockwood is really confused. Enter Heathcliff, not surprisingly unhappy to see Lockwood in his kitchen a second time. Heathcliff's harsh manner with the unidentifiable young man makes Lockwood finally realize that he might not be such a nice fellow after all. After putting his foot in his mouth several times, Lockwood realizes that the missis is, in fact, Heathcliff's daughter-in-law, and the cranky young fellow is Hareton Earnshaw. Remember the name above the door? Hmm. As all of this is going down, a huge snowstorm has arrived, preventing Lockwood from leaving. No one is interested in helping him home, Heathcliff resents having to show any hospitality, and the dogs--Gnasher and Wolf--become so excited by the scene that they floor Lockwood, giving him a bloody nose. Finally the wretched group brings Lockwood back in and gives him some brandy.", "analysis": ""}

Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.--I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)--on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower. On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled. 'Wretched inmates!' I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I don't care--I will get in!' So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently. Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn. 'What are ye for?' he shouted. 'T' maister's down i' t' fowld. Go round by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.' 'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I hallooed, responsively. 'There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer flaysome dins till neeght.' 'Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?' 'Nor-ne me! I'll hae no hend wi't,' muttered the head, vanishing. The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the 'missis,' an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute. 'Rough weather!' I remarked. 'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard work to make them hear me.' She never opened her mouth. I stared--she stared also: at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable. 'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly. 'He'll be in soon.' I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance. 'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again. 'Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam?' 'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied. 'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats. 'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully. Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening. 'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the chimney-piece two of the painted canisters. Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold. 'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.' 'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply. 'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot. 'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered. 'Were you asked?' she repeated. 'No,' I said, half smiling. 'You are the proper person to ask me.' She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry. Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state. 'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!' I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful; 'and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space.' 'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in. Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.' 'Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morning--could you spare me one?' 'No, I could not.' 'Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.' 'Umph!' 'Are you going to mak' the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady. 'Is _he_ to have any?' she asked, appealing to Heathcliff. 'Get it ready, will you?' was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow. When the preparations were finished, he invited me with--'Now, sir, bring forward your chair.' And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal. I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every-day countenance. '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--' 'My amiable lady!' he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. 'Where is she--my amiable lady?' 'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.' 'Well, yes--oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone. Is that it?' Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen. Then it flashed upon me--'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pity--I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice.' The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive. 'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise. 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. 'Ah, certainly--I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour. This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. 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; 'and I'd counsel you to respect it!' 'I've shown no disrespect,' was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself. He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time. The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow. 'I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,' I could not help exclaiming. 'The roads will be buried already; and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.' 'Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch. They'll be covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them,' said Heathcliff. 'How must I do?' I continued, with rising irritation. There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its place. The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out--'Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking--yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!' I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer. 'You scandalous old hypocrite!' she replied. 'Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name? I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!' 'Oh, wicked, wicked!' gasped the elder; 'may the Lord deliver us from evil!' 'No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the limits I fix shall--I'll not say what he shall be done to--but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!' The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating 'wicked' as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress. 'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said earnestly, 'you must excuse me for troubling you. I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!' 'Take the road you came,' she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her. 'It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give.' 'Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?' 'How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall.' '_You_! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night,' I cried. 'I want you to tell me my way, not to _show_ it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.' 'Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?' 'Are there no boys at the farm?' 'No; those are all.' 'Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.' 'That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it.' 'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,' cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance. 'As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.' 'I can sleep on a chair in this room,' I replied. 'No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!' said the unmannerly wretch. With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend me. 'I'll go with him as far as the park,' he said. 'You'll go with him to hell!' exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore. 'And who is to look after the horses, eh?' 'A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the horses: somebody must go,' murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected. 'Not at your command!' retorted Hareton. 'If you set store on him, you'd better be quiet.' '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. 'Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em!' muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering. He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern. 'Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern!' shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat. 'Hey, Gnasher! Hey, dog! Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him!' On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out--on their peril to keep me one minute longer--with several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear. The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don't know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar. She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel. 'Well, Mr. Earnshaw,' she cried, 'I wonder what you'll have agait next? Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones? I see this house will never do for me--look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking! Wisht, wisht; you mun'n't go on so. Come in, and I'll cure that: there now, hold ye still.' With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness. I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.

Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-2

Lockwood ventures back through "heath and mud" for another visit to Wuthering Heights. The gate is locked, so he jumps over it, only to find the front door locked too. He is clearly not one to take no for an answer, so he knocks until Joseph yells at him through the door. Standing in the snow, Lockwood finally gets the attention of a young man who lets him into the kitchen. There he finds a woman he addresses as "Mrs. Heathcliff." She only speaks to tell him he should not have left the house and that the aggressive pack of dogs does not belong to her. Lockwood spends a good amount of time checking out the "missis." She's blonde, young, and skinny, but has a look of scorn that even Lockwood can't fail to notice. Also joining them in the kitchen is the young man who let him into the house. It's not clear who he is--he looks like a "common labourer" but doesn't treat the missis with much respect, so now Lockwood is really confused. Enter Heathcliff, not surprisingly unhappy to see Lockwood in his kitchen a second time. Heathcliff's harsh manner with the unidentifiable young man makes Lockwood finally realize that he might not be such a nice fellow after all. After putting his foot in his mouth several times, Lockwood realizes that the missis is, in fact, Heathcliff's daughter-in-law, and the cranky young fellow is Hareton Earnshaw. Remember the name above the door? Hmm. As all of this is going down, a huge snowstorm has arrived, preventing Lockwood from leaving. No one is interested in helping him home, Heathcliff resents having to show any hospitality, and the dogs--Gnasher and Wolf--become so excited by the scene that they floor Lockwood, giving him a bloody nose. Finally the wretched group brings Lockwood back in and gives him some brandy.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/05.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_4_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-5", "summary": "As Mr. Earnshaw gets older , he becomes more and more protective of Heathcliff. His preferential treatment doesn't help the young boy one bit. Thankfully, Hindley goes off to college. Meanwhile, Catherine is growing up into a little troublemaker herself, but she's still sweet and pretty, and an Earnshaw, so she gets away with it. Her biggest problem, according to Mrs. Dean, is that she is overly fond of Heathcliff. She is with him all the time. Inevitably, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and now all Heathcliff has is Catherine. With no one else in the house liking him, trouble looms.", "analysis": ""}

In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it. At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. 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. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. 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. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. 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. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know. Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!' That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven. But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair--it pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and saying, 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?' But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to 'frame up-stairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that evening--he had summut to do.' 'I shall bid father good-night first,' said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss directly--she screamed out--'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!' And they both set up a heart-breaking cry. I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.

Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-5

As Mr. Earnshaw gets older , he becomes more and more protective of Heathcliff. His preferential treatment doesn't help the young boy one bit. Thankfully, Hindley goes off to college. Meanwhile, Catherine is growing up into a little troublemaker herself, but she's still sweet and pretty, and an Earnshaw, so she gets away with it. Her biggest problem, according to Mrs. Dean, is that she is overly fond of Heathcliff. She is with him all the time. Inevitably, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and now all Heathcliff has is Catherine. With no one else in the house liking him, trouble looms.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_7_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-8", "summary": "Frances gives birth to Hareton, the last of the Earnshaw line. Sick from consumption, Frances dies in childbirth. Nelly must now raise the baby, as Hindley turns into a cursing, raving mess. \"The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long\" , Nelly reports, so only she and Joseph remain with the family. Hindley's treatment of Heathcliff gets worse. \"I could not half tell what an infernal house we had\" , Nelly tells Lockwood. Catherine is out of control, but remains steadfastly loyal to Heathcliff, while Edgar Linton vies for her affection. She develops a \"double character\" --at home she's rude and rough, but in the company of the Lintons she's genteel and polite. Nelly Dean recounts one day when Edgar Linton dared visit Catherine in the troubled house. Hindley orders Nelly to chaperone the two lovebirds, which angers Catherine, who pinches and slaps the housekeeper. When Edgar tries to reason with her, Catherine hits him as well. Instead of leaving, Edgar likes Catherine even more--he's hooked. As Nelly puts it: \"e possessed the power to depart, as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten\" . They confess that they're in love.", "analysis": ""}

On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran. 'Oh, such a grand bairn!' she panted out. 'The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says missis must go: he says she's been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You're to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night. I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!' 'But is she very ill?' I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet. 'I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,' replied the girl, 'and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She's out of her head for joy, it's such a beauty! If I were her I'm certain I should not die: I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps forward, and says he--"Earnshaw, it's a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son. When she came, I felt convinced we shouldn't keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the winter will probably finish her. Don't take on, and fret about it too much: it can't be helped. And besides, you should have known better than to choose such a rush of a lass!"' 'And what did the master answer?' I inquired. 'I think he swore: but I didn't mind him, I was straining to see the bairn,' and she began again to describe it rapturously. I, as zealous as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was very sad for Hindley's sake. 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. When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door; and, as I passed in, I asked, 'how was the baby?' 'Nearly ready to run about, Nell!' he replied, putting on a cheerful smile. 'And the mistress?' I ventured to inquire; 'the doctor says she's--' 'Damn the doctor!' he interrupted, reddening. 'Frances is quite right: she'll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going up-stairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must--tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.' I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, 'I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won't speak: but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!' Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn't put him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, 'I know you need not--she's well--she does not want any more attendance from you! She never was in a consumption. It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool.' He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up to-morrow, a fit of coughing took her--a very slight one--he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead. As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; and because it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove. The master's bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad _were_ possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the country-side; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature! I own I did not like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression. He was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his wife's on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was. Can you make that out? Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the figure almost too graceful. I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual. I marvelled much how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of Catherine Earnshaw. 'A very agreeable portrait,' I observed to the house-keeper. 'Is it like?' 'Yes,' she answered; 'but he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.' Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her five-weeks' residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality; gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first--for she was full of ambition--and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian,' and 'worse than a brute,' she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise. Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He had a terror of Earnshaw's reputation, and shrunk from encountering him; and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility: the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if he could not be gracious, kept out of the way. I rather think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends meeting at all; 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. I've had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds ill-natured: but she was so proud it became really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened into more humility. She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to confide in me: there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser. Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of. In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning. His childhood's sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances. Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him. On the before-named occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother's absence, and was then preparing to receive him. 'Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?' asked Heathcliff. 'Are you going anywhere?' 'No, it is raining,' she answered. 'Why have you that silk frock on, then?' he said. 'Nobody coming here, I hope?' 'Not that I know of,' stammered Miss: 'but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were gone.' 'Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,' observed the boy. 'I'll not work any more to-day: I'll stay with you.' 'Oh, but Joseph will tell,' she suggested; 'you'd better go!' 'Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will take him till dark, and he'll never know.' So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down. Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted brows--she found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion. 'Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,' she said, at the conclusion of a minute's silence. 'As it rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good.' 'Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,' he persisted; 'don't turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I'm on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they--but I'll not--' 'That they what?' cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance. 'Oh, Nelly!' she added petulantly, jerking her head away from my hands, 'you've combed my hair quite out of curl! That's enough; let me alone. What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?' '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.' 'Yes--very foolish: as if I took notice!' replied Catherine, in a peevish tone. 'And where is the sense of that?' 'To show that I _do_ take notice,' said Heathcliff. 'And should I always be sitting with you?' she demanded, growing more irritated. 'What good do I get? What do you talk about? You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!' 'You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy!' exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation. 'It's no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,' she muttered. Her companion rose up, but he hadn't time to express his feelings further, for a horse's feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summon she had received. Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than we talk here, and softer. 'I'm not come too soon, am I?' he said, casting a look at me: I had begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser. 'No,' answered Catherine. 'What are you doing there, Nelly?' 'My work, Miss,' I replied. (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.) She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, 'Take yourself and your dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don't commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!' 'It's a good opportunity, now that master is away,' I answered aloud: 'he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I'm sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me.' 'I hate you to be fidgeting in _my_ presence,' exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff. 'I'm sorry for it, Miss Catherine,' was my response; and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation. She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm. I've said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, 'Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me, and I'm not going to bear it.' 'I didn't touch you, you lying creature!' cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze. 'What's that, then?' I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her. She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water. 'Catherine, love! Catherine!' interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed. 'Leave the room, Ellen!' she repeated, trembling all over. Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out complaints against 'wicked aunt Cathy,' which drew her fury on to his unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip. 'That's right!' I said to myself. 'Take warning and begone! It's a kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition.' 'Where are you going?' demanded Catherine, advancing to the door. He swerved aside, and attempted to pass. 'You must not go!' she exclaimed, energetically. 'I must and shall!' he replied in a subdued voice. 'No,' she persisted, grasping the handle; 'not yet, Edgar Linton: sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won't be miserable for you!' 'Can I stay after you have struck me?' asked Linton. Catherine was mute. 'You've made me afraid and ashamed of you,' he continued; 'I'll not come here again!' Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle. 'And you told a deliberate untruth!' he said. 'I didn't!' she cried, recovering her speech; 'I did nothing deliberately. Well, go, if you please--get away! And now I'll cry--I'll cry myself sick!' She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there he lingered. I resolved to encourage him. 'Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,' I called out. 'As bad as any marred child: you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to grieve us.' 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! And so it was: he turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacy--had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers. Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master's fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun.

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-8

Frances gives birth to Hareton, the last of the Earnshaw line. Sick from consumption, Frances dies in childbirth. Nelly must now raise the baby, as Hindley turns into a cursing, raving mess. "The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long" , Nelly reports, so only she and Joseph remain with the family. Hindley's treatment of Heathcliff gets worse. "I could not half tell what an infernal house we had" , Nelly tells Lockwood. Catherine is out of control, but remains steadfastly loyal to Heathcliff, while Edgar Linton vies for her affection. She develops a "double character" --at home she's rude and rough, but in the company of the Lintons she's genteel and polite. Nelly Dean recounts one day when Edgar Linton dared visit Catherine in the troubled house. Hindley orders Nelly to chaperone the two lovebirds, which angers Catherine, who pinches and slaps the housekeeper. When Edgar tries to reason with her, Catherine hits him as well. Instead of leaving, Edgar likes Catherine even more--he's hooked. As Nelly puts it: "e possessed the power to depart, as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten" . They confess that they're in love.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_9_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 10

chapter 10

{"name": "Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-10", "summary": "Lockwood returns to the story, complaining about his continued illness. He can't wait to hear what happened to Heathcliff and is full of speculation. Nelly informs him: \"I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk\" . For about six months, everything at Thrushcross Grange is going well: Catherine clearly loves Edgar, Edgar avoids upsetting her, and Isabella and Catherine get along. Then Heathcliff returns. Edgar reluctantly allows him into the parlor, suggesting that the kitchen is more suitable for his kind. But nothing can suppress Catherine's giddy enthusiasm. Heathcliff has changed dramatically in three years. Nelly describes his \"transformation\" into a \"tall, athletic, well-formed man upright carriage\" and look of intelligence with \"no marks of former degradation\" . To put it bluntly, his makeover has been extreme. Everyone is surprised. Heathcliff admits that he has returned, in part, to settle his score with Hindley. Still, he plans to return to Wuthering Heights. Nelly has a bad feeling. Catherine confides in Nelly that Heathcliff has already been up to Wuthering Heights, playing cards and gambling with Hindley. A desperate drunkard, Hindley allows Heathcliff to stay so he can collect rent and gamble. He has no clue about Heathcliff's plan for revenge--he's too pickled. Heathcliff starts coming around to Thrushcross Grange and, as if Edgar doesn't have enough reasons not to like him, his sister Isabella develops a major crush. Catherine mocks Isabella for loving Heathcliff, warning her that Heathcliff is \"an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation \" who would marry her just to claim the Linton fortune. Heathcliff shows up, and Catherine seizes the chance to humiliate Isabella. Hearing of her crush, Heathcliff describes the pleasure he would take in decorating her face with bruises. But the fact that she is her brother's heir is alluring to him.", "analysis": ""}

A charming introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring! Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse--the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes: I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years; and the heroine was married. I'll ring: she'll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came. 'It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,' she commenced. 'Away, away with it!' I replied; 'I desire to have--' 'The doctor says you must drop the powders.' 'With all my heart! Don't interrupt me. Come and take your seat here. Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting out of your pocket--that will do--now continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways?' 'He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I couldn't give my word for any. I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning?' 'Much.' 'That's good news.' * * * * * I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect. She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we _must_ be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,--'Nelly, is that you?' It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. 'Who can it be?' I thought. 'Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no resemblance to his.' 'I have waited here an hour,' he resumed, while I continued staring; 'and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I'm not a stranger!' A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. 'What!' I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. 'What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it?' 'Yes, Heathcliff,' he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. 'Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her--your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her.' 'How will she take it?' I exclaimed. 'What will she do? The surprise bewilders me--it will put her out of her head! And you _are_ Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there's no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier?' 'Go and carry my message,' he interrupted, impatiently. 'I'm in hell till you do!' He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door. They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side. Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, 'A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am.' 'What does he want?' asked Mrs. Linton. 'I did not question him,' I answered. 'Well, close the curtains, Nelly,' she said; 'and bring up tea. I'll be back again directly.' She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was. 'Some one mistress does not expect,' I replied. 'That Heathcliff--you recollect him, sir--who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's.' 'What! the gipsy--the ploughboy?' he cried. 'Why did you not say so to Catherine?' 'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,' I said. 'She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her.' Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly: 'Don't stand there, love! Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular.' Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew up-stairs, breathless and wild; too excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity. 'Oh, Edgar, Edgar!' she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come back--he is!' And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze. 'Well, well,' cried her husband, crossly, 'don't strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic!' 'I know you didn't like him,' she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight. 'Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now. Shall I tell him to come up?' 'Here,' he said, 'into the parlour?' 'Where else?' she asked. He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression--half angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness. 'No,' she added, after a while; 'I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders. Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If so, give directions. I'll run down and secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real!' She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her. '_You_ bid him step up,' he said, addressing me; 'and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.' I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace. My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak. 'Sit down, sir,' he said, at length. 'Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.' 'And I also,' answered Heathcliff, 'especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.' He took a seat opposite 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. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself. 'I shall think it a dream to-morrow!' she cried. 'I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!' 'A little more than you have thought of me,' he murmured. 'I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan--just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you'll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!' 'Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,' interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. 'Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to-night; and I'm thirsty.' She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine's cup was never filled: she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton? 'No, to Wuthering Heights,' he answered: 'Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning.' Mr. Earnshaw invited _him_! and _he_ called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak? I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away. About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me. 'I cannot rest, Ellen,' she said, by way of apology. 'And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky, because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.' 'What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?' I answered. 'As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised: it's human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them.' 'But does it not show great weakness?' pursued she. '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. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same.' 'You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton,' said I. 'They humour you: I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you.' 'And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly?' she returned, laughing. 'No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.' I advised her to value him the more for his affection. 'I do,' she answered, 'but he needn't resort to whining for trifles. It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently!' 'What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?' I inquired. 'He is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!' 'He explained it,' she replied. 'I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living; and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening: to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other.' 'It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!' said I. 'Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?' 'None for my friend,' she replied: 'his strong head will keep him from danger; a little for Hindley: but he can't be made morally worse than he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence. Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I. However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! 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; and, as a proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good-night! I'm an angel!' In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine. Heathcliff--Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future--used the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. My master's uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space. His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition: to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing. We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which made her unhappy. 'How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?' cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion. 'You are surely losing your reason. When have I been harsh, tell me?' 'Yesterday,' sobbed Isabella, 'and now!' 'Yesterday!' said her sister-in-law. 'On what occasion?' 'In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!' 'And that's your notion of harshness?' said Catherine, laughing. 'It was no hint that your company was superfluous? We didn't care whether you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears.' 'Oh, no,' wept the young lady; 'you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there!' 'Is she sane?' asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. 'I'll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it could have had for you.' 'I don't mind the conversation,' she answered: 'I wanted to be with--' 'Well?' said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence. 'With him: and I won't be always sent off!' she continued, kindling up. 'You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!' 'You are an impertinent little monkey!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise. 'But I'll not believe this idiotcy! It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliff--that you consider him an agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?' 'No, you have not,' said the infatuated girl. 'I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!' 'I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!' Catherine declared, emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely. 'Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond--a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because _I_ should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend--so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap.' Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation. 'For shame! for shame!' she repeated, angrily. 'You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!' 'Ah! you won't believe me, then?' said Catherine. 'You think I speak from wicked selfishness?' 'I'm certain you do,' retorted Isabella; 'and I shudder at you!' 'Good!' cried the other. 'Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.'-- 'And I must suffer for her egotism!' she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. 'All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?' 'Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,' I said. 'He's a bird of bad omen: no mate for you. Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago--it was Joseph who told me--I met him at Gimmerton: "Nelly," he said, "we's hae a crowner's 'quest enow, at ahr folks'. One on 'em 's a'most getten his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a cawlf. That's maister, yeah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand 'sizes. He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he! He fair likes--he langs to set his brazened face agean 'em! And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he's a rare 'un. He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a raight divil's jest. Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t' Grange? This is t' way on 't:--up at sun-down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le-light till next day at noon: then, t'fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame; un' the knave, why he can caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip wi' t' wife. I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!" Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?' 'You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!' she replied. 'I'll not listen to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world!' Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time to reflect. The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips. Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable. 'Come in, that's right!' exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire. 'Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose. Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered. Nay, it's not Nelly; don't look at her! My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar's brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off,' she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. 'We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!' 'Catherine!' said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, 'I'd thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression.' As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor. 'By no means!' cried Mrs. Linton in answer. 'I won't be named a dog in the manger again. You _shall_ stay: now then! Heathcliff, why don't you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I'm sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable.' 'I think you belie her,' said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. 'She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!' And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldn't bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red. 'There's a tigress!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. 'Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution--you must beware of your eyes.' 'I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,' he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. 'But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you?' 'I assure you I was,' she returned. 'She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don't notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.' 'And I like her too ill to attempt it,' said he, 'except in a very ghoulish fashion. You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Linton's.' 'Delectably!' observed Catherine. 'They are dove's eyes--angel's!' 'She's her brother's heir, is she not?' he asked, after a brief silence. 'I should be sorry to think so,' returned his companion. 'Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods; remember _this_ neighbour's goods are mine.' 'If they were _mine_, they would be none the less that,' said Heathcliff; 'but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise.' From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening. I saw him smile to himself--grin rather--and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment. I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be called _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy.

Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-10

Lockwood returns to the story, complaining about his continued illness. He can't wait to hear what happened to Heathcliff and is full of speculation. Nelly informs him: "I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk" . For about six months, everything at Thrushcross Grange is going well: Catherine clearly loves Edgar, Edgar avoids upsetting her, and Isabella and Catherine get along. Then Heathcliff returns. Edgar reluctantly allows him into the parlor, suggesting that the kitchen is more suitable for his kind. But nothing can suppress Catherine's giddy enthusiasm. Heathcliff has changed dramatically in three years. Nelly describes his "transformation" into a "tall, athletic, well-formed man upright carriage" and look of intelligence with "no marks of former degradation" . To put it bluntly, his makeover has been extreme. Everyone is surprised. Heathcliff admits that he has returned, in part, to settle his score with Hindley. Still, he plans to return to Wuthering Heights. Nelly has a bad feeling. Catherine confides in Nelly that Heathcliff has already been up to Wuthering Heights, playing cards and gambling with Hindley. A desperate drunkard, Hindley allows Heathcliff to stay so he can collect rent and gamble. He has no clue about Heathcliff's plan for revenge--he's too pickled. Heathcliff starts coming around to Thrushcross Grange and, as if Edgar doesn't have enough reasons not to like him, his sister Isabella develops a major crush. Catherine mocks Isabella for loving Heathcliff, warning her that Heathcliff is "an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation " who would marry her just to claim the Linton fortune. Heathcliff shows up, and Catherine seizes the chance to humiliate Isabella. Hearing of her crush, Heathcliff describes the pleasure he would take in decorating her face with bruises. But the fact that she is her brother's heir is alluring to him.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/11.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_10_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 11

chapter 11

{"name": "Chapter 11", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-11", "summary": "Nelly Dean is overwhelmed by a feeling of dread one day while out for a walk. Fearing something awful is happening at Wuthering Heightsparticularly to little Haretonshe heads up to the house. Young Hareton has become a cursing, violent young boy. Living with \"Devil daddy,\" as he calls Hindley, he is a pure product of his environment. Heathcliff continues to visit Thrushcross Grange and begins making the moves on Isabella. He tells Catherine that she has no right to object and that she has treated him like a dog. Nothing will get in the way of revenge against all who have degraded him, though he assures Catherine, \"I seek no revenge on you\" . Edgar shows up and tries to kick Heathcliff out of the house. When Edgar tells Nelly to \"fetch the men\" , Catherine mocks him as a coward, telling him he deserves to be beaten down by Heathcliff. Heathcliff realizes it's time to beat a hasty retreat. Edgar tells Catherine that she must choose between him and Heathcliff. She flies into a rage and locks herself in her room.", "analysis": ""}

Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm. I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people talked regarding his ways; and then I've recollected his confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re-entering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word. One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your left hand; a rough sand-pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T. G. It serves as a guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all at once a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart. Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed long at the weather-worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth with a piece of slate. 'Poor Hindley!' I exclaimed, involuntarily. I started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a twinkling; but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the Heights. Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse: supposing he should be dead! I thought--or should die soon!--supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb. The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate. That was my first idea on observing an elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars. Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, _my_ Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since. 'God bless thee, darling!' I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears. 'Hareton, it's Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse.' He retreated out of arm's length, and picked up a large flint. 'I am come to see thy father, Hareton,' I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognised as one with me. He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him. I showed another, keeping it out of his reach. 'Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?' I inquired. 'The curate?' 'Damn the curate, and thee! Gie me that,' he replied. 'Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it,' said I. 'Who's your master?' 'Devil daddy,' was his answer. 'And what do you learn from daddy?' I continued. He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher. 'What does he teach you?' I asked. 'Naught,' said he, 'but to keep out of his gait. Daddy cannot bide me, because I swear at him.' 'Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?' I observed. 'Ay--nay,' he drawled. 'Who, then?' 'Heathcliff.' 'I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff.' 'Ay!' he answered again. Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the sentences--'I known't: he pays dad back what he gies to me--he curses daddy for cursing me. He says I mun do as I will.' 'And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?' I pursued. 'No, I was told the curate should have his--teeth dashed down his--throat, if he stepped over the threshold--Heathcliff had promised that!' I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate. He went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley, Heathcliff appeared on the door-stones; and I turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin. This is not much connected with Miss Isabella's affair: except that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange: even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs. Linton's pleasure. The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some pigeons in the court. She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort. Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew. Now, as soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the house-front. I was standing by the kitchen-window, but I drew out of sight. He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something: she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm. She averted her face: he apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer. There was another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her. 'Judas! Traitor!' I ejaculated. 'You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver.' 'Who is, Nelly?' said Catherine's voice at my elbow: I had been over-intent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance. 'Your worthless friend!' I answered, warmly: 'the sneaking rascal yonder. Ah, he has caught a glimpse of us--he is coming in! I wonder will he have the heart to find a plausible excuse for making love to Miss, when he told you he hated her?' Mrs. Linton saw Isabella tear herself free, and run into the garden; and a minute after, Heathcliff opened the door. I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation; but Catherine angrily insisted on silence, and threatened to order me out of the kitchen, if I dared to be so presumptuous as to put in my insolent tongue. 'To hear you, people might think you were the mistress!' she cried. 'You want setting down in your right place! Heathcliff, what are you about, raising this stir? I said you must let Isabella alone!--I beg you will, unless you are tired of being received here, and wish Linton to draw the bolts against you!' 'God forbid that he should try!' answered the black villain. I detested him just then. 'God keep him meek and patient! Every day I grow madder after sending him to heaven!' 'Hush!' said Catherine, shutting the inner door! 'Don't vex me. Why have you disregarded my request? Did she come across you on purpose?' 'What is it to you?' he growled. 'I have a right to kiss her, if she chooses; and you have no right to object. I am not _your_ husband: _you_ needn't be jealous of me!' '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.' 'And would Mr. Linton approve of his sister marrying that man?' I inquired. 'Mr. Linton should approve,' returned my lady, decisively. 'He might spare himself the trouble,' said Heathcliff: 'I could do as well without his approbation. And as to you, Catherine, I have a mind to speak a few words now, while we are at it. I want you to be aware that 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! Meantime, thank you for telling me your sister-in-law's secret: I swear I'll make the most of it. And stand you aside!' 'What new phase of his character is this?' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in amazement. 'I've treated you infernally--and you'll take your revenge! How will you take it, ungrateful brute? How have I treated you infernally?' 'I seek no revenge on you,' replied Heathcliff, less vehemently. 'That's not the plan. The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them. You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home. If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat!' 'Oh, the evil is that I am _not_ jealous, is it?' cried Catherine. 'Well, I won't repeat my offer of a wife: it is as bad as offering Satan a lost soul. Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery. You prove it. Edgar is restored from the ill-temper he gave way to at your coming; I begin to be secure and tranquil; and you, restless to know us at peace, appear resolved on exciting a quarrel. Quarrel with Edgar, if you please, Heathcliff, and deceive his sister: you'll hit on exactly the most efficient method of revenging yourself on me.' The conversation ceased. Mrs. Linton sat down by the fire, flushed and gloomy. The spirit which served her was growing intractable: she could neither lay nor control it. He stood on the hearth with folded arms, brooding on his evil thoughts; and in this position I left them to seek the master, who was wondering what kept Catherine below so long. 'Ellen,' said he, when I entered, 'have you seen your mistress?' 'Yes; she's in the kitchen, sir,' I answered. 'She's sadly put out by Mr. Heathcliff's behaviour: and, indeed, I do think it's time to arrange his visits on another footing. There's harm in being too soft, and now it's come to this--.' And I related the scene in the court, and, as near as I dared, the whole subsequent dispute. I fancied it could not be very prejudicial to Mrs. Linton; unless she made it so afterwards, by assuming the defensive for her guest. Edgar Linton had difficulty in hearing me to the close. His first words revealed that he did not clear his wife of blame. 'This is insufferable!' he exclaimed. 'It is disgraceful that she should own him for a friend, and force his company on me! Call me two men out of the hall, Ellen. Catherine shall linger no longer to argue with the low ruffian--I have humoured her enough.' He descended, and bidding the servants wait in the passage, went, followed by me, to the kitchen. Its occupants had recommenced their angry discussion: Mrs. Linton, at least, was scolding with renewed vigour; Heathcliff had moved to the window, and hung his head, somewhat cowed by her violent rating apparently. He saw the master first, and made a hasty motion that she should be silent; which she obeyed, abruptly, on discovering the reason of his intimation. 'How is this?' said Linton, addressing her; 'what notion of propriety must you have to remain here, after the language which has been held to you by that blackguard? I suppose, because it is his ordinary talk you think nothing of it: you are habituated to his baseness, and, perhaps, imagine I can get used to it too!' 'Have you been listening at the door, Edgar?' asked the mistress, in a tone particularly calculated to provoke her husband, implying both carelessness and contempt of his irritation. Heathcliff, who had raised his eyes at the former speech, gave a sneering laugh at the latter; on purpose, it seemed, to draw Mr. Linton's attention to him. He succeeded; but Edgar did not mean to entertain him with any high flights of passion. 'I've been so far forbearing with you, sir,' he said quietly; 'not that I was ignorant of your miserable, degraded character, but I felt you were only partly responsible for that; and Catherine wishing to keep up your acquaintance, I acquiesced--foolishly. 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.' Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye full of derision. 'Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!' he said. 'It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God! Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!' My master glanced towards the passage, and signed me to fetch the men: he had no intention of hazarding a personal encounter. I obeyed the hint; but Mrs. Linton, suspecting something, followed; and when I attempted to call them, she pulled me back, slammed the door to, and locked it. 'Fair means!' she said, in answer to her husband's look of angry surprise. 'If you have not courage to attack him, make an apology, or allow yourself to be beaten. It will correct you of feigning more valour than you possess. No, I'll swallow the key before you shall get it! I'm delightfully rewarded for my kindness to each! After constant indulgence of one's weak nature, and the other's bad one, I earn for thanks two samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity! Edgar, I was defending you and yours; and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick, for daring to think an evil thought of me!' It did not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the master. He tried to wrest the key from Catherine's grasp, and for safety she flung it into the hottest part of the fire; whereupon Mr. Edgar was taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale. For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely. He leant on the back of a chair, and covered his face. 'Oh, heavens! In old days this would win you knighthood!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton. 'We are vanquished! we are vanquished! Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice. Cheer up! you sha'n't be hurt! Your type is not a lamb, it's a sucking leveret.' 'I wish you joy of the milk-blooded coward, Cathy!' said her friend. 'I compliment you on your taste. And that is the slavering, shivering thing you preferred to me! I would not strike him with my fist, but I'd kick him with my foot, and experience considerable satisfaction. Is he weeping, or is he going to faint for fear?' The fellow approached and gave the chair on which Linton rested a push. He'd better have kept his distance: my master quickly sprang erect, and struck him full on the throat a blow that would have levelled a slighter man. It took his breath for a minute; and while he choked, Mr. Linton walked out by the back door into the yard, and from thence to the front entrance. 'There! you've done with coming here,' cried Catherine. 'Get away, now; he'll return with a brace of pistols and half-a-dozen assistants. If he did overhear us, of course he'd never forgive you. You've played me an ill turn, Heathcliff! But go--make haste! I'd rather see Edgar at bay than you.' 'Do you suppose I'm going with that blow burning in my gullet?' he thundered. 'By hell, no! I'll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel-nut before I cross the threshold! If I don't floor him now, I shall murder him some time; so, as you value his existence, let me get at him!' 'He is not coming,' I interposed, framing a bit of a lie. 'There's the coachman and the two gardeners; you'll surely not wait to be thrust into the road by them! Each has a bludgeon; and master will, very likely, be watching from the parlour-windows to see that they fulfil his orders.' The gardeners and coachman were there: but Linton was with them. They had already entered the court. Heathcliff, on the second thoughts, resolved to avoid a struggle against three underlings: he seized the poker, smashed the lock from the inner door, and made his escape as they tramped in. Mrs. Linton, who was very much excited, bade me accompany her up-stairs. She did not know my share in contributing to the disturbance, and I was anxious to keep her in ignorance. 'I'm nearly distracted, Nelly!' she exclaimed, throwing herself on the sofa. 'A thousand smiths' hammers are beating in my head! Tell Isabella to shun me; this uproar is owing to her; and should she or any one else aggravate my anger at present, I shall get wild. And, Nelly, say to Edgar, if you see him again to-night, that I'm in danger of being seriously ill. I wish it may prove true. He has startled and distressed me shockingly! I want to frighten him. Besides, he might come and begin a string of abuse or complainings; I'm certain I should recriminate, and God knows where we should end! Will you do so, my good Nelly? You are aware that I am no way blamable in this matter. What possessed him to turn listener? Heathcliff's talk was outrageous, after you left us; but I could soon have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing. Now all is dashed wrong; by the fool's craving to hear evil of self, that haunts some people like a demon! Had Edgar never gathered our conversation, he would never have been the worse for it. Really, when he opened on me in that unreasonable tone of displeasure after I had scolded Heathcliff till I was hoarse for him, I did not care hardly what they did to each other; especially as I felt that, however the scene closed, we should all be driven asunder for nobody knows how long! 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! But it's a deed to be reserved for a forlorn hope; I'd not take Linton by surprise with it. To this point he has been discreet in dreading to provoke me; you must represent the peril of quitting that policy, and remind him of my passionate temper, verging, when kindled, on frenzy. I wish you could dismiss that apathy out of that countenance, and look rather more anxious about me.' The stolidity with which I received these instructions was, no doubt, rather exasperating: for they were delivered in perfect sincerity; but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence; and I did not wish to 'frighten' her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness. Therefore I said nothing when I met the master coming towards the parlour; but I took the liberty of turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together. He began to speak first. 'Remain where you are, Catherine,' he said; without any anger in his voice, but with much sorrowful despondency. 'I shall not stay. I am neither come to wrangle nor be reconciled; but I wish just to learn whether, after this evening's events, you intend to continue your intimacy with--' 'Oh, for mercy's sake,' interrupted the mistress, stamping her foot, 'for mercy's sake, let us hear no more of it now! Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever: your veins are full of ice-water; but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance.' 'To get rid of me, answer my question,' persevered Mr. Linton. 'You must answer it; and that violence does not alarm me. I have found that you can be as stoical as anyone, when you please. 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.' 'I require to be let alone!' exclaimed Catherine, furiously. 'I demand it! Don't you see I can scarcely stand? Edgar, you--you leave me!' She rang the bell till it broke with a twang; I entered leisurely. It was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages! There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters! Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear. He told me to fetch some water. She had no breath for speaking. I brought a glass full; and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face. In a few seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned up her eyes, while her cheeks, at once blanched and livid, assumed the aspect of death. Linton looked terrified. 'There is nothing in the world the matter,' I whispered. I did not want him to yield, though I could not help being afraid in my heart. 'She has blood on her lips!' he said, shuddering. 'Never mind!' I answered, tartly. And I told him how she had resolved, previous to his coming, on exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I incautiously gave the account aloud, and she heard me; for she started up--her hair flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally. I made up my mind for broken bones, at least; but she only glared about her for an instant, and then rushed from the room. The master directed me to follow; I did, to her chamber-door: she hindered me from going further by securing it against me. As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask whether she would have some carried up. 'No!' she replied, peremptorily. The same question was repeated at dinner and tea; and again on the morrow after, and received the same answer. Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff's advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself and him.

Chapter 11

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-11

Nelly Dean is overwhelmed by a feeling of dread one day while out for a walk. Fearing something awful is happening at Wuthering Heightsparticularly to little Haretonshe heads up to the house. Young Hareton has become a cursing, violent young boy. Living with "Devil daddy," as he calls Hindley, he is a pure product of his environment. Heathcliff continues to visit Thrushcross Grange and begins making the moves on Isabella. He tells Catherine that she has no right to object and that she has treated him like a dog. Nothing will get in the way of revenge against all who have degraded him, though he assures Catherine, "I seek no revenge on you" . Edgar shows up and tries to kick Heathcliff out of the house. When Edgar tells Nelly to "fetch the men" , Catherine mocks him as a coward, telling him he deserves to be beaten down by Heathcliff. Heathcliff realizes it's time to beat a hasty retreat. Edgar tells Catherine that she must choose between him and Heathcliff. She flies into a rage and locks herself in her room.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_11_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 12

chapter 12

{"name": "Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-12", "summary": "For several days, Isabella mopes around, Catherine pouts in her room, and Edgar worries about his wife. Catherine believes she is dying and is infuriated when Nelly Dean tells her that Edgar has been reading contentedly in the library, in \"philosophical resignation\" . Catherine actually does get sick and, in a feverish delirium, she begins to name all of the bird feathers coming out of her pillow. She starts hallucinating, doesn't recognize her own reflection in the mirror, and tells Nelly that in her confused state she thought she was back home at Wuthering Heights. She starts to recall her childhood--the oak-paneled bed, the wild adventures on the moors, and her love of Heathcliff. Now completely babbling and convinced she is at death's door, she raves, \"I'll not lie by myself; they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest until you are with me. I never will!\" . Edgar finally comes to see Catherine. Nelly wises up and goes to seek medical attention. In the garden, she finds Isabella's pet dog, Fanny, hanging by the neck, nearly dead. The sounds of galloping horses echo in the distance. Mr. Kenneth tells Nelly that he has heard on \"good authority\" that Isabella has run off with Heathcliff. Nelly is too scared to tell Edgar, but when he does find out, he seems resigned to her decision.", "analysis": ""}

While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books that he never opened--wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation--and _she_ fasted pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet; I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as I thought at first. Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar's ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning. 'Oh, I will die,' she exclaimed, 'since no one cares anything about me. I wish I had not taken that.' Then a good while after I heard her murmur, 'No, I'll not die--he'd be glad--he does not love me at all--he would never miss me!' 'Did you want anything, ma'am?' I inquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated manner. 'What is that apathetic being doing?' she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face. 'Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead?' 'Neither,' replied I; 'if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is continually among his books, since he has no other society.' I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder. 'Among his books!' she cried, confounded. 'And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered?' continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall. 'Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet--in play, perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I'll choose between these two: either to starve at once--that would be no punishment unless he had a heart--or to recover, and leave the country. Are you speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life?' 'Why, ma'am,' I answered, 'the master has no idea of your being deranged; and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger.' 'You think not? Cannot you tell him I will?' she returned. 'Persuade him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!' 'No, you forget, Mrs. Linton,' I suggested, 'that you have eaten some food with a relish this evening, and to-morrow you will perceive its good effects.' 'If I were only sure it would kill him,' she interrupted, 'I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids--and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all turned to enemies in a few hours: they have, I'm positive; the people here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces! Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be so dreadful to watch Catherine go. And Edgar standing solemnly by to see it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to his house, and going back to his _books_! What in the name of all that feels has he to do with _books_, when I am dying?' She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north-east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species: her mind had strayed to other associations. 'That's a turkey's,' she murmured to herself; 'and this is a wild duck's; and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows--no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock's; and this--I should know it among a thousand--it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.' 'Give over with that baby-work!' I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. 'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow.' I went here and there collecting it. 'I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really _were_ that withered hag, and I should think I _was_ under Penistone Crags; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet.' 'The black press? where is that?' I asked. 'You are talking in your sleep!' 'It's against the wall, as it always is,' she replied. 'It _does_ appear odd--I see a face in it!' 'There's no press in the room, and never was,' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her. 'Don't _you_ see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl. 'It's behind there still!' she pursued, anxiously. 'And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!' I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass. 'There's nobody here!' I insisted. 'It was _yourself_, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a while since.' 'Myself!' she gasped, 'and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful!' Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek--the shawl had dropped from the frame. 'Why, what is the matter?' cried I. 'Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glass--the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and there am I too by your side.' Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame. 'Oh, dear! I thought I was at home,' she sighed. 'I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don't say anything; but stay with me. I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.' 'A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am,' I answered: 'and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again.' 'Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!' she went on bitterly, wringing her hands. 'And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice. Do let me feel it--it comes straight down the moor--do let me have one breath!' To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child. 'How long is it since I shut myself in here?' she asked, suddenly reviving. 'It was Monday evening,' I replied, 'and this is Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, at present.' 'What! of the same week?' she exclaimed. 'Only that brief time?' 'Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,' observed I. 'Well, it seems a weary number of hours,' she muttered doubtfully: 'it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?' 'Because I won't give you your death of cold,' I answered. 'You won't give me a chance of life, you mean,' she said, sullenly. 'However, I'm not helpless yet; I'll open it myself.' And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible--still she asserted she caught their shining. 'Look!' she cried eagerly, 'that's my room with the candle in it, and the trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!' She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. 'He's considering--he'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard. You are slow! Be content, you always followed me!' Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour. 'Oh, sir!' I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber. 'My poor mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all; pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she's hard to guide any way but her own.' 'Catherine ill?' he said, hastening to us. 'Shut the window, Ellen! Catherine! why--' He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified astonishment. 'She's been fretting here,' I continued, 'and eating scarcely anything, and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening, and so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it ourselves; but it is nothing.' I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned. 'It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?' he said sternly. 'You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!' And he took his wife in his arms, and looked at her with anguish. At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her. 'Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?' she said, with angry animation. 'You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations now--I see we shall--but they can't keep me from my narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I'm bound before spring is over! There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me!' 'Catherine, what have you done?' commenced the master. 'Am I nothing to you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath--' 'Hush!' cried Mrs. Linton. 'Hush, this moment! You mention that name and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What you touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill-top before you lay hands on me again. I don't want you, Edgar: I'm past wanting you. Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone.' 'Her mind wanders, sir,' I interposed. 'She has been talking nonsense the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and she'll rally. Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.' 'I desire no further advice from you,' answered Mr. Linton. 'You knew your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change!' I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another's wicked waywardness. 'I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be headstrong and domineering,' cried I: 'but I didn't know that you wished to foster her fierce temper! I didn't know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant's wages! Well, it will teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself!' 'The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen Dean,' he replied. 'You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?' said I. 'Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to Miss, and to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison the mistress against you?' Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation. 'Ah! Nelly has played traitor,' she exclaimed, passionately. 'Nelly is my hidden enemy. You witch! So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us! Let me go, and I'll make her rue! I'll make her howl a recantation!' A maniac's fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to disengage herself from Linton's arms. I felt no inclination to tarry the event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I quitted the chamber. In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly, evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world. My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the animal, and lifted it into the garden. I had seen it follow its mistress up-stairs when she went to bed; and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so. While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought: though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o'clock in the morning. Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street; and my account of Catherine Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately. He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before. 'Nelly Dean,' said he, 'I can't help fancying there's an extra cause for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We've odd reports up here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a trifle; and that sort of people should not either. It's hard work bringing them through fevers, and such things. How did it begin?' 'The master will inform you,' I answered; 'but you are acquainted with the Earnshaws' violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all. I may say this; it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That's her account, at least: for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up. Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions.' 'Mr. Linton will be sorry?' observed Kenneth, interrogatively. 'Sorry? he'll break his heart should anything happen!' I replied. 'Don't alarm him more than necessary.' 'Well, I told him to beware,' said my companion; 'and he must bide the consequences of neglecting my warning! Hasn't he been intimate with Mr. Heathcliff lately?' 'Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange,' answered I, 'though more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because the master likes his company. At present he's discharged from the trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he'll be taken in again.' 'And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?' was the doctor's next question. 'I'm not in her confidence,' returned I, reluctant to continue the subject. 'No, she's a sly one,' he remarked, shaking his head. 'She keeps her own counsel! But she's a real little fool. I have it from good authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with him! My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that: when it was to be he didn't hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp!' This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet. I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me. On ascending to Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty. Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly. _I_ could not pursue them, however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with confusion; still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second grief! I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay in a troubled sleep: her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy; he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully expressive features. The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me, he signified the threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect. I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she slept: her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sister-in-law. I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting up-stairs, open-mouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying: 'Oh, dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master, master, our young lady--' 'Hold your noise!' cried, I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner. 'Speak lower, Mary--What is the matter?' said Mr. Linton. 'What ails your young lady?' 'She's gone, she's gone! Yon' Heathcliff's run off wi' her!' gasped the girl. 'That is not true!' exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. 'It cannot be: how has the idea entered your head? Ellen Dean, go and seek her. It is incredible: it cannot be.' As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion. 'Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,' she stammered, 'and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange. I thought he meant for missis's sickness, so I answered, yes. Then says he, "There's somebody gone after 'em, I guess?" I stared. He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse's shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith's lass had got up to spy who they were: she knew them both directly. And she noticed the man--Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob'dy could mistake him, besides--put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment. The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.' I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room; confirming, when I returned, the servant's statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word. 'Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back,' I inquired. 'How should we do?' 'She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she had a right to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.' And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it.

Chapter 12

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-12

For several days, Isabella mopes around, Catherine pouts in her room, and Edgar worries about his wife. Catherine believes she is dying and is infuriated when Nelly Dean tells her that Edgar has been reading contentedly in the library, in "philosophical resignation" . Catherine actually does get sick and, in a feverish delirium, she begins to name all of the bird feathers coming out of her pillow. She starts hallucinating, doesn't recognize her own reflection in the mirror, and tells Nelly that in her confused state she thought she was back home at Wuthering Heights. She starts to recall her childhood--the oak-paneled bed, the wild adventures on the moors, and her love of Heathcliff. Now completely babbling and convinced she is at death's door, she raves, "I'll not lie by myself; they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest until you are with me. I never will!" . Edgar finally comes to see Catherine. Nelly wises up and goes to seek medical attention. In the garden, she finds Isabella's pet dog, Fanny, hanging by the neck, nearly dead. The sounds of galloping horses echo in the distance. Mr. Kenneth tells Nelly that he has heard on "good authority" that Isabella has run off with Heathcliff. Nelly is too scared to tell Edgar, but when he does find out, he seems resigned to her decision.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_12_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 13

chapter 13

{"name": "Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-13", "summary": "Catherine's brain fever worsens, but under Edgar's close care, she recovers. Well, almost. She's pregnant. In the meantime, Isabella has sent a letter to Edgar announcing her marriage to Heathcliff. He doesn't reply. Two weeks later, she writes to Nelly announcing that she is living up at the Heights. She also has a few choice words about her new residence and her spouse. Isabella briefly takes over the narrative, as she tells Nelly in the letter that she basically thinks Heathcliff is the devil. The house is a pigsty and Hareton is a little hooligan. Joseph is still a ranting, cursing crank and Hindley is a ghost of his former self, having been worn down by his own issues and the vengeful abuse of his roommate/semi-brother Heathcliff. It's a real ragtag gang--not the kind of company Isabella is used to keeping. Isabella already misses the Grange and realizes she will have no allies at the Heights. On top of all of that, there are no servants to show her to her \"chamber\" and treat her in the way she is accustomed. Hindley shows Isabella his gun and warns her to lock her bedroom door because he is planning to murder Heathcliff. Hindley's confessions reveal that he has lost a heap of money and is now in Heathcliff's debt. Heathcliff would kill him or kick him out, but he wants his money back. Isabella spends the night sleeping in a chair in Hareton's room. Heathcliff comes looking for her in the middle of the night. He tells her Catherine is sick and that it is her brother's fault. Heathcliff also tells her that until he can get to Edgar, he will make Isabella suffer in his place. She closes the letter, and her narration, by begging Nelly to send help.", "analysis": ""}

For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxiety--in fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity--he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self. The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together. 'These are the earliest flowers at the Heights,' she exclaimed. 'They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?' 'The snow is quite gone down here, darling,' replied her husband; 'and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors: the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full. 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.' 'I shall never be there but once more,' said the invalid; 'and then you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were happy to-day.' Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding. We knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially removed by a change of scene. The master told me to light a fire in the many-weeks' deserted parlour, and to set an easy-chair in the sunshine by the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects round her: which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations investing her hated sick chamber. By evening she seemed greatly exhausted; yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till another room could be prepared. To obviate the fatigue of mounting and descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present--on the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm. Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger's grip, by the birth of an heir. I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff. 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. Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter, which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon. I'll read it: for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living. * * * * * DEAR ELLEN, it begins,--I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you. Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again--that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine! _I can't follow it though_--(these words are underlined)--they need not expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please; taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection. The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions: the first is,--How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recognise any sentiment which those around share with me. The second question I have great interest in; it is this--Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar. Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream! The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors; by that, I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour, to inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farm-house, and your old fellow-servant, Joseph, issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under-lip, and turn away. Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables; reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle. Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen--a dingy, untidy hole; I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth. 'This is Edgar's legal nephew,' I reflected--'mine in a manner; I must shake hands, and--yes--I must kiss him. It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning.' I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said--'How do you do, my dear?' He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend. 'Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?' was my next essay at conversation. An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not 'frame off' rewarded my perseverance. 'Hey, Throttler, lad!' whispered the little wretch, rousing a half-bred bull-dog from its lair in a corner. 'Now, wilt thou be ganging?' he asked authoritatively. Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and replied--'Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it? Mincing un' munching! How can I tell whet ye say?' 'I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!' I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness. 'None o' me! I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt. I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and _his_ eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty annihilated. 'What's your business here?' he demanded, grimly. 'Who are you?' 'My name was Isabella Linton,' I replied. 'You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I suppose, by your permission.' 'Is he come back, then?' asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf. 'Yes--we came just now,' I said; 'but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.' 'It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!' growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the 'fiend' deceived him. I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re-fastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter-dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom! Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again. You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles: I could not overpass them! I questioned with myself--where must I turn for comfort? and--mind you don't tell Edgar, or Catherine--above every sorrow beside, this rose pre-eminent: despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff! I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling. I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed--'I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maid-servant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me!' 'We have none,' he answered; 'you must wait on yourself!' 'Where must I sleep, then?' I sobbed; I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness. 'Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber,' said he; 'open that door--he's in there.' I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone--'Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt--don't omit it!' 'Well!' I said. 'But why, Mr. Earnshaw?' I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff. 'Look here!' he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel. 'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. 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!' I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me: how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument! I took it from his hand, and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment. 'I don't care if you tell him,' said he. '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! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!' You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits. He is clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least. I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's ill-bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, '_I'll_ make the porridge!' I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit. 'Mr. Earnshaw,' I continued, 'directs me to wait on myself: I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve.' 'Gooid Lord!' he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. 'If there's to be fresh ortherings--just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev' a _mistress_ set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver _did_ think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place--but I doubt it's nigh at hand!' This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation. 'Thear!' he ejaculated. 'Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge to-neeght; they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in bowl un' all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then ye'll hae done wi' 't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved out!' It _was_ rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that 'the barn was every bit as good' as I, 'and every bit as wollsome,' and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug. 'I shall have my supper in another room,' I said. 'Have you no place you call a parlour?' '_Parlour_!' he echoed, sneeringly, '_parlour_! Nay, we've noa _parlours_. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un' if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us.' 'Then I shall go up-stairs,' I answered; 'show me a chamber.' I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed. 'Here's a rahm,' he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. 'It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There's a pack o' corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye're feared o' muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't.' The 'rahm' was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle. 'Why, man,' I exclaimed, facing him angrily, 'this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bed-room.' '_Bed-rume_!' he repeated, in a tone of mockery. 'Yah's see all t' _bed-rumes_ thear is--yon's mine.' He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigo-coloured quilt, at one end. 'What do I want with yours?' I retorted. 'I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?' 'Oh! it's Maister _Hathecliff's_ ye're wanting?' cried he, as if making a new discovery. 'Couldn't ye ha' said soa, at onst? un' then, I mud ha' telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut see--he allas keeps it locked, un' nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln.' 'You've a nice house, Joseph,' I could not refrain from observing, 'and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose--there are other rooms. For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!' He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting, before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one. There was a carpet--a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,--'This here is t' maister's.' My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted. I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose. 'Whear the divil?' began the religious elder. 'The Lord bless us! The Lord forgie us! Whear the _hell_ wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome nowt! Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er. There's not another hoile to lig down in i' th' hahse!' I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground; and then seated myself at the stairs'-head, hid my face in my hands, and cried. 'Ech! ech!' exclaimed Joseph. 'Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brooken pots; un' then we's hear summut; we's hear how it's to be. Gooid-for-naught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Chrustmas, flinging t' precious gifts o'God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But I'm mista'en if ye shew yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I nobbut wish he may.' And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with him; and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge; while I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief. Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage; my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a scutter down-stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,--'They's rahm for boath ye un' yer pride, now, I sud think i' the hahse. It's empty; ye may hev' it all to yerseln, un' Him as allus maks a third, i' sich ill company!' Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation; and the minute I flung myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept. My slumber was deep and sweet, though over far too soon. Mr. Heathcliff awoke me; he had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing there? I told him the cause of my staying up so late--that he had the key of our room in his pocket. The adjective _our_ gave mortal offence. He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine; and he'd--but I'll not repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct: he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence! I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him. I do hate him--I am wretched--I have been a fool! Beware of uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange. I shall expect you every day--don't disappoint me!--ISABELLA.

Chapter 13

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-13

Catherine's brain fever worsens, but under Edgar's close care, she recovers. Well, almost. She's pregnant. In the meantime, Isabella has sent a letter to Edgar announcing her marriage to Heathcliff. He doesn't reply. Two weeks later, she writes to Nelly announcing that she is living up at the Heights. She also has a few choice words about her new residence and her spouse. Isabella briefly takes over the narrative, as she tells Nelly in the letter that she basically thinks Heathcliff is the devil. The house is a pigsty and Hareton is a little hooligan. Joseph is still a ranting, cursing crank and Hindley is a ghost of his former self, having been worn down by his own issues and the vengeful abuse of his roommate/semi-brother Heathcliff. It's a real ragtag gang--not the kind of company Isabella is used to keeping. Isabella already misses the Grange and realizes she will have no allies at the Heights. On top of all of that, there are no servants to show her to her "chamber" and treat her in the way she is accustomed. Hindley shows Isabella his gun and warns her to lock her bedroom door because he is planning to murder Heathcliff. Hindley's confessions reveal that he has lost a heap of money and is now in Heathcliff's debt. Heathcliff would kill him or kick him out, but he wants his money back. Isabella spends the night sleeping in a chair in Hareton's room. Heathcliff comes looking for her in the middle of the night. He tells her Catherine is sick and that it is her brother's fault. Heathcliff also tells her that until he can get to Edgar, he will make Isabella suffer in his place. She closes the letter, and her narration, by begging Nelly to send help.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_13_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-14", "summary": "Nelly resumes the narrative. Edgar tells Nelly he will have nothing to do with Isabella now that she has married \"the villain.\" Nelly decides to go up to the Heights herself to check on Isabella. The house is a shambles, and Isabella is making no effort to keep up her surroundings or her own appearance. Heathcliff, however, \"never looked better\" . Nelly tells Isabella that Edgar will not be contacting her. She tells Heathcliff that Catherine is recovering from her illness and that he should let her be. He, of course, won't stand for that, and Nelly warns him, \"Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether!\" . Heathcliff rants about how great Catherine's love is for him, compared to her love for Edgar. He says Isabella fell in love with the idea--or \"delusion\"--that he was a hero. She now knows better, but she still loves him no matter how vile he is. \"No brutality disgusted her\", he tells Nelly. Heathcliff forces Nelly to arrange a meeting with Catherine. She walks back to the Grange with a heavy heart.", "analysis": ""}

As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me. 'Forgiveness!' said Linton. '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.' 'And you won't write her a little note, sir?' I asked, imploringly. 'No,' he answered. 'It is needless. My communication with Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist!' Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said--'If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us.' 'Oh, I have nothing,' I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. 'My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up.' Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil. 'Mrs. Linton is now just recovering,' I said; 'she'll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you'll shun crossing her way again: nay, you'll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you 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!' 'That is quite possible,' remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: 'quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his _duty_ and _humanity_? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I _will_ see her! What do you say?' 'I say, Mr. Heathcliff,' I replied, 'you must not: you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether.' 'With your aid that may be avoided,' he continued; 'and should there be danger of such an event--should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence--why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: 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. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!' 'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.' 'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?' he said. 'Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future--_death_ and _hell_: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. 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. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?' 'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,' cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. 'No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!' 'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?' observed Heathcliff, scornfully. 'He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity.' 'He is not aware of what I suffer,' she replied. 'I didn't tell him that.' 'You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?' 'To say that I was married, I did write--you saw the note.' 'And nothing since?' 'No.' 'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,' I remarked. 'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say.' 'I should guess it was her own,' said Heathcliff. 'She degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.' 'Well, sir,' returned I, 'I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.' 'She abandoned them under a delusion,' he answered; 'picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdity--of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!' 'Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, 'this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?' 'Take care, Ellen!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. 'Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before; and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. 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!' 'There--that will do for the present!' said Heathcliff. 'If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance: she's near the point which would suit me. No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go up-stairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way: up-stairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child!' He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering--'I have no pity! I have no pity! 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.' 'Do you understand what the word pity means?' I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. 'Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?' 'Put that down!' he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. 'You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm: I don't desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there to-night; and every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief.' I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. 'The commonest occurrence startles her painfully,' I said. 'She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he'll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!' 'In that case I'll take measures to secure you, woman!' exclaimed Heathcliff; 'you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it: you must prepare her--ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from _duty_ and _humanity_! From _pity_ and _charity_! He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares? Let us settle it at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!' Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn't be there, and my fellow-servants should be equally out of the way. Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness: and then I remembered Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand. But here is Kenneth; I'll go down, and tell him how much better you are. My history is _dree_, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning. Dree, and dreary! I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. But never mind! I'll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean's bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes. I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-14

Nelly resumes the narrative. Edgar tells Nelly he will have nothing to do with Isabella now that she has married "the villain." Nelly decides to go up to the Heights herself to check on Isabella. The house is a shambles, and Isabella is making no effort to keep up her surroundings or her own appearance. Heathcliff, however, "never looked better" . Nelly tells Isabella that Edgar will not be contacting her. She tells Heathcliff that Catherine is recovering from her illness and that he should let her be. He, of course, won't stand for that, and Nelly warns him, "Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether!" . Heathcliff rants about how great Catherine's love is for him, compared to her love for Edgar. He says Isabella fell in love with the idea--or "delusion"--that he was a hero. She now knows better, but she still loves him no matter how vile he is. "No brutality disgusted her", he tells Nelly. Heathcliff forces Nelly to arrange a meeting with Catherine. She walks back to the Grange with a heavy heart.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_14_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 15

chapter 15

{"name": "Chapter 15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-15", "summary": "Lockwood has heard the whole story now and decides to tell a condensed version. Several days go by, and Nelly finally gathers the courage to inform Catherine of Heathcliff's desired visit. Catherine is still wrecked from being sick and just sits and stares out of the open window. Heathcliff marches right into Catherine's room, declaring, \"Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?\" . Catherine scolds him for his actions, saying he is killing her and wishes they were both dead. He grips her until he leaves bruises on her skin, assuring her that he is tortured too. Catherine announces that life is a prison, that she wants to die and take Heathcliff with her. Lots of hugging, kissing, and crying ensue as Heathcliff demands to know why Catherine betrayed him, and her heart, by marrying Edgar. Nelly watches the whole drama unfold but becomes nervous when she realizes that Edgar will be home from chapel soon. Edgar storms in but ignores Heathcliff because Catherine is such a mess. Heathcliff consents to leave, but says he will stay outside in the garden for as long as he pleases.", "analysis": ""}

Another week over--and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I'll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style. In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place; and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and didn't want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was, that it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to church. There was a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went up-stairs. Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual. Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond--you would have said out of this world. Then, the paleness of her face--its haggard aspect having vanished as she recovered flesh--and the peculiar expression arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened; and--invariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should think--refuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay. A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had laid it there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of smiles and kisses. At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good. Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all; but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no recognition of material things either by ear or eye. 'There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,' I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee. 'You must read it immediately, because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal?' 'Yes,' she answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened it--it was very short. 'Now,' I continued, 'read it.' She drew away her hand, and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed that at last I resumed--'Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff.' There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it; and when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning eagerness. 'Well, he wishes to see you,' said I, guessing her need of an interpreter. 'He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring.' As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms. He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there--she was fated, sure to die. 'Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?' was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt. 'What now?' said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me--and thriven on it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?' Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down. '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?' 'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth. The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin. '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? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?' 'I shall not be at peace,' moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly-- '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!' Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us. Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed; addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:-- 'Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave. _That_ is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not _my_ Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul. And,' added she musingly, 'the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. 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. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me--very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for _you_. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I _wonder_ he won't be near me!' She went on to herself. 'I thought he wished it. Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff.' In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity. A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently: she put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly-- '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 deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you--they'll damn you. You loved me--then what _right_ had you to leave me? What right--answer me--for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? 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. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you--oh, God! would _you_ like to live with your soul in the grave?' 'Let me alone. Let me alone,' sobbed Catherine. 'If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!' 'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love _my_ murderer--but _yours_! How can I?' They were silent--their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this. I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch. 'Service is over,' I announced. 'My master will be here in half an hour.' Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never moved. Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer. 'Now he is here,' I exclaimed. 'For heaven's sake, hurry down! You'll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick; and stay among the trees till he is fairly in.' 'I must go, Cathy,' said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms. 'But if I live, I'll see you again before you are asleep. I won't stray five yards from your window.' 'You must not go!' she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. 'You _shall_ not, I tell you.' 'For one hour,' he pleaded earnestly. 'Not for one minute,' she replied. 'I _must_--Linton will be up immediately,' persisted the alarmed intruder. He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act--she clung fast, gasping: there was mad resolution in her face. 'No!' she shrieked. 'Oh, don't, don't go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!' 'Damn the fool! There he is,' cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. 'Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips.' And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the stairs--the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified. 'Are you going to listen to her ravings?' I said, passionately. 'She does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for--master, mistress, and servant.' I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise. In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down. 'She's fainted, or dead,' I thought: 'so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.' Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his arms. 'Look there!' he said. 'Unless you be a fiend, help her first--then you shall speak to me!' He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night. 'I shall not refuse to go out of doors,' he answered; 'but I shall stay in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow. I shall be under those larch-trees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not.' He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence.

Chapter 15

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-15

Lockwood has heard the whole story now and decides to tell a condensed version. Several days go by, and Nelly finally gathers the courage to inform Catherine of Heathcliff's desired visit. Catherine is still wrecked from being sick and just sits and stares out of the open window. Heathcliff marches right into Catherine's room, declaring, "Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?" . Catherine scolds him for his actions, saying he is killing her and wishes they were both dead. He grips her until he leaves bruises on her skin, assuring her that he is tortured too. Catherine announces that life is a prison, that she wants to die and take Heathcliff with her. Lots of hugging, kissing, and crying ensue as Heathcliff demands to know why Catherine betrayed him, and her heart, by marrying Edgar. Nelly watches the whole drama unfold but becomes nervous when she realizes that Edgar will be home from chapel soon. Edgar storms in but ignores Heathcliff because Catherine is such a mess. Heathcliff consents to leave, but says he will stay outside in the garden for as long as he pleases.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/17.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_15_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 16

chapter 16

{"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-16", "summary": "That night little Catherine is born, two months premature, and her mother dies in childbirth. Edgar begins mourning. On top of the whole mess, he has no heir . Nelly goes out to the garden to break the news to Heathcliff, but he already knows. Still, he begs for all of the grisly details and, of course, wants to know if she mentioned him. Heathcliff doesn't want Catherine to rest in peace. He cannot live without her, and he cries out for her to haunt him. Heathcliff sneaks into the house to say one final goodbye to Catherine in her coffin. As a parting gesture, he replaces Edgar's hair in the locket around her neck with a lock of his own. Instead of being buried in a chapel or with the Linton family, Catherine's body is laid to rest outside, near the moor and peat mould .", "analysis": ""}

About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months' child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter's distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be. Next morning--bright and cheerful out of doors--stole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but _his_ was the hush of exhausted anguish, and _hers_ of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: 'Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!' I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant. Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd give a great deal to know. I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded: Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker. The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange; unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished, yet feared, to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know. He was there--at least, a few yards further in the park; leant against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke:--'She's dead!' he said; 'I've not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief away--don't snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!' I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others. When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground. 'Yes, she's dead!' I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks. '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!' 'Did _she_ take due warning, then?' asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer. 'Did she die like a saint? Come, give me a true history of the event. How did--?' He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare. 'How did she die?' he resumed, at last--fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends. 'Poor wretch!' I thought; 'you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation.' 'Quietly as a lamb!' I answered, aloud. 'She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep; and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!' 'And--did she ever mention me?' he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear to hear. 'Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody from the time you left her,' I said. 'She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a gentle dream--may she wake as kindly in the other world!' 'May she wake in torment!' he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. 'Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not _there_--not in heaven--not perished--where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered _do_ haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts _have_ wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only _do_ not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I _cannot_ live without my life! I _cannot_ live without my soul!' He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassion--it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console! Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing-room. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and--a circumstance concealed from all but me--Heathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose. I held no communication with him: still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together. Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants. Isabella was not asked. The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves.

Chapter 16

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-16

That night little Catherine is born, two months premature, and her mother dies in childbirth. Edgar begins mourning. On top of the whole mess, he has no heir . Nelly goes out to the garden to break the news to Heathcliff, but he already knows. Still, he begs for all of the grisly details and, of course, wants to know if she mentioned him. Heathcliff doesn't want Catherine to rest in peace. He cannot live without her, and he cries out for her to haunt him. Heathcliff sneaks into the house to say one final goodbye to Catherine in her coffin. As a parting gesture, he replaces Edgar's hair in the locket around her neck with a lock of his own. Instead of being buried in a chapel or with the Linton family, Catherine's body is laid to rest outside, near the moor and peat mould .

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_17_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 18

chapter 18

{"name": "Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-18", "summary": "Cathy is growing up a favorite of her father. She is not allowed to leave the grounds of Thrushcross Grange and has no notion of Heathcliff or Wuthering Heights. However, like her mother, she yearns to explore the moors and a certain rock formation called Penistone Crags. Because you have to go past the Heights to get there, Edgar forbids it. Isabella has moved to London and had a son, Linton Heathcliff, who is now twelve. Dying, Isabella persuades Edgar to come to bid her farewell and take her child. When Edgar leaves, Nelly is left alone to watch after young Cathy. She allows Cathy to ramble around the Grange playing games, but she always keeps the gates locked. Sure enough, one day Cathy takes off and goes straight up to Wuthering Heights. Nelly goes off to the Heights in search of Cathy, and finds the girl happily chatting with the shy, awkward Hareton. As it turns out Heathcliff is not at home. Angry at Cathy, Nelly tries to make the girl go home right away, but Cathy resists leaving the Heights. She thinks it's Hareton's house, but when she finds out it isn't, Cathy starts treating him like a servant. She's shocked when he starts cussing her out. Nelly angrily tells Cathy that the rude and rough young man she thought was a servant is her cousin, Hareton. Cathy refuses to accept that and insists that her father is going to London to get her cousin . Apparently she doesn't know you can have more than one cousin. Nelly observes the young man that Hareton has become--\"a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy\" . Heathcliff has denied him any education, so between his uncle and Joseph he has grown up without manners or guidance of any sort. Nelly tells Cathy that her father would be very unhappy if he heard she was at the Heights.", "analysis": ""}

The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were the happiest of my life: my greatest troubles in their passage rose from our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in common with all children, rich and poor. For the rest, after the first six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's dust. She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house: a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair. Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble her: for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never fierce: it was deep and tender. However, it must be acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts. A propensity to be saucy was one; and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be good tempered or cross. If a servant chanced to vex her, it was always--'I shall tell papa!' And if he reproved her, even by a look, you would have thought it a heart-breaking business: I don't believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her. He took her education entirely on himself, and made it an amusement. Fortunately, curiosity and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar: she learned rapidly and eagerly, and did honour to his teaching. Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself. Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one else. Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel, the only building she had approached or entered, except her own home. Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her: she was a perfect recluse; and, apparently, perfectly contented. Sometimes, indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe-- 'Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills? I wonder what lies on the other side--is it the sea?' 'No, Miss Cathy,' I would answer; 'it is hills again, just like these.' 'And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?' she once asked. The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice; especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow. I explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree. 'And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?' she pursued. 'Because they are a great deal higher up than we are,' replied I; 'you could not climb them, they are too high and steep. In winter the frost is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have found snow under that black hollow on the north-east side!' 'Oh, you have been on them!' she cried gleefully. 'Then I can go, too, when I am a woman. Has papa been, Ellen?' 'Papa would tell you, Miss,' I answered, hastily, 'that they are not worth the trouble of visiting. The moors, where you ramble with him, are much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world.' 'But I know the park, and I don't know those,' she murmured to herself. 'And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest point: my little pony Minny shall take me some time.' One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a desire to fulfil this project: she teased Mr. Linton about it; and he promised she should have the journey when she got older. But Miss Catherine measured her age by months, and, 'Now, am I old enough to go to Penistone Crags?' was the constant question in her mouth. The road thither wound close by Wuthering Heights. Edgar had not the heart to pass it; so she received as constantly the answer, 'Not yet, love: not yet.' I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her husband. Her family were of a delicate constitution: she and Edgar both lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts. What her last illness was, I am not certain: I conjecture, they died of the same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close. She wrote to inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a four-months' indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible; for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands. Her hope was that Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her: his father, she would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or education. My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her request: reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to answer this; commanding Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park, even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied. He was away three weeks. The first day or two my charge sat in a corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing: in that quiet state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an interval of impatient, fretful weariness; and being too busy, and too old then, to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might entertain herself. I used to send her on her travels round the grounds--now on foot, and now on a pony; indulging her with a patient audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned. The summer shone in full prime; and she took such a taste for this solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful tales. I did not fear her breaking bounds; because the gates were generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone, if they had stood wide open. Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced. Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o'clock, and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan; and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts: a horse, and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers. I got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her wide-brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned; but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction: I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds. I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady. 'I saw her at morn,' he replied: 'she would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight.' You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me directly she must have started for Penistone Crags. 'What will become of her?' I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the high-road. I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect, far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. 'And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them,' I reflected, 'and been killed, or broken some of her bones?' My suspense was truly painful; and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered: she had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw. 'Ah,' said she, 'you are come a-seeking your little mistress! Don't be frightened. She's here safe: but I'm glad it isn't the master.' 'He is not at home then, is he?' I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm. 'No, no,' she replied: 'both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit.' I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton--now a great, strong lad of eighteen--who stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment: comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth. 'Very well, Miss!' I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance. 'This is your last ride, till papa comes back. I'll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!' 'Aha, Ellen!' she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side. 'I shall have a pretty story to tell to-night; and so you've found me out. Have you ever been here in your life before?' 'Put that hat on, and home at once,' said I. 'I'm dreadfully grieved at you, Miss Cathy: you've done extremely wrong! It's no use pouting and crying: that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the country after you. To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in; and you stealing off so! It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith in you any more.' 'What have I done?' sobbed she, instantly checked. 'Papa charged me nothing: he'll not scold me, Ellen--he's never cross, like you!' 'Come, come!' I repeated. 'I'll tie the riband. Now, let us have no petulance. Oh, for shame! You thirteen years old, and such a baby!' This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and retreating to the chimney out of my reach. 'Nay,' said the servant, 'don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean. We made her stop: she'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be uneasy. Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should: it's a wild road over the hills.' Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too awkward to speak; though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion. 'How long am I to wait?' I continued, disregarding the woman's interference. 'It will be dark in ten minutes. Where is the pony, Miss Cathy? And where is Phoenix? I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so please yourself.' 'The pony is in the yard,' she replied, 'and Phoenix is shut in there. He's bitten--and so is Charlie. I was going to tell you all about it; but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear.' I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue. Hareton and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still; till I cried, in great irritation,--'Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is you'd be glad enough to get out.' 'It's _your_ father's, isn't it?' said she, turning to Hareton. 'Nay,' he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully. He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his own. 'Whose then--your master's?' she asked. He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and turned away. 'Who is his master?' continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me. 'He talked about "our house," and "our folk." I thought he had been the owner's son. And he never said Miss: he should have done, shouldn't he, if he's a servant?' Hareton grew black as a thunder-cloud at this childish speech. I silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for departure. 'Now, get my horse,' she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stable-boys at the Grange. 'And you may come with me. I want to see where the goblin-hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the _fairishes_, as you call them: but make haste! What's the matter? Get my horse, I say.' 'I'll see thee damned before I be _thy_ servant!' growled the lad. 'You'll see me _what_!' asked Catherine in surprise. 'Damned--thou saucy witch!' he replied. 'There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company,' I interposed. 'Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin to dispute with him. Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone.' '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!' Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprang into her eyes with indignation. 'You bring the pony,' she exclaimed, turning to the woman, 'and let my dog free this moment!' 'Softly, Miss,' answered she addressed; 'you'll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.' '_He_ my cousin!' cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh. 'Yes, indeed,' responded her reprover. 'Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things,' she pursued in great trouble. 'Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman's son. That my--' she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown. '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.' 'He's not--he's not my cousin, Ellen!' she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea. I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's return would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion concerning her rude-bred kindred. Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought. Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew. I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow; who was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill; thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that course of oppression: he had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to ill-treatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrow-minded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their 'offald ways,' so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property. If the lad swore, he wouldn't correct him: nor however culpably he behaved. It gave Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths: he allowed that the lad was ruined: that his soul was abandoned to perdition; but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it. Hareton's blood would be required at his hands; and there lay immense consolation in that thought. Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations. I don't pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little. The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was _near_, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls. The master was too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is yet. This, however, is not making progress with my story. Miss Cathy rejected the peace-offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and Phoenix. They came limping and hanging their heads; and we set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us. I could not wring from my little lady how she had spent the day; except that, as I supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags; and she arrived without adventure to the gate of the farm-house, when Hareton happened to issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train. They had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them: that formed an introduction. Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was going; and asked him to show her the way: finally, beguiling him to accompany her. He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty other queer places. But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant; and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by calling him her cousin. Then the language he had held to her rankled in her heart; she who was always 'love,' and 'darling,' and 'queen,' and 'angel,' with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a stranger! She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father. I explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn't bear that prospect: she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake. After all, she was a sweet little girl.

Chapter 18

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-18

Cathy is growing up a favorite of her father. She is not allowed to leave the grounds of Thrushcross Grange and has no notion of Heathcliff or Wuthering Heights. However, like her mother, she yearns to explore the moors and a certain rock formation called Penistone Crags. Because you have to go past the Heights to get there, Edgar forbids it. Isabella has moved to London and had a son, Linton Heathcliff, who is now twelve. Dying, Isabella persuades Edgar to come to bid her farewell and take her child. When Edgar leaves, Nelly is left alone to watch after young Cathy. She allows Cathy to ramble around the Grange playing games, but she always keeps the gates locked. Sure enough, one day Cathy takes off and goes straight up to Wuthering Heights. Nelly goes off to the Heights in search of Cathy, and finds the girl happily chatting with the shy, awkward Hareton. As it turns out Heathcliff is not at home. Angry at Cathy, Nelly tries to make the girl go home right away, but Cathy resists leaving the Heights. She thinks it's Hareton's house, but when she finds out it isn't, Cathy starts treating him like a servant. She's shocked when he starts cussing her out. Nelly angrily tells Cathy that the rude and rough young man she thought was a servant is her cousin, Hareton. Cathy refuses to accept that and insists that her father is going to London to get her cousin . Apparently she doesn't know you can have more than one cousin. Nelly observes the young man that Hareton has become--"a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features, and stout and healthy" . Heathcliff has denied him any education, so between his uncle and Joseph he has grown up without manners or guidance of any sort. Nelly tells Cathy that her father would be very unhappy if he heard she was at the Heights.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_18_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-19", "summary": "Edgar sends a letter from London announcing that Isabella is dead and that he will be returning with her son, Linton Heathcliff. They finally arrive, and Cathy excitedly meets her cousin, a \"pale, delicate, effeminate boy\" . Joseph comes down from the Heights to take Linton home to his father. Edgar feels terrible, because he had promised Isabella that he would watch over her son. But he has no choice--Heathcliff is the boy's father, after all. Edgar tells him the boy will come to the Heights the next day.", "analysis": ""}

A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master's return. Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter, and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew. Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back; and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of her 'real' cousin. The evening of their expected arrival came. Since early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now attired in her new black frock--poor thing! her aunt's death impressed her with no definite sorrow--she obliged me, by constant worrying, to walk with her down through the grounds to meet them. 'Linton is just six months younger than I am,' she chattered, as we strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under shadow of the trees. 'How delightful it will be to have him for a playfellow! Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was lighter than mine--more flaxen, and quite as fine. I have it carefully preserved in a little glass box; and I've often thought what a pleasure it would be to see its owner. Oh! I am happy--and papa, dear, dear papa! Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run.' She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was impossible: she couldn't be still a minute. 'How long they are!' she exclaimed. 'Ah, I see, some dust on the road--they are coming! No! When will they be here? May we not go a little way--half a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile? Do say Yes: to that clump of birches at the turn!' I refused staunchly. At length her suspense was ended: the travelling carriage rolled in sight. Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the window. He descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves. While they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton. He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been winter. A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had. The latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to close the door, and leave him undisturbed; for the journey had fatigued him. Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the servants. 'Now, darling,' said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted at the bottom of the front steps: 'your cousin is not so strong or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time since; therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with you directly. And don't harass him much by talking: let him be quiet this evening, at least, will you?' 'Yes, yes, papa,' answered Catherine: 'but I do want to see him; and he hasn't once looked out.' The carriage stopped; and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the ground by his uncle. 'This is your cousin Cathy, Linton,' he said, putting their little hands together. 'She's fond of you already; and mind you don't grieve her by crying to-night. 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.' 'Let me go to bed, then,' answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine's salute; and he put his fingers to remove incipient tears. 'Come, come, there's a good child,' I whispered, leading him in. 'You'll make her weep too--see how sorry she is for you!' 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. All three entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready. I proceeded to remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table; but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh. My master inquired what was the matter. 'I can't sit on a chair,' sobbed the boy. 'Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea,' answered his uncle patiently. He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his fretful ailing charge. Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down. Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side. At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby. This pleased him, for he was not much better: he dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile. 'Oh, he'll do very well,' said the master to me, after watching them a minute. 'Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen. 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.' 'Ay, if we can keep him!' I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be. Our doubts were presently decided--even earlier than I expected. I had just taken the children up-stairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep--he would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case--I had come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with the master. 'I shall ask him what he wants first,' I said, in considerable trepidation. 'A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the instant they have returned from a long journey. I don't think the master can see him.' Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat. 'Good-evening, Joseph,' I said, coldly. 'What business brings you here to-night?' 'It's Maister Linton I mun spake to,' he answered, waving me disdainfully aside. 'Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular to say, I'm sure he won't hear it now,' I continued. 'You had better sit down in there, and entrust your message to me.' 'Which is his rahm?' pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed doors. I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day. Mr. Linton had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition-- 'Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back 'bout him.' Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow overcast his features: he would have pitied the child on his own account; but, 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. No plan offered itself: the very exhibition of any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory: there was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was not going to rouse him from his sleep. 'Tell Mr. Heathcliff,' he answered calmly, 'that his son shall come to Wuthering Heights to-morrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is very precarious.' 'Noa!' said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. 'Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I mun tak' him--soa now ye knaw!' 'You shall not to-night!' answered Linton decisively. 'Walk down stairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have said. Ellen, show him down. Go--' And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room of him and closed the door. 'Varrah weell!' shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. 'To-morn, he's come hisseln, and thrust _him_ out, if ye darr!'

Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-19

Edgar sends a letter from London announcing that Isabella is dead and that he will be returning with her son, Linton Heathcliff. They finally arrive, and Cathy excitedly meets her cousin, a "pale, delicate, effeminate boy" . Joseph comes down from the Heights to take Linton home to his father. Edgar feels terrible, because he had promised Isabella that he would watch over her son. But he has no choice--Heathcliff is the boy's father, after all. Edgar tells him the boy will come to the Heights the next day.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_19_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 20

chapter 20

{"name": "Chapter 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-20", "summary": "Nelly wakes Linton up at 5 o'clock in the morning to take him to his father. Because his mother never mentioned his father, Linton is surprised and confused. Linton is full of questions about his father, questions Nelly answers reluctantly. Nelly and Linton arrive at the Heights. \"Hallo, Nelly!\" Heathcliff cries. \"I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself\" . That \"property,\" of course, is the son he has never met. They get off to a rough start, with Heathcliff making comments about his son's appearance. He announces that the only reason he will put up with his son is that he is the heir to everythingincluding Thrushcross Grange. As Nelly leaves the Heights, she hears Linton crying out, begging not to be left behind.", "analysis": ""}

To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony; and, said he--'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.' Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o'clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling; but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late journey. 'My father!' he cried, in strange perplexity. 'Mamma never told me I had a father. Where does he live? I'd rather stay with uncle.' 'He lives a little distance from the Grange,' I replied; 'just beyond those hills: not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty. And you should be glad to go home, and to see him. You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you.' 'But why have I not heard of him before?' asked Linton. 'Why didn't mamma and he live together, as other people do?' 'He had business to keep him in the north,' I answered, 'and your mother's health required her to reside in the south.' 'And why didn't mamma speak to me about him?' persevered the child. 'She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago. How am I to love papa? I don't know him.' 'Oh, all children love their parents,' I said. 'Your mother, perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you. Let us make haste. An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much preferable to an hour's more sleep.' 'Is _she_ to go with us,' he demanded, 'the little girl I saw yesterday?' 'Not now,' replied I. 'Is uncle?' he continued. 'No, I shall be your companion there,' I said. Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study. 'I won't go without uncle,' he cried at length: 'I can't tell where you mean to take me.' I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to meet his father; still he obstinately resisted any progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance in coaxing him out of bed. The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive assurances that his absence should be short: that Mr. Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally ill-founded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way. The pure heather-scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny, relieved his despondency after a while. He began to put questions concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and liveliness. 'Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?' he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue. '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 what is my father like?' he asked. 'Is he as young and handsome as uncle?' 'He's as young,' said I; 'but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether. He'll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he'll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own.' 'Black hair and eyes!' mused Linton. 'I can't fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I?' 'Not much,' I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyes--his mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit. 'How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me!' he murmured. 'Has he ever seen me? If he has, I must have been a baby. I remember not a single thing about him!' 'Why, Master Linton,' said I, 'three hundred miles is a great distance; and ten years seem very different in length to a grown-up person compared with what they do to you. It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity; and now it is too late. Don't trouble him with questions on the subject: it will disturb him, for no good.' The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden-gate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door. It was half-past six; the family had just finished breakfast: the servant was clearing and wiping down the table. Joseph stood by his master's chair telling some tale concerning a lame horse; and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield. 'Hallo, Nelly!' said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me. 'I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself. You've brought it, have you? Let us see what we can make of it.' He got up and strode to the door: Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping curiosity. Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three. 'Sure-ly,' said Joseph after a grave inspection, 'he's swopped wi' ye, Maister, an' yon's his lass!' Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh. 'God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!' he exclaimed. 'Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that's worse than I expected--and the devil knows I was not sanguine!' I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter. He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or whether it were intended for him: indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father. But he clung to me with growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding him 'come hither' he hid his face on my shoulder and wept. 'Tut, tut!' said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin. 'None of that nonsense! We're not going to hurt thee, Linton--isn't that thy name? Thou art thy mother's child, entirely! Where is my share in thee, puling chicken?' He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector. 'Do you know me?' asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble. 'No,' said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear. 'You've heard of me, I daresay?' 'No,' he replied again. 'No! What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me! You are my son, then, I'll tell you; and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed. Now, don't wince, and colour up! Though it is something to see you have not white blood. Be a good lad; and I'll do for you. Nelly, if you be tired you may sit down; if not, get home again. I guess you'll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and this thing won't be settled while you linger about it.' '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.' 'I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear,' he said, laughing. 'Only nobody else must be kind to him: I'm jealous of monopolising his affection. And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some breakfast. Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work. Yes, Nell,' he added, when they had departed, 'my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his successor. Besides, he's _mine_, and I want the triumph of seeing _my_ descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children to till their fathers' lands for wages. That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives! But that consideration is sufficient: he's as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master tends his own. I have a room up-stairs, furnished for him in handsome style; I've engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from twenty miles' distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn. I've ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I've arranged everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his associates. I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with the whey-faced, whining wretch!' While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milk-porridge, and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw the old man-servant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child; though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour. 'Cannot ate it?' repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. 'But Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little 'un; and what wer gooid enough for him's gooid enough for ye, I's rayther think!' 'I _sha'n't_ eat it!' answered Linton, snappishly. 'Take it away.' Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us. 'Is there aught ails th' victuals?' he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff's nose. 'What should ail them?' he said. 'Wah!' answered Joseph, 'yon dainty chap says he cannut ate 'em. But I guess it's raight! His mother wer just soa--we wer a'most too mucky to sow t' corn for makking her breead.' 'Don't mention his mother to me,' said the master, angrily. 'Get him something that he can eat, that's all. What is his usual food, Nelly?' I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father's selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I'll console Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheep-dog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words-- 'Don't leave me! I'll not stay here! I'll not stay here!' Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief guardianship ended.

Chapter 20

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-20

Nelly wakes Linton up at 5 o'clock in the morning to take him to his father. Because his mother never mentioned his father, Linton is surprised and confused. Linton is full of questions about his father, questions Nelly answers reluctantly. Nelly and Linton arrive at the Heights. "Hallo, Nelly!" Heathcliff cries. "I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself" . That "property," of course, is the son he has never met. They get off to a rough start, with Heathcliff making comments about his son's appearance. He announces that the only reason he will put up with his son is that he is the heir to everythingincluding Thrushcross Grange. As Nelly leaves the Heights, she hears Linton crying out, begging not to be left behind.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/22.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_20_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 21

chapter 21

{"name": "Chapter 21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-21", "summary": "Cathy is not happy to have lost her new cousin and playmate so quickly. The housekeeper from the Heights updates Nelly on how things are going between Linton and his father--as expected, not good. Linton is sick all of the time and is \"selfish and disagreeable\" . On her sixteenth birthday, Cathy announces that she would like to spend the day on the moors. Of course, she begins to make her way toward Wuthering Heights, and she and Nelly run into Heathcliff, who invites them back to the house, insisting that Cathy come see Linton. As he drags them back to the house, Heathcliff announces his plan to have the cousins get married, so that he can inherit the Grange when Edgar dies. It's all about property. Cathy is thrilled at finding these relatives living so near to the Grange and chastises Nelly for not telling her about them. Heathcliff mentions Edgar's \"prejudice\" against him and complains to Nelly that his own son is a wimp. Heathcliff explains to Nelly that he sympathizes with Hareton and yet has enjoyed mistreating him, degrading him, and turning him into an animal who scorns \"book-larning\"--all as revenge against his father, Hindley. Heathcliff enjoys pitting Hareton against his son in an effort to make Linton seem more appealing to Cathy, simply because he has a glimmer of intelligence next to his oaf of a cousin. Rather than keep the visit a secret, Cathy announces it to her father the next day. Edgar tells her the whole dark story: how Heathcliff ran away with Aunt Isabella and desires only revenge. Cathy wants to begin writing letters to Linton. When Nelly refuses to help her, Cathy finds a milk-fetcher to be her delivery boy. She quickly accumulates a mass of letters, which she hides in a drawer. Nelly collects them all, and when she confronts Cathy about her disobedience, she finds out that Cathy is in love with Linton. Nelly burns the letters and puts an end to the correspondence.", "analysis": ""}

We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however, 'if I can get him'; and there were no hopes of that. This promise poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him. When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together. There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour: or else lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort. 'And I never know such a fainthearted creature,' added the woman; 'nor one so careful of hisseln. He _will_ go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph's bacca-pipe is poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk, milk for ever--heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter; and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him--Hareton is not bad-natured, though he's rough--they're sure to part, one swearing and the other crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then he won't go into danger of temptation: he never enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him up-stairs directly.' I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village? She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor; she lives there still. Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour. 'So make haste, Ellen!' she cried. 'I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made their nests yet.' 'That must be a good distance up,' I answered; 'they don't breed on the edge of the moor.' 'No, it's not,' she said. 'I've gone very near with papa.' I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content. 'Well,' said I, 'where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should be at them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.' 'Oh, a little further--only a little further, Ellen,' was her answer, continually. 'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.' But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself. Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he was reproving the poacher. 'I've neither taken any nor found any,' she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. 'I didn't mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs.' Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who 'papa' was? 'Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,' she replied. 'I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way.' 'You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?' he said, sarcastically. 'And what are you?' inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker. 'That man I've seen before. Is he your son?' She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever. 'Miss Cathy,' I interrupted, 'it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently. We really must go back.' 'No, that man is not my son,' answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside. 'But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house? You'll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome.' I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to the proposal: it was entirely out of the question. 'Why?' she asked, aloud. 'I'm tired of running, and the ground is dewy: I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen his son. He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags. Don't you?' 'I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongue--it will be a treat for her to look in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall walk with me, Nelly.' 'No, she's not going to any such place,' I cried, struggling to release my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the door-stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her appointed companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by the road-side, and vanished. 'Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong,' I continued: 'you know you mean no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever we return; and I shall have the blame.' 'I want her to see Linton,' he answered; 'he's looking better these few days; it's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon persuade her to keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?' '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,' I replied. 'My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole scope,' he said. 'That the two cousins may fall in love, and get married. I'm acting generously to your master: his young chit has no expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton.' 'If Linton died,' I answered, 'and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine would be the heir.' 'No, she would not,' he said. 'There is no clause in the will to secure it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about.' 'And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me again,' I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming. Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path, hastened to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury. Linton stood on the hearth. He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes. He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen. His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun. 'Now, who is that?' asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. 'Can you tell?' 'Your son?' she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the other. 'Yes, yes,' answered he: 'but is this the only time you have beheld him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. Linton, don't you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?' 'What, Linton!' cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name. 'Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! Are you Linton?' The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in the appearance of each. 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. Linton's looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing. After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone. 'And you are my uncle, then!' she cried, reaching up to salute him. 'I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?' 'I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,' he answered. 'There--damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton: they are thrown away on me.' 'Naughty Ellen!' exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses. 'Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering. But I'll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us?' 'Of course,' replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. 'But stay,' he continued, turning towards the young lady. 'Now I think of it, I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he'll put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it.' 'Why did you quarrel?' asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen. '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.' 'That's wrong!' said the young lady: 'some time I'll tell him so. But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come here, then; he shall come to the Grange.' 'It will be too far for me,' murmured her cousin: 'to walk four miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every morning, but once or twice a week.' The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt. 'I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me. 'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!--Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from _her_ love. I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.--Linton!' 'Yes, father,' answered the boy. 'Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.' 'Wouldn't you rather sit here?' asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again. 'I don't know,' she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active. He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered. The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair. 'Oh, I'll ask _you_, uncle,' cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper's assertion. 'That is not my cousin, is he?' 'Yes,' he, replied, 'your mother's nephew. Don't you like him!' Catherine looked queer. 'Is he not a handsome lad?' he continued. The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming-- 'You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a--What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use any bad words; and don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can.' He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation. 'I've tied his tongue,' observed Heathcliff. 'He'll not venture a single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect me at his age--nay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid: so "gaumless," as Joseph calls it?' 'Worse,' I replied, 'because more sullen with it.' 'I've a pleasure in him,' he continued, reflecting aloud. 'He has satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself. 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. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak. Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine. 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. _Mine_ has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. _His_ had first-rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing. I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own that I've outmatched Hindley there. 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!' Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply, because I saw that he expected none. Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue. His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap. 'Get up, you idle boy!' he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness. 'Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives.' Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown. 'It's some damnable writing,' he answered. 'I cannot read it.' 'Can't read it?' cried Catherine; 'I can read it: it's English. But I want to know why it is there.' Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited. 'He does not know his letters,' he said to his cousin. 'Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?' 'Is he all as he should be?' asked Miss Cathy, seriously; 'or is he simple: not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can hardly understand him, I'm sure!' 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: my giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of amusement. 'Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?' tittered Linton. 'Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!' 'If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!' retorted the angry boor, retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification! for he was conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it. Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door-way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill-nature they evinced. I began to dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap. We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner; but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted: but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them. 'Aha!' she cried, 'you take papa's side, Ellen: you are partial I know; or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really extremely angry; only I'm so pleased I can't show it! But you must hold your tongue about _my_ uncle; he's my uncle, remember; and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with him.' And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night, because she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin; and still I was not altogether sorry: I thought the burden of directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me. But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will. 'Papa!' she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, 'guess whom I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started! you've not done right, have you, now? I saw--but listen, and you shall hear how I found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about Linton's coming back!' She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences; and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy? 'It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff,' she answered. 'Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy?' he said. '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. I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my account; so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again. I meant to explain this some time as you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it.' 'But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa,' observed Catherine, not at all convinced; 'and he didn't object to our seeing each other: he said I might come to his house when I pleased; only I must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella. And you won't. _You_ are the one to be blamed: he is willing to let us be friends, at least; Linton and I; and you are not.' My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her uncle-in-law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's death. 'She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him!' was his constant bitter reflection; and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer. Miss Cathy--conversant with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed--was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view of human nature--excluded from all her studies and all her ideas till now--that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject. He merely added: 'You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and family; now return to your old employments and amusements, and think no more about them.' Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside. 'Oh, fie, silly child!' I exclaimed. 'If you had any real griefs you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine. Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world: how would you feel, then? Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more.' 'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen,' she answered, 'it's for him. He expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he'll be so disappointed: and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come!' 'Nonsense!' said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no further about you.' 'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?' she asked, rising to her feet. 'And just send those books I promised to lend him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen?' 'No, indeed! no, indeed!' replied I with decision. 'Then he would write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see that it is done.' 'But how can one little note--?' she recommenced, putting on an imploring countenance. 'Silence!' I interrupted. 'We'll not begin with your little notes. Get into bed.' She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my entrance. 'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine,' I said, 'if you write it; and at present I shall put out your candle.' I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my hand and a petulant 'cross thing!' I then quitted her again, and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came from the village; but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards. Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it. One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence--daily almost, it must have been--from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love-letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer. Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin's: very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single 'Oh!' and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance. Mr. Linton looked up. 'What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?' he said. His tone and look assured her _he_ had not been the discoverer of the hoard. 'No, papa!' she gasped. 'Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs--I'm sick!' I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out. 'Oh, Ellen! you have got them,' she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. 'Oh, give them to me, and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa, Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do it any more!' With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up. 'So,' I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems: you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him? I hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you must have led the way in writing such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain.' 'I didn't! I didn't!' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. 'I didn't once think of loving him till--' '_Loving_!' cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. '_Loving_! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the library; and we'll see what your father says to such _loving_.' She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them--do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scold--for I esteemed it all girlish vanity--I at length relented in a measure, and asked,--'If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?' 'We don't send playthings,' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame. 'Nor anything at all, then, my lady?' I said. 'Unless you will, here I go.' 'I promise, Ellen!' she cried, catching my dress. 'Oh, put them in the fire, do, do!' But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two. 'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!' I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney. 'I will have one, you cruel wretch!' she screamed, darting her hand into the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the expense of her fingers. 'Very well--and I will have some to exhibit to papa!' I answered, shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door. She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to finish the immolation. It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, 'Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them.' And, henceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets.

Chapter 21

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-21

Cathy is not happy to have lost her new cousin and playmate so quickly. The housekeeper from the Heights updates Nelly on how things are going between Linton and his father--as expected, not good. Linton is sick all of the time and is "selfish and disagreeable" . On her sixteenth birthday, Cathy announces that she would like to spend the day on the moors. Of course, she begins to make her way toward Wuthering Heights, and she and Nelly run into Heathcliff, who invites them back to the house, insisting that Cathy come see Linton. As he drags them back to the house, Heathcliff announces his plan to have the cousins get married, so that he can inherit the Grange when Edgar dies. It's all about property. Cathy is thrilled at finding these relatives living so near to the Grange and chastises Nelly for not telling her about them. Heathcliff mentions Edgar's "prejudice" against him and complains to Nelly that his own son is a wimp. Heathcliff explains to Nelly that he sympathizes with Hareton and yet has enjoyed mistreating him, degrading him, and turning him into an animal who scorns "book-larning"--all as revenge against his father, Hindley. Heathcliff enjoys pitting Hareton against his son in an effort to make Linton seem more appealing to Cathy, simply because he has a glimmer of intelligence next to his oaf of a cousin. Rather than keep the visit a secret, Cathy announces it to her father the next day. Edgar tells her the whole dark story: how Heathcliff ran away with Aunt Isabella and desires only revenge. Cathy wants to begin writing letters to Linton. When Nelly refuses to help her, Cathy finds a milk-fetcher to be her delivery boy. She quickly accumulates a mass of letters, which she hides in a drawer. Nelly collects them all, and when she confronts Cathy about her disobedience, she finds out that Cathy is in love with Linton. Nelly burns the letters and puts an end to the correspondence.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/23.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_21_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 22

chapter 22

{"name": "Chapter 22", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-22", "summary": "Edgar is ill. Nelly takes Cathy out for a walk on the moors to enjoy some fresh air and to cheer her up after ending her little romance. They discuss the possibility of Edgar dying and Cathy announces that she loves Papa and would never \"do an act, or say a word to vex him\" . Right. While out on the walk, Cathy drops her hat over a wall and clambers over to retrieve it. Heathcliff comes up the road and, not seeing Nelly on the other side of the wall, scorns Cathy for sending love letters to Linton and then abruptly stopping. He tells Cathy that Linton is heartbroken and dying and threatens to send the love letters to her father. Nelly and Cathy return home. Nelly promises to take Cathy to Wuthering Heights the next day.", "analysis": ""}

Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission. Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his. On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November--a fresh watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds--dark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain--I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers. She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited--and that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs--my nursery lore--to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express. 'Look, Miss!' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree. 'Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?' Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length--'No, I'll not touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?' 'Yes,' I observed, 'about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you.' 'No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face. 'Catherine, why are you crying, love?' I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder. 'You mustn't cry because papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.' She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs. 'Oh, it will be something worse,' she said. 'And what shall I do when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words, Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead.' 'None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied. 'It's wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?' 'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation. 'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied. 'She wasn't as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy! I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make.' 'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness,' answered my companion. 'I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll never--never--oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him. 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.' 'Good words,' I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.' As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes and black-berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending. I, like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming--'Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side!' 'Stay where you are,' I answered; 'I have my bundle of keys in my pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go.' Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped also. 'Who is that?' I whispered. 'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my companion, anxiously. 'Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain.' 'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine. 'Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the same.' 'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. (He it was.) 'I don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns out. 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. Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily; and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!' 'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?' I called from the inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger.' 'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your double-dealing,' he added aloud. 'How could _you_ lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save him!' The lock gave way and I issued out. 'I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. 'And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin.' 'Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit. He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed--'Miss Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call.' I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness. Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true. The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together; and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had produced: it was just what he intended. 'You may be right, Ellen,' she answered; 'but I shall never feel at ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't write, and convince him that I shall not change.' What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We parted that night--hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was founded on fact.

Chapter 22

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-22

Edgar is ill. Nelly takes Cathy out for a walk on the moors to enjoy some fresh air and to cheer her up after ending her little romance. They discuss the possibility of Edgar dying and Cathy announces that she loves Papa and would never "do an act, or say a word to vex him" . Right. While out on the walk, Cathy drops her hat over a wall and clambers over to retrieve it. Heathcliff comes up the road and, not seeing Nelly on the other side of the wall, scorns Cathy for sending love letters to Linton and then abruptly stopping. He tells Cathy that Linton is heartbroken and dying and threatens to send the love letters to her father. Nelly and Cathy return home. Nelly promises to take Cathy to Wuthering Heights the next day.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/24.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_22_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 23

chapter 23

{"name": "Chapter 23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-23", "summary": "Nelly and Cathy arrive at the Heights to find Linton, shivering and pathetic, making demands that Joseph flatly ignores. Linton chastises Cathy for ignoring him and complains about his treatment by Heathcliff. Cathy and Linton begin to fight about their parents' relationships. When he tells Cathy that her mother hated her father and was really in love with his father , Cathy pushes his chair, causing a dramatic scene. Linton can't stop coughing, choking, and whining. When they leave the Heights, Nelly swears to put a lock on the gate so Cathy cannot sneak off again. Cathy responds, \"The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my jailer\" . Nelly becomes sick for three weeks. With Edgar still ailing and Nelly in bed, Cathy has the freedom to do what she wants.", "analysis": ""}

The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning--half frost, half drizzle--and temporary brooks crossed our path--gurgling from the uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own affirmation. Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder. 'Na--ay!' he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. 'Na--ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough.' 'Joseph!' cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner room. 'How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now. Joseph! come this moment.' Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew Linton's tones, and entered. 'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death!' said the boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant. He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him. 'Is that you, Miss Linton?' he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'No--don't kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those--those _detestable_ creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold!' I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper. 'Well, Linton,' murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, 'are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?' 'Why didn't you come before?' he asked. 'You should have come, instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you' (looking at me) 'step into the kitchen and see?' I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied--'Nobody is out there but Joseph.' 'I want to drink,' he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable! And I'm obliged to come down here--they resolved never to hear me up-stairs.' 'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?' I asked, perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances. 'Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,' he cried. 'The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.' Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind. 'And are you glad to see me?' asked she, reiterating her former question and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile. 'Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours!' he replied. 'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you don't despise me, do you, Miss--?' 'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young lady. 'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?' 'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help me, wouldn't you?' 'Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother.' 'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he, more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that.' 'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely. '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.' Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false. 'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly. '_My_ papa scorns yours!' cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking fool.' 'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did.' 'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me.' 'She did,' cried my young lady. 'Well, I'll tell you something!' said Linton. 'Your mother hated your father: now then.' 'Oh!' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue. 'And she loved mine,' added he. 'You little liar! I hate you now!' she panted, and her face grew red with passion. 'She did! she did!' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant, who stood behind. 'Hush, Master Heathcliff!' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too, I suppose.' 'It isn't: you hold your tongue!' he answered. 'She did, she did, Catherine! she did, she did!' Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire. 'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired, after waiting ten minutes. 'I wish _she_ felt as I do,' he replied: 'spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was better to-day: and there--' his voice died in a whimper. '_I_ didn't strike you!' muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent another burst of emotion. He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice. 'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton,' she said at length, racked beyond endurance. 'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you, Linton? Don't let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! speak to me.' 'I can't speak to you,' he murmured; 'you've hurt me so that I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd know what it was; but _you'll_ be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights!' And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself. 'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,' I said, 'it won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she never come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get quieter when we leave you.' 'Must I go?' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. 'Do you want me to go, Linton?' 'You can't alter what you've done,' he replied pettishly, shrinking from her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever.' 'Well, then, I must go?' she repeated. 'Let me alone, at least,' said he; 'I can't bear your talking.' She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her. 'I shall lift him on to the settle,' I said, 'and he may roll about as he pleases: we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then, there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still.' She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably. 'I can't do with that,' he said; 'it's not high enough.' Catherine brought another to lay above it. 'That's too high,' murmured the provoking thing. 'How must I arrange it, then?' she asked despairingly. He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support. 'No, that won't do,' I said. 'You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot remain five minutes longer.' 'Yes, yes, we can!' replied Cathy. 'He's good and patient now. He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn't come, if I have hurt you.' 'You must come, to cure me,' he answered. 'You ought to come, because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when you entered as I am at present--was I?' 'But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.--I didn't do it all,' said his cousin. 'However, we'll be friends now. And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?' 'I told you I did,' he replied impatiently. 'Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together. Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad--one of those you promised to teach me; or a story. I'd rather have a ballad, though: begin.' Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner. 'And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?' asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly. 'No,' I answered, 'nor next day neither.' She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear. 'You won't go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!' I commenced, when we were out of the house. 'You are not dreaming of it, are you?' She smiled. 'Oh, I'll take good care,' I continued: 'I'll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else.' 'I can get over the wall,' she said laughing. 'The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost seventeen: I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling when he's good. I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other? Don't you like him, Ellen?' 'Like him!' I exclaimed. 'The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.' My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings. 'He's younger than I,' she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, 'and he ought to live the longest: he will--he must live as long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north; I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?' 'Well, well,' I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves; for listen, Miss,--and mind, I'll keep my word,--if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived.' 'It has been revived,' muttered Cathy, sulkily. 'Must not be continued, then,' I said. 'We'll see,' was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear. We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since. My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers, instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.

Chapter 23

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-23

Nelly and Cathy arrive at the Heights to find Linton, shivering and pathetic, making demands that Joseph flatly ignores. Linton chastises Cathy for ignoring him and complains about his treatment by Heathcliff. Cathy and Linton begin to fight about their parents' relationships. When he tells Cathy that her mother hated her father and was really in love with his father , Cathy pushes his chair, causing a dramatic scene. Linton can't stop coughing, choking, and whining. When they leave the Heights, Nelly swears to put a lock on the gate so Cathy cannot sneak off again. Cathy responds, "The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my jailer" . Nelly becomes sick for three weeks. With Edgar still ailing and Nelly in bed, Cathy has the freedom to do what she wants.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/25.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_23_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 24

chapter 24

{"name": "Chapter 24", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-24", "summary": "A suspicious Nelly finds out that Cathy has been sneaking away to the Heights during her illness. Nelly forces the truth out of her, and Cathy briefly takes over the narrative. Here's Cathy's story: she goes to the Heights every night while Nelly is sick. She and Linton spend all sorts of time talking and telling stories, finding out how little in common they have. One day, she runs into Hareton, who tries to impress her with the fact that he can now read his own name above the door. She just mocks him and goes into the house. Hareton bursts in and throws a screaming Linton into the kitchen. Linton later blames Cathy for the scene, but they make up. And that's the end of Cathy's narration. Nelly promptly tells Edgar about Cathy's visits to the Heights; again, she is forbidden to go there.", "analysis": ""}

At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak. We were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused. She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour; then came frequent questions. 'Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now? You'll be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.' 'No, no, dear, I'm not tired,' I returned, continually. Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for her occupation. It changed to yawning, and stretching, and-- 'Ellen, I'm tired.' 'Give over then and talk,' I answered. That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a headache, and left me. I thought her conduct odd; and having remained alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of up-stairs in the dark. No Catherine could I discover up-stairs, and none below. The servants affirmed they had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar's door; all was silence. I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle, and seated myself in the window. The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk about the garden, for refreshment. I did detect a figure creeping along the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young mistress: on its emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms. He stood a considerable period, viewing the carriage-road through the grounds; then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and reappeared presently, leading Miss's pony; and there she was, just dismounted, and walking by its side. The man took his charge stealthily across the grass towards the stable. Cathy entered by the casement-window of the drawing-room, and glided noiselessly up to where I awaited her. She put the door gently too, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself. The surprise petrified her an instant: she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood fixed. 'My dear Miss Catherine,' I began, too vividly impressed by her recent kindness to break into a scold, 'where have you been riding out at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale? Where have you been? Speak!' 'To the bottom of the park,' she stammered. 'I didn't tell a tale.' 'And nowhere else?' I demanded. 'No,' was the muttered reply. 'Oh, Catherine!' I cried, sorrowfully. 'You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to me. That does grieve me. I'd rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a deliberate lie.' She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my neck. 'Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry,' she said. 'Promise not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth: I hate to hide it.' We sat down in the window-seat; I assured her I would not scold, whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she commenced-- 'I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going a day since you fell ill; except thrice before, and twice after you left your room. I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every evening, and to put her back in the stable: you mustn't scold him either, mind. I was at the Heights by half-past six, and generally stayed till half-past eight, and then galloped home. It was not to amuse myself that I went: I was often wretched all the time. Now and then I was happy: once in a week perhaps. At first, I expected there would be sad work persuading you to let me keep my word to Linton: for I had engaged to call again next day, when we quitted him; but, as you stayed up-stairs on the morrow, I escaped that trouble. While Michael was refastening the lock of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick, and couldn't come to the Grange; and how papa would object to my going: and then I negotiated with him about the pony. 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. She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good-natured, and Linton sat in the arm-chair, and I in the little rocking chair on the hearth-stone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer. I needn't repeat that, because you would call it silly. 'One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness: mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each other and were friends. 'After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us, and we'd have a game at blindman's-buff; she should try to catch us: you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn't: there was no pleasure in it, he said; but he consented to play at ball with me. We found two in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores and shuttlecocks. One was marked C., and the other H.; I wished to have the C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff, his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't like it. I beat him constantly: and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his chair. That night, though, he easily recovered his good humour: he was charmed with two or three pretty songs--_your_ songs, Ellen; and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following evening; and I promised. Minny and I went flying home as light as air; and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet, darling cousin, till morning. 'On the morrow I was sad; partly because you were poorly, and partly that I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions: but it was beautiful moonlight after tea; and, as I rode on, the gloom cleared. I shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself; and what delights me more, my pretty Linton will. I trotted up their garden, and was turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my bridle, and bid me go in by the front entrance. He patted Minny's neck, and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak to him. I only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick him. He answered in his vulgar accent, "It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine! I can read yon, now." '"Wonderful," I exclaimed. "Pray let us hear you--you _are_ grown clever!" 'He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name--"Hareton Earnshaw." '"And the figures?" I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a dead halt. '"I cannot tell them yet," he answered. '"Oh, you dunce!" I said, laughing heartily at his failure. 'The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt. I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him. He reddened--I saw that by the moonlight--dropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity. He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own name; and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think the same.' 'Stop, Miss Catherine, dear!'--I interrupted. 'I shall not scold, but I don't like your conduct there. If you had remembered that Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how improper it was to behave in that way. 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. To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. Had you been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude? 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.' 'Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you?' she exclaimed, surprised at my earnestness. 'But wait, and you shall hear if he conned his A B C to please me; and if it were worth while being civil to the brute. I entered; Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to welcome me. '"I'm ill to-night, Catherine, love," he said; "and you must have all the talk, and let me listen. Come, and sit by me. I was sure you wouldn't break your word, and I'll make you promise again, before you go." 'I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke softly and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way. I had brought some of my nicest books for him: he asked me to read a little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door open: having gathered venom with reflection. He advanced direct to us, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat. '"Get to thy own room!" he said, in a voice almost inarticulate with passion; and his face looked swelled and furious. "Take her there if she comes to see thee: thou shalln't keep me out of this. Begone wi' ye both!" 'He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing him into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly longing to knock me down. I was afraid for a moment, and I let one volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out. I heard a malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering. '"I wer sure he'd sarve ye out! He's a grand lad! He's getten t' raight sperrit in him! _He_ knaws--ay, he knaws, as weel as I do, who sud be t' maister yonder--Ech, ech, ech! He made ye skift properly! Ech, ech, ech!" '"Where must we go?" I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old wretch's mockery. 'Linton was white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen: oh, no! he looked frightful; for his thin face and large eyes were wrought into an expression of frantic, powerless fury. He grasped the handle of the door, and shook it: it was fastened inside. '"If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!--If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!" he rather shrieked than said. "Devil! devil!--I'll kill you--I'll kill you!" Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again. '"Thear, that's t' father!" he cried. "That's father! We've allas summut o' either side in us. Niver heed, Hareton, lad--dunnut be 'feard--he cannot get at thee!" 'I took hold of Linton's hands, and tried to pull him away; but he shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed. At last his cries were choked by a dreadful fit of coughing; blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell on the ground. I ran into the yard, sick with terror; and called for Zillah, as loud as I could. She soon heard me: she was milking the cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work, she inquired what there was to do? I hadn't breath to explain; dragging her in, I looked about for Linton. Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing up-stairs. Zillah and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and said I shouldn't go in: I must go home. I exclaimed that he had killed Linton, and I _would_ enter. Joseph locked the door, and declared I should do "no sich stuff," and asked me whether I were "bahn to be as mad as him." I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared. She affirmed he would be better in a bit, but he couldn't do with that shrieking and din; and she took me, and nearly carried me into the house. 'Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head! I sobbed and wept so that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such sympathy with stood opposite: presuming every now and then to bid me "wisht," and denying that it was his fault; and, finally, frightened by my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly agitation. Still, I was not rid of him: when at length they compelled me to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly issued from the shadow of the road-side, and checked Minny and took hold of me. '"Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved," he began, "but it's rayther too bad--" 'I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder me. He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home more than half out of my senses. 'I didn't bid you good-night that evening, and I didn't go to Wuthering Heights the next: I wished to go exceedingly; but I was strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead, sometimes; and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering Hareton. On the third day I took courage: at least, I couldn't bear longer suspense, and stole off once more. I went at five o'clock, and walked; fancying I might manage to creep into the house, and up to Linton's room, unobserved. However, the dogs gave notice of my approach. Zillah received me, and saying "the lad was mending nicely," showed me into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid on a little sofa, reading one of my books. But he would neither speak to me nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen: he has such an unhappy temper. And what quite confounded me, when he did open his mouth, it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the uproar, and Hareton was not to blame! Unable to reply, except passionately, I got up and walked from the room. He sent after me a faint "Catherine!" He did not reckon on being answered so: but I wouldn't turn back; and the morrow was the second day on which I stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no more. But it was so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it was properly formed. It had appeared wrong to take the journey once; now it seemed wrong to refrain. Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny; I said "Yes," and considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the hills. I was forced to pass the front windows to get to the court: it was no use trying to conceal my presence. '"Young master is in the house," said Zillah, as she saw me making for the parlour. I went in; Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the room directly. Linton sat in the great arm-chair half asleep; walking up to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true-- '"As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last meeting: let us say good-bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no wish to see me, and that he mustn't invent any more falsehoods on the subject." '"Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine," he answered. "You are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better. Papa talks enough of my defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it natural I should doubt myself. I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me, frequently; and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate everybody! I am worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost always; and, if you choose, you may say good-bye: you'll get rid of an annoyance. 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: and though I couldn't, and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and repent it; and shall regret and repent it till I die!" 'I felt he spoke the truth; and I felt I must forgive him: and, though we should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again. We were reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed: not entirely for sorrow; yet I _was_ sorry Linton had that distorted nature. He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself! I have always gone to his little parlour, since that night; because his father returned the day after. 'About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we were the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled: now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings: but I've learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the latter. Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me: I have hardly seen him at all. Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him abusing poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before. I can't tell how he knew of it, unless he listened. Linton had certainly behaved provokingly: however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I interrupted Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so. He burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of the matter. Since then, I've told Linton he must whisper his bitter things. Now, Ellen, you have heard all. I can't be prevented from going to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting misery on two people; whereas, if you'll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of none. You'll not tell, will you? It will be very heartless, if you do.' 'I'll make up my mind on that point by to-morrow, Miss Catherine,' I replied. 'It requires some study; and so I'll leave you to your rest, and go think it over.' I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence; walking straight from her room to his, and relating the whole story: with the exception of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton. Mr. Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me. In the morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of her confidence, and she learnt also that her secret visits were to end. In vain she wept and writhed against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on Linton: all she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and give him leave to come to the Grange when he pleased; but explaining that he must no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights. Perhaps, had he been aware of his nephew's disposition and state of health, he would have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation.

Chapter 24

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-24

A suspicious Nelly finds out that Cathy has been sneaking away to the Heights during her illness. Nelly forces the truth out of her, and Cathy briefly takes over the narrative. Here's Cathy's story: she goes to the Heights every night while Nelly is sick. She and Linton spend all sorts of time talking and telling stories, finding out how little in common they have. One day, she runs into Hareton, who tries to impress her with the fact that he can now read his own name above the door. She just mocks him and goes into the house. Hareton bursts in and throws a screaming Linton into the kitchen. Linton later blames Cathy for the scene, but they make up. And that's the end of Cathy's narration. Nelly promptly tells Edgar about Cathy's visits to the Heights; again, she is forbidden to go there.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/26.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_24_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 25

chapter 25

{"name": "Chapter 25", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-25", "summary": "Nelly interrupts her narrative to tell Lockwood that her story has now taken them up to the previous winter. She and Lockwood then discuss the possibility of Cathy falling in love with him. Huh?! Nelly resumes her narrative. Edgar presses her for information about his nephew, Linton, wanting to know if he is nearly as bad as his father. He confesses that he is ready to die and that he would be okay with Cathy marrying Linton if he wasn't such a \"feeble tool to his father\" . Linton sends a letter to Edgar begging to see Cathy, but it's so well-written that Nelly figures Heathcliff actually wrote it. Eventually Edgar consents to letting Cathy seeing Linton. He is clearly dying and would like for Cathy to live at Wuthering Heights, the home of her ancestors. He figures the only way to do that is by marrying her off to Linton. He has no idea that Linton is as sick as he is. Heathcliff is getting worried because to make his plan work, Cathy must marry Linton; that way he'll get the Grange when his sickly son dies. So now he's in a race against Linton's death and Edgar's willingness to allow the marriage.", "analysis": ""}

'These things happened last winter, sir,' said Mrs. Dean; 'hardly more than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months' end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them! Yet, who knows how long you'll be a stranger? You're too young to rest always contented, living by yourself; and I some way fancy no one could see Catherine Linton and not love her. You smile; but why do you look so lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why--?' 'Stop, my good friend!' I cried. 'It may be very possible that _I_ should love her; but would she love me? I doubt it too much to venture my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my home is not here. I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was Catherine obedient to her father's commands?' 'She was,' continued the housekeeper. 'Her affection for him was still the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger: he spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he could bequeath to guide her. He said to me, a few days afterwards, "I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell me, sincerely, what you think of him: is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect of improvement, as he grows a man?" '"He's very delicate, sir," I replied; "and scarcely likely to reach manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his father; and if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond her control: unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent. However, master, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him and see whether he would suit her: it wants four years and more to his being of age."' Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and the sparely-scattered gravestones. 'I've prayed often,' he half soliloquised, 'for the approach of what is coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it. I thought the memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks, to be carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow! 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. What can I do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I'd not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff's son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss. I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should Linton be unworthy--only a feeble tool to his father--I cannot abandon her to him! 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. Darling! I'd rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.' 'Resign her to God as it is, sir,' I answered, 'and if we should lose you--which may He forbid--under His providence, I'll stand her friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don't fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.' Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt sure of his recovering. On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed--'You'll surely not go out to-night, sir?' He answered,--'No, I'll defer it this year a little longer.' He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and, had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would have permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange; but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided. That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own. Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company, then. 'I do not ask,' he said, 'that she may visit here; but am I never to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her towards the Heights; and let us exchange a few words, in your presence! We have done nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me: you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself. Dear uncle! send me a kind note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross Grange. I believe an interview would convince you that my father's character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also. You inquire after my health--it is better; but while I remain cut off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?' Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his request; because he could not accompany Catherine. He said, in summer, perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family. Linton complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations: but his father kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with empty promises. Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining. Though he had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain--or at least return in a short time to--the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had any one, I believe: no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursuing his object. I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened with defeat by death.

Chapter 25

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-25

Nelly interrupts her narrative to tell Lockwood that her story has now taken them up to the previous winter. She and Lockwood then discuss the possibility of Cathy falling in love with him. Huh?! Nelly resumes her narrative. Edgar presses her for information about his nephew, Linton, wanting to know if he is nearly as bad as his father. He confesses that he is ready to die and that he would be okay with Cathy marrying Linton if he wasn't such a "feeble tool to his father" . Linton sends a letter to Edgar begging to see Cathy, but it's so well-written that Nelly figures Heathcliff actually wrote it. Eventually Edgar consents to letting Cathy seeing Linton. He is clearly dying and would like for Cathy to live at Wuthering Heights, the home of her ancestors. He figures the only way to do that is by marrying her off to Linton. He has no idea that Linton is as sick as he is. Heathcliff is getting worried because to make his plan work, Cathy must marry Linton; that way he'll get the Grange when his sickly son dies. So now he's in a race against Linton's death and Edgar's willingness to allow the marriage.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/27.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_25_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 26

chapter 26

{"name": "Chapter 26", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-26", "summary": "Edgar allows Cathy to meet with Linton, as long as they stay on Grange property. Nelly and Cathy end up going past the property line and encounter Linton looking worse than ever. He is feeble, pale, and unable to follow the conversation. Something is up--Linton is very worried about what Heathcliff thinks of his behavior toward Cathy. Linton falls asleep and Cathy is now eager to head back to the Grange. They take off just as Heathcliff arrives.", "analysis": ""}

Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads. On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,--'Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights: and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.' 'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,' I observed: 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once.' 'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,' answered my companion; 'our excursion shall lie towards home.' But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--'Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning. How ill you do look!' Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse than usual? 'No--better--better!' he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed. 'But you have been worse,' persisted his cousin; 'worse than when I saw you last; you are thinner, and--' 'I'm tired,' he interrupted, hurriedly. 'It is too hot for walking, let us rest here. And, in the morning, I often feel sick--papa says I grow so fast.' Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her. 'This is something like your paradise,' said she, making an effort at cheerfulness. 'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park, and try mine.' Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal, unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would remain another half-hour, at least. 'But I think,' said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six months; you have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I could amuse you, I'd willingly stay.' 'Stay to rest yourself,' he replied. 'And, Catherine, don't think or say that I'm _very_ unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that make me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me. Tell uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?' 'I'll tell him that _you_ say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you are,' observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of what was evidently an untruth. 'And be here again next Thursday,' continued he, shunning her puzzled gaze. 'And give him my thanks for permitting you to come--my best thanks, Catherine. And--and, if you _did_ meet my father, and he asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely silent and stupid: don't look sad and downcast, as you are doing--he'll be angry.' 'I care nothing for his anger,' exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be its object. 'But I do,' said her cousin, shuddering. '_Don't_ provoke him against me, Catherine, for he is very hard.' 'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired. 'Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred?' Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me: she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and annoy. 'Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?' she whispered in my ear, at last. 'I can't tell why we should stay. He's asleep, and papa will be wanting us back.' 'Well, we must not leave him asleep,' I answered; 'wait till he wakes, and be patient. You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated!' 'Why did _he_ wish to see me?' returned Catherine. 'In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious mood. It's just as if it were a task he was compelled to perform--this interview--for fear his father should scold him. But I'm hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure; whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance. And, though I'm glad he's better in health, I'm sorry he's so much less pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me.' 'You think _he is_ better in health, then?' I said. 'Yes,' she answered; 'because he always made such a great deal of his sufferings, you know. He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell papa; but he's better, very likely.' 'There you differ with me, Miss Cathy,' I remarked; 'I should conjecture him to be far worse.' Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if any one had called his name. 'No,' said Catherine; 'unless in dreams. I cannot conceive how you manage to doze out of doors, in the morning.' 'I thought I heard my father,' he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us. 'You are sure nobody spoke?' 'Quite sure,' replied his cousin. 'Only Ellen and I were disputing concerning your health. Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we separated in winter? If you be, I'm certain one thing is not stronger--your regard for me: speak,--are you?' The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered, 'Yes, yes, I am!' And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner. Cathy rose. 'For to-day we must part,' she said. 'And I won't conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting; though I'll mention it to nobody but you: not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff.' 'Hush,' murmured Linton; 'for God's sake, hush! He's coming.' And he clung to Catherine's arm, striving to detain her; but at that announcement she hastily disengaged herself, and whistled to Minny, who obeyed her like a dog. 'I'll be here next Thursday,' she cried, springing to the saddle. 'Good-bye. Quick, Ellen!' And so we left him, scarcely conscious of our departure, so absorbed was he in anticipating his father's approach. Before we reached home, Catherine's displeasure softened into a perplexed sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague, uneasy doubts about Linton's actual circumstances, physical and social: in which I partook, though I counselled her not to say much; for a second journey would make us better judges. My master requested an account of our ongoings. His nephew's offering of thanks was duly delivered, Miss Cathy gently touching on the rest: I also threw little light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide and what to reveal.

Chapter 26

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-26

Edgar allows Cathy to meet with Linton, as long as they stay on Grange property. Nelly and Cathy end up going past the property line and encounter Linton looking worse than ever. He is feeble, pale, and unable to follow the conversation. Something is up--Linton is very worried about what Heathcliff thinks of his behavior toward Cathy. Linton falls asleep and Cathy is now eager to head back to the Grange. They take off just as Heathcliff arrives.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/28.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_26_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 27

chapter 27

{"name": "Chapter 27", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-27", "summary": "Edgar is dying. Linton continues to send appeals to his uncle to see Cathy. Edgar seems open to the idea of Cathy marrying Linton, for as Nelly reports: \"Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character\" . Nelly doesn't tell him about Linton's health because she doesn't want to upset Edgar as he is dying. Cathy and Nelly return to meet Linton at the same spot. Linton is extremely agitated. Cathy angrily questions his motives. The truth comes out: if Linton doesn't get Cathy to marry him, Heathcliff will kill him. Obviously Linton is a traitor. Heathcliff arrives and insists that Cathy help get the withering boy back into the house. When Cathy maintains that Edgar has forbidden her to go to the Heights, Linton spills the beans that he himself cannot reenter the house without Cathy. So they all go into the house and Heathcliff locks the door and announces, \"Had I been born where laws are less strict, and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement\" . Wow. He has some seriously dark plans. Cathy tries to fight for the key, but Heathcliff slaps her upside the head. He vows to be her father-in-law by morning. Linton refuses to help Cathy and Nelly escape, as he is more interested in saving his own skin than in letting Cathy be with her father on his deathbed. Heathcliff adds that she came in of her own accord and that she is not going anywhere. Nelly and Cathy spend a long, sleepless night locked in a room, unable to escape through the narrow windows. In the morning, Heathcliff releases Cathy from the room but keeps Nelly there for four days and five nights.", "analysis": ""}

Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth rapid alteration of Edgar Linton's state. The havoc that months had previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours. Catherine we would fain have deluded yet; but her own quick spirit refused to delude her: it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful probability, gradually ripening into certainty. She had not the heart to mention her ride, when Thursday came round; I mentioned it for her, and obtained permission to order her out of doors: for the library, where her father stopped a short time daily--the brief period he could bear to sit up--and his chamber, had become her whole world. She grudged each moment that did not find her bending over his pillow, or seated by his side. Her countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my master gladly dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a happy change of scene and society; drawing comfort from the hope that she would not now be left entirely alone after his death. He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall, that, as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in mind; for Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character. And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from correcting the error; asking myself what good there would be in disturbing his last moments with information that he had neither power nor opportunity to turn to account. We deferred our excursion till the afternoon; a golden afternoon of August: every breath from the hills so full of life, that it seemed whoever respired it, though dying, might revive. Catherine's face was just like the landscape--shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient; and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that passing forgetfulness of its cares. We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected before. My young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was resolved to stay a very little while, I had better hold the pony and remain on horseback; but I dissented: I wouldn't risk losing sight of the charge committed to me a minute; so we climbed the slope of heath together. Master Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this occasion: not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like fear. 'It is late!' he said, speaking short and with difficulty. 'Is not your father very ill? I thought you wouldn't come.' '_Why_ won't you be candid?' cried Catherine, swallowing her greeting. 'Why cannot you say at once you don't want me? It is strange, Linton, that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose, apparently to distress us both, and for no reason besides!' Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half ashamed; but his cousin's patience was not sufficient to endure this enigmatical behaviour. 'My father _is_ very ill,' she said; 'and why am I called from his bedside? Why didn't you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn't keep it? Come! I desire an explanation: playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can't dance attendance on your affectations now!' 'My affectations!' he murmured; 'what are they? For heaven's sake, Catherine, don't look so angry! Despise me as much as you please; I am a worthless, cowardly wretch: I can't be scorned enough; but I'm too mean for your anger. Hate my father, and spare me for contempt.' 'Nonsense!' cried Catherine in a passion. 'Foolish, silly boy! And there! he trembles: as if I were really going to touch him! You needn't bespeak contempt, Linton: anybody will have it spontaneously at your service. Get off! I shall return home: it is folly dragging you from the hearth-stone, and pretending--what do we pretend? Let go my frock! If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should spurn such pity. Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is. Rise, and don't degrade yourself into an abject reptile--_don't_!' With streaming face and an expression of agony, Linton had thrown his nerveless frame along the ground: he seemed convulsed with exquisite terror. 'Oh!' he sobbed, 'I cannot bear it! Catherine, Catherine, I'm a traitor, too, and I dare not tell you! But leave me, and I shall be killed! _Dear_ Catherine, my life is in your hands: and you have said you loved me, and if you did, it wouldn't harm you. You'll not go, then? kind, sweet, good Catherine! And perhaps you _will_ consent--and he'll let me die with you!' My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise him. The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and she grew thoroughly moved and alarmed. 'Consent to what?' she asked. 'To stay! tell me the meaning of this strange talk, and I will. You contradict your own words, and distract me! Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your heart. You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you? You wouldn't let any enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it? I'll believe you are a coward, for yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend.' 'But my father threatened me,' gasped the boy, clasping his attenuated fingers, 'and I dread him--I dread him! I _dare_ not tell!' 'Oh, well!' said Catherine, with scornful compassion, 'keep your secret: _I'm_ no coward. Save yourself: I'm not afraid!' Her magnanimity provoked his tears: he wept wildly, kissing her supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out. I was cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my good will; when, hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff almost close upon us, descending the Heights. He didn't cast a glance towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton's sobs to be audible; but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn't avoid doubting, he said-- 'It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly. How are you at the Grange? Let us hear. The rumour goes,' he added, in a lower tone, 'that Edgar Linton is on his death-bed: perhaps they exaggerate his illness?' 'No; my master is dying,' I replied: 'it is true enough. A sad thing it will be for us all, but a blessing for him!' 'How long will he last, do you think?' he asked. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Because,' he continued, looking at the two young people, who were fixed under his eye--Linton appeared as if he could not venture to stir or raise his head, and Catherine could not move, on his account--'because that lad yonder seems determined to beat me; and I'd thank his uncle to be quick, and go before him! Hallo! has the whelp been playing that game long? I _did_ give him some lessons about snivelling. Is he pretty lively with Miss Linton generally?' 'Lively? no--he has shown the greatest distress,' I answered. 'To see him, I should say, that instead of rambling with his sweetheart on the hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor.' 'He shall be, in a day or two,' muttered Heathcliff. 'But first--get up, Linton! Get up!' he shouted. 'Don't grovel on the ground there up, this moment!' Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless fear, caused by his father's glance towards him, I suppose: there was nothing else to produce such humiliation. He made several efforts to obey, but his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell back again with a moan. Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean against a ridge of turf. 'Now,' said he, with curbed ferocity, 'I'm getting angry and if you don't command that paltry spirit of yours--_damn_ you! get up directly!' 'I will, father,' he panted. 'Only, let me alone, or I shall faint. I've done as you wished, I'm sure. Catherine will tell you that I--that I--have been cheerful. Ah! keep by me, Catherine; give me your hand.' 'Take mine,' said his father; 'stand on your feet. There now--she'll lend you her arm: that's right, look at her. You would imagine I was the devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror. Be so kind as to walk home with him, will you? He shudders if I touch him.' 'Linton dear!' whispered Catherine, 'I can't go to Wuthering Heights: papa has forbidden me. He'll not harm you: why are you so afraid?' 'I can never re-enter that house,' he answered. 'I'm _not_ to re-enter it without you!' 'Stop!' cried his father. 'We'll respect Catherine's filial scruples. Nelly, take him in, and I'll follow your advice concerning the doctor, without delay.' 'You'll do well,' replied I. 'But I must remain with my mistress: to mind your son is not my business.' 'You are very stiff,' said Heathcliff, 'I know that: but you'll force me to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your charity. Come, then, my hero. Are you willing to return, escorted by me?' He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial. However I disapproved, I couldn't hinder her: indeed, how could she have refused him herself? What was filling him with dread we had no means of discerning; but there he was, powerless under its grip, and any addition seemed capable of shocking him into idiotcy. We reached the threshold; Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed--'My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable to-day: sit down, and allow me to shut the door.' He shut and locked it also. I started. 'You shall have tea before you go home,' he added. 'I am by myself. Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are off on a journey of pleasure; and, though I'm used to being alone, I'd rather have some interesting company, if I can get it. Miss Linton, take your seat by _him_. I give you what I have: the present is hardly worth accepting; but I have nothing else to offer. It is Linton, I mean. How she does stare! It's odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me! Had I been born where laws are less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement.' He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, 'By hell! I hate them.' 'I am not afraid of you!' exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear the latter part of his speech. She stepped close up; her black eyes flashing with passion and resolution. 'Give me that key: I will have it!' she said. 'I wouldn't eat or drink here, if I were starving.' Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table. He looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness; or, possibly, reminded, by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited it. She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out of his loosened fingers: but her action recalled him to the present; he recovered it speedily. 'Now, Catherine Linton,' he said, 'stand off, or I shall knock you down; and, that will make Mrs. Dean mad.' Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents again. 'We _will_ go!' she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause the iron muscles to relax; and finding that her nails made no impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply. Heathcliff glanced at me a glance that kept me from interfering a moment. Catherine was too intent on his fingers to notice his face. He opened them suddenly, and resigned the object of dispute; but, ere she had well secured it, he seized her with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall. At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously. 'You villain!' I began to cry, 'you villain!' A touch on the chest silenced me: I am stout, and soon put out of breath; and, what with that and the rage, I staggered dizzily back and felt ready to suffocate, or to burst a blood-vessel. The scene was over in two minutes; Catherine, released, put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not sure whether her ears were off or on. She trembled like a reed, poor thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered. 'I know how to chastise children, you see,' said the scoundrel, grimly, as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped to the floor. 'Go to Linton now, as I told you; and cry at your ease! I shall be your father, to-morrow--all the father you'll have in a few days--and you shall have plenty of that. You can bear plenty; you're no weakling: you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again!' Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that the correction had alighted on another than him. Mr. Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea himself. The cups and saucers were laid ready. He poured it out, and handed me a cup. 'Wash away your spleen,' he said. 'And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. I'm going out to seek your horses.' Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere. We tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside: we looked at the windows--they were too narrow for even Cathy's little figure. 'Master Linton,' I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, 'you know what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or I'll box your ears, as he has done your cousin's.' 'Yes, Linton, you must tell,' said Catherine. 'It was for your sake I came; and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse.' 'Give me some tea, I'm thirsty, and then I'll tell you,' he answered. 'Mrs. Dean, go away. I don't like you standing over me. Now, Catherine, you are letting your tears fall into my cup. I won't drink that. Give me another.' Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face. I felt disgusted at the little wretch's composure, since he was no longer in terror for himself. The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights; so I guessed he had been menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us there; and, that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears. 'Papa wants us to be married,' he continued, after sipping some of the liquid. 'And he knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now; and he's afraid of my dying if we wait; so we are to be married in the morning, and you are to stay here all night; and, if you do as he wishes, you shall return home next day, and take me with you.' 'Take you with her, pitiful changeling!' I exclaimed. '_You_ marry? Why, the man is mad! or he thinks us fools, every one. And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you? Are you cherishing the notion that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband? You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your dastardly puling tricks: and--don't look so silly, now! I've a very good mind to shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile conceit.' I did give him a slight shaking; but it brought on the cough, and he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine rebuked me. 'Stay all night? No,' she said, looking slowly round. 'Ellen, I'll burn that door down but I'll get out.' And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly, but Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again. He clasped her in his two feeble arms sobbing:--'Won't you have me, and save me? not let me come to the Grange? Oh, darling Catherine! you mustn't go and leave, after all. You _must_ obey my father--you _must_!' '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!' The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored to the boy his coward's eloquence. Catherine was near distraught: still, she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn, persuading him to subdue his selfish agony. While they were thus occupied, our jailor re-entered. 'Your beasts have trotted off,' he said, 'and--now Linton! snivelling again? What has she been doing to you? Come, come--have done, and get to bed. In a month or two, my lad, you'll be able to pay her back her present tyrannies with a vigorous hand. You're pining for pure love, are you not? nothing else in the world: and she shall have you! There, to bed! Zillah won't be here to-night; you must undress yourself. Hush! hold your noise! Once in your own room, I'll not come near you: you needn't fear. By chance, you've managed tolerably. I'll look to the rest.' He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and the latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which suspected the person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze. The lock was re-secured. Heathcliff approached the fire, where my mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up, and instinctively raised her hand to her cheek: his neighbourhood revived a painful sensation. Anybody else would have been incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness, but he scowled on her and muttered--'Oh! you are not afraid of me? Your courage is well disguised: you seem damnably afraid!' 'I _am_ afraid now,' she replied, 'because, if I stay, papa will be miserable: and how can I endure making him miserable--when he--when he--Mr. Heathcliff, let _me_ go home! 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?' 'Let him dare to force you,' I cried. 'There's law in the land, thank God! there is; though we be in an out-of-the-way place. I'd inform if he were my own son: and it's felony without benefit of clergy!' 'Silence!' said the ruffian. 'To the devil with your clamour! I don't want _you_ to speak. Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow. 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.' 'Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I'm safe!' exclaimed Catherine, weeping bitterly. 'Or marry me now. Poor papa! Ellen, he'll think we're lost. What shall we do?' 'Not he! He'll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off for a little amusement,' answered Heathcliff. 'You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to the contrary. And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement at your age; and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that man _only_ your father. Catherine, his happiest days were over when your days began. He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did, at least); and it would just do if he cursed you as _he_ went out of it. I'd join him. I don't love you! How should I? Weep away. As far as I can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter; unless Linton make amends for other losses: and your provident parent appears to fancy he may. His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly. In his last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his; and kind to her when he got her. Careful and kind--that's paternal. But Linton requires his whole stock of care and kindness for himself. Linton can play the little tyrant well. He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, if their teeth be drawn and their claws pared. You'll be able to tell his uncle fine tales of his _kindness_, when you get home again, I assure you.' 'You're right there!' I said; 'explain your son's character. Show his resemblance to yourself: and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think twice before she takes the cockatrice!' 'I don't much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now,' he answered; 'because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along with her, till your master dies. I can detain you both, quite concealed, here. If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and you'll have an opportunity of judging!' 'I'll not retract my word,' said Catherine. 'I'll marry him within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards. 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. If papa thought I had left him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live? I've given over crying: but I'm going to kneel here, at your knee; and I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face till you look back at me! No, don't turn away! _do look_! you'll see nothing to provoke you. I don't hate you. I'm not angry that you struck me. Have you never loved _anybody_ in all your life, uncle? _never_? Ah! you must look once. I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me.' 'Keep your eft's fingers off; and move, or I'll kick you!' cried Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. 'I'd rather be hugged by a snake. How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I _detest_ you!' He shrugged his shoulders: shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh crept with aversion; and thrust back his chair; while I got up, and opened my mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse. But I was rendered dumb in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat that I should be shown into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered. It was growing dark--we heard a sound of voices at the garden-gate. Our host hurried out instantly: _he_ had his wits about him; _we_ had not. There was a talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone. 'I thought it had been your cousin Hareton,' I observed to Catherine. 'I wish he would arrive! Who knows but he might take our part?' 'It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange,' said Heathcliff, overhearing me. 'You should have opened a lattice and called out: but I could swear that chit is glad you didn't. She's glad to be obliged to stay, I'm certain.' At learning the chance we had missed, we both gave vent to our grief without control; and he allowed us to wail on till nine o'clock. Then he bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah's chamber; and I whispered my companion to obey: perhaps we might contrive to get through the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight. The window, however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was safe from our attempts; for we were fastened in as before. We neither of us lay down: Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched anxiously for morning; a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain to my frequent entreaties that she would try to rest. I seated myself in a chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many derelictions of duty; from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of my employers sprang. It was not the case, in reality, I am aware; but it was, in my imagination, that dismal night; and I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I. At seven o'clock he came, and inquired if Miss Linton had risen. She ran to the door immediately, and answered, 'Yes.' 'Here, then,' he said, opening it, and pulling her out. I rose to follow, but he turned the lock again. I demanded my release. 'Be patient,' he replied; 'I'll send up your breakfast in a while.' I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine asked why I was still shut up? He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away. I endured it two or three hours; at length, I heard a footstep: not Heathcliff's. 'I've brought you something to eat,' said a voice; 'oppen t' door!' Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me all day. 'Tak' it,' he added, thrusting the tray into my hand. 'Stay one minute,' I began. 'Nay,' cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could pour forth to detain him. And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the next night; and another, and another. Five nights and four days I remained, altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton once every morning; and he was a model of a jailor: surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion.

Chapter 27

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-27

Edgar is dying. Linton continues to send appeals to his uncle to see Cathy. Edgar seems open to the idea of Cathy marrying Linton, for as Nelly reports: "Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character" . Nelly doesn't tell him about Linton's health because she doesn't want to upset Edgar as he is dying. Cathy and Nelly return to meet Linton at the same spot. Linton is extremely agitated. Cathy angrily questions his motives. The truth comes out: if Linton doesn't get Cathy to marry him, Heathcliff will kill him. Obviously Linton is a traitor. Heathcliff arrives and insists that Cathy help get the withering boy back into the house. When Cathy maintains that Edgar has forbidden her to go to the Heights, Linton spills the beans that he himself cannot reenter the house without Cathy. So they all go into the house and Heathcliff locks the door and announces, "Had I been born where laws are less strict, and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement" . Wow. He has some seriously dark plans. Cathy tries to fight for the key, but Heathcliff slaps her upside the head. He vows to be her father-in-law by morning. Linton refuses to help Cathy and Nelly escape, as he is more interested in saving his own skin than in letting Cathy be with her father on his deathbed. Heathcliff adds that she came in of her own accord and that she is not going anywhere. Nelly and Cathy spend a long, sleepless night locked in a room, unable to escape through the narrow windows. In the morning, Heathcliff releases Cathy from the room but keeps Nelly there for four days and five nights.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/29.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_27_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 28

chapter 28

{"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-28", "summary": "On the fifth day, the house servant Zillah finds Nelly. Everyone in the village thought she had sunk beneath the marsh, but Hareton gave Zillah the key to let Nelly out. Nelly finds Linton coughing on the couch. Cathy is locked in a room upstairs and is not allowed to leave. Heathcliff has poisoned Linton against Cathy, telling him she is after his money, and now the young man has no sympathy for his new wife. Heathcliff is outside talking to Doctor Kenneth, who says Edgar is finally really dying. Linton reflects, \"I'm glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him \" . Linton's vengefulness is even greater because of another fight he had with Cathy. They had fought over property, and when she pushed him, Heathcliff \"struck her down,\" leaving her with a mouthful of blood . Nelly returns to the Grange and lies to a dying Edgar about how she and Cathy got into the mess. Edgar realizes he had better change his will so Linton doesn't inherit everything, so they send for the attorney, Mr. Green. Cathy returns to the Grange and hurries to her father's bedside. Edgar dies without a struggle. Mr. Green, the lawyer, shows up and has clearly let Heathcliff bribe him. Green orders everyone out of the Grange and fires all of the servants except Nelly. Cathy briefly recounts her escape from the Heights: she climbed out of her mother's bedroom window.", "analysis": ""}

On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step approached--lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the room. It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm. 'Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean!' she exclaimed. 'Well! there is a talk about you at Gimmerton. I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you'd been found, and he'd lodged you here! What! and you must have got on an island, sure? And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean? But you're not so thin--you've not been so poorly, have you?' 'Your master is a true scoundrel!' I replied. 'But he shall answer for it. He needn't have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!' 'What do you mean?' asked Zillah. 'It's not his tale: they tell that in the village--about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to Earnshaw, when I come in--"Eh, they's queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I went off. It's a sad pity of that likely young lass, and cant Nelly Dean." He stared. I thought he had not heard aught, so I told him the rumour. The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said, "If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can tell her to flit, when you go up; here is the key. The bog-water got into her head, and she would have run home quite flighty; but I fixed her till she came round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire's funeral."' 'Mr. Edgar is not dead?' I gasped. 'Oh! Zillah, Zillah!' 'No, no; sit you down, my good mistress,' she replied; 'you're right sickly yet. He's not dead; Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another day. I met him on the road and asked.' Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened below, for the way was free. On entering the house, I looked about for some one to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with sunshine, and the door stood wide open; but nobody seemed at hand. As I hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes. 'Where is Miss Catherine?' I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching him thus, alone. He sucked on like an innocent. 'Is she gone?' I said. 'No,' he replied; 'she's upstairs: she's not to go; we won't let her.' 'You won't let her, little idiot!' I exclaimed. 'Direct me to her room immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply.' 'Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there,' he answered. 'He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine: she's my wife, and it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. 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!' He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to drop asleep. '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 believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That's fine gratitude, is it not?' The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his lips. 'Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?' I continued. 'Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any. And you say she's sick; and yet you leave her alone, up there in a strange house! 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! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see--an elderly woman, and a servant merely--and you, after pretending such affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you're a heartless, selfish boy!' 'I can't stay with her,' he answered crossly. 'I'll not stay by myself. She cries so I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn't sleep.' 'Is Mr. Heathcliff out?' I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin's mental tortures. 'He's in the court,' he replied, 'talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says uncle is dying, truly, at last. I'm glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn't hers! It's mine: papa says everything she has is mine. All her nice books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out; but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine. And then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young. That was yesterday--I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn't let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked out--that frightens her--she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait; the other she attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me; she refused, and he--he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.' 'And were you pleased to see her struck?' I asked: having my designs in encouraging his talk. 'I winked,' he answered: 'I wink to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first--she deserved punishing for pushing me: but when papa was gone, she made me come to the window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth, and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can't speak for pain. I don't like to think so; but she's a naughty thing for crying continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I'm afraid of her.' 'And you can get the key if you choose?' I said. 'Yes, when I am up-stairs,' he answered; 'but I can't walk up-stairs now.' 'In what apartment is it?' I asked. 'Oh,' he cried, 'I shan't tell _you_ where it is. It is our secret. Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know. There! you've tired me--go away, go away!' And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut his eyes again. I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring a rescue for my young lady from the Grange. On reaching it, the astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar's door: but I bespoke the announcement of it myself. How changed I found him, even in those few days! He lay an image of sadness and resignation awaiting his death. Very young he looked: though his actual age was thirty-nine, one would have called him ten years younger, at least. He thought of Catherine; for he murmured her name. I touched his hand, and spoke. 'Catherine is coming, dear master!' I whispered; 'she is alive and well; and will be here, I hope, to-night.' I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence: he half rose up, looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon. As soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at the Heights. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in: which was not quite true. I uttered as little as possible against Linton; nor did I describe all his father's brutal conduct--my intentions being to add no bitterness, if I could help it, to his already over-flowing cup. He divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the personal property, as well as the estate, to his son: or rather himself; yet why he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together. However, he felt that his will had better be altered: instead of leaving Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children, if she had any, after her. By that means, it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die. Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney, and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young lady of her jailor. Both parties were delayed very late. The single servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his re-entrance; and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village that must be done; but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning. The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought word that Catherine was ill: too ill to quit her room; and Heathcliff would not suffer them to see her. I scolded the stupid fellows well for listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master; resolving to take a whole bevy up to the Heights, at day-light, and storm it literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us. Her father _shall_ see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be killed on his own doorstones in trying to prevent it! Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble. I had gone down-stairs at three o'clock to fetch a jug of water; and was passing through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front door made me jump. 'Oh! it is Green,' I said, recollecting myself--'only Green,' and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately. I put the jug on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon shone clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, 'Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive?' 'Yes,' I cried: 'yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with us again!' She wanted to run, breathless as she was, up-stairs to Mr. Linton's room; but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron. Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say, she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me she would not complain. I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed, then. All was composed, however: Catherine's despair was as silent as her father's joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy. He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so. Kissing her cheek, he murmured,--'I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!' and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a struggle. Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay in obeying my master's summons. Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his daughter's arrival. Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the place. He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit. He would have carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud protestations against any infringement of its directions. The funeral was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to stay at the Grange till her father's corpse had quitted it. She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the risk of liberating her. She heard the men I sent disputing at the door, and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff's answer. It drove her desperate. Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father re-ascended. He had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once. Catherine stole out before break of day. She dared not try the doors lest the dogs should raise an alarm; she visited the empty chambers and examined their windows; and, luckily, lighting on her mother's, she got easily out of its lattice, and on to the ground, by means of the fir-tree close by. Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his timid contrivances.

Chapter 28

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-28

On the fifth day, the house servant Zillah finds Nelly. Everyone in the village thought she had sunk beneath the marsh, but Hareton gave Zillah the key to let Nelly out. Nelly finds Linton coughing on the couch. Cathy is locked in a room upstairs and is not allowed to leave. Heathcliff has poisoned Linton against Cathy, telling him she is after his money, and now the young man has no sympathy for his new wife. Heathcliff is outside talking to Doctor Kenneth, who says Edgar is finally really dying. Linton reflects, "I'm glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him " . Linton's vengefulness is even greater because of another fight he had with Cathy. They had fought over property, and when she pushed him, Heathcliff "struck her down," leaving her with a mouthful of blood . Nelly returns to the Grange and lies to a dying Edgar about how she and Cathy got into the mess. Edgar realizes he had better change his will so Linton doesn't inherit everything, so they send for the attorney, Mr. Green. Cathy returns to the Grange and hurries to her father's bedside. Edgar dies without a struggle. Mr. Green, the lawyer, shows up and has clearly let Heathcliff bribe him. Green orders everyone out of the Grange and fires all of the servants except Nelly. Cathy briefly recounts her escape from the Heights: she climbed out of her mother's bedroom window.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/30.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_28_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-29", "summary": "Now that her master is dead, Nelly hopes to stay at the Grange. Heathcliff has other plans, storming into the house as its new master. He announces immediately his intention of bringing Cathy home to the Heights despite her desire to stay at the Grange with Nelly. Ever since Linton helped Cathy escape, Heathcliff has punished him with his very presence. Heathcliff has a plan to rent out the Grange and needs Cathy at Wuthering Heights to help around the house. Heathcliff and Cathy argue over Linton: she claims he is all she loves in the world; Heathcliff announces Linton's intention to be an abusive husband. In his sorrow and rage, Heathcliff briefly takes over the narrative. Heathcliff tells Nelly that he persuaded the sexton to dig up Catherine's grave. He stares at her dusty corpse and bribes the sexton to put his body next to hers when he dies. He has no fear of disturbing the dead, he tells Nelly. Cathy has been haunting him for eighteen years. He continues, \"You know I was wild after she died, and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me--her spirit. I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can, and do exist, among us!\" . He tells Nelly that the day after Catherine died, eighteen years ago, he visited her grave and felt her presence there. He then ran home into her old bedroom. \"I felt her by me\" , he says, and has ever since. Seeing her corpse the day before provided a strange feeling of solace. Heathcliff returns to the present. He takes down Catherine's portrait from over the hearth at the Grange and tells Nelly to send it to the Heights. He leaves with Cathy.", "analysis": ""}

The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the library; now musing mournfully--one of us despairingly--on our loss, now venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future. We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange; at least during Linton's life: he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper. That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for; and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my home and my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress; when a servant--one of the discarded ones, not yet departed--rushed hastily in, and said 'that devil Heathcliff' was coming through the court: should he fasten the door in his face? If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time. He made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name: he was master, and availed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight in, without saying a word. The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the library; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door. It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliff advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. There was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherine had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him. 'Stop!' he said, arresting her by the arm. 'No more runnings away! Where would you go? I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you'll be a dutiful daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I was embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business: he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you'll see by his look that he has received his due! I brought him down one evening, the day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him afterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves. In two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then my presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees me often, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and, whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he's your concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.' 'Why not let Catherine continue here,' I pleaded, 'and send Master Linton to her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them: they can only be a daily plague to your unnatural heart.' 'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want my children about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her services for her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after Linton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me to compel you.' 'I shall,' said Catherine. '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!' 'You are a boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like you well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment, as long as it lasts. It is not I who will make him hateful to you--it is his own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and its consequences: don't expect thanks for this noble devotion. I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as strong as I: the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for strength.' '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. You _are_ miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? _Nobody_ loves you--_nobody_ will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't be you!' Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies. 'You shall be sorry to be yourself presently,' said her father-in-law, 'if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and get your things!' She scornfully withdrew. In her absence I began to beg for Zillah's place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer it on no account. He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said--'I shall have that home. Not because I need it, but--' He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile--'I'll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again--it is hers yet!--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which!' 'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!' I exclaimed; 'were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?' 'I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; 'and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.' 'And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have dreamt of then?' I said. 'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such a transformation on raising the lid--but I'm better pleased that it should not commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter--all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills _me_; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. "If I can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home. 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. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It was fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers. I looked round impatiently--I felt her by me--I could _almost_ see her, and yet I _could not_! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning--from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she _must_ be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamber--I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night--to be always disappointed! It racked me! I've often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified--a little. It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!' Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead; his hair clung to it, wet with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence. I didn't like to hear him talk! After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture, took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at better advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled. 'Send that over to-morrow,' said Heathcliff to me; then turning to her, he added: 'You may do without your pony: it is a fine evening, and you'll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights; for what journeys you take, your own feet will serve you. Come along.' 'Good-bye, Ellen!' whispered my dear little mistress. As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice. 'Come and see me, Ellen; don't forget.' 'Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!' said her new father. 'When I wish to speak to you I'll come here. I want none of your prying at my house!' He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my heart, she obeyed. I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden. Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his: though she disputed the act at first evidently; and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley, whose trees concealed them.

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-29

Now that her master is dead, Nelly hopes to stay at the Grange. Heathcliff has other plans, storming into the house as its new master. He announces immediately his intention of bringing Cathy home to the Heights despite her desire to stay at the Grange with Nelly. Ever since Linton helped Cathy escape, Heathcliff has punished him with his very presence. Heathcliff has a plan to rent out the Grange and needs Cathy at Wuthering Heights to help around the house. Heathcliff and Cathy argue over Linton: she claims he is all she loves in the world; Heathcliff announces Linton's intention to be an abusive husband. In his sorrow and rage, Heathcliff briefly takes over the narrative. Heathcliff tells Nelly that he persuaded the sexton to dig up Catherine's grave. He stares at her dusty corpse and bribes the sexton to put his body next to hers when he dies. He has no fear of disturbing the dead, he tells Nelly. Cathy has been haunting him for eighteen years. He continues, "You know I was wild after she died, and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me--her spirit. I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can, and do exist, among us!" . He tells Nelly that the day after Catherine died, eighteen years ago, he visited her grave and felt her presence there. He then ran home into her old bedroom. "I felt her by me" , he says, and has ever since. Seeing her corpse the day before provided a strange feeling of solace. Heathcliff returns to the present. He takes down Catherine's portrait from over the hearth at the Grange and tells Nelly to send it to the Heights. He leaves with Cathy.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/31.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_29_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 30

chapter 30

{"name": "Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-30", "summary": "Nelly tells Lockwood that she has not seen Cathy since that day. Her only source of gossip is Zillah, the housekeeper at the Heights. Zillah briefly takes over the narrative: back at the Heights, Cathy tries to convince Heathcliff that his son is dying. Heathcliff doesn't care and won't spend the money for a doctor. Linton dies. Cathy doesn't come out of her room for two weeks. Finally Heathcliff goes upstairs to show her Linton's will. Linton has left everything to his father, which means Cathy gets nothing. Hareton, Cathy, and Heathcliff are now the only ones left at the Heights. Cathy tells Hareton that he has been cruel to side with Heathcliff. He tells her that he tried to help. Zillah tells Nelly that no one likes Cathy, and that even she thinks the girl is prideful. Nelly's story finally ends. Lockwood announces his plan to go to the Heights and give Heathcliff notice that he will leave the Grange for London.", "analysis": ""}

I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she left: Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her, and wouldn't let me pass. He said Mrs. Linton was 'thrang,' and the master was not in. Zillah has told me something of the way they go on, otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living. She thinks Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk. My young lady asked some aid of her when she first came; but Mr. Heathcliff told her to follow her own business, and let his daughter-in-law look after herself; and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrow-minded, selfish woman. Catherine evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect; repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong. I had a long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one day when we foregathered on the moor; and this is what she told me. 'The first thing Mrs. Linton did,' she said, 'on her arrival at the Heights, was to run up-stairs, without even wishing good-evening to me and Joseph; she shut herself into Linton's room, and remained till morning. Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent for? her cousin was very ill. '"We know that!" answered Heathcliff; "but his life is not worth a farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him." '"But I cannot tell how to do," she said; "and if nobody will help me, he'll die!" '"Walk out of the room," cried the master, "and let me never hear a word more about him! None here care what becomes of him; if you do, act the nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him." 'Then she began to bother me, and I said I'd had enough plague with the tiresome thing; we each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on Linton: Mr. Heathcliff bid me leave that labour to her. 'How they managed together, I can't tell. I fancy he fretted a great deal, and moaned hisseln night and day; and she had precious little rest: one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes. She sometimes came into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain beg assistance; but I was not going to disobey the master: I never dare disobey him, Mrs. Dean; and, though I thought it wrong that Kenneth should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or complain, and I always refused to meddle. Once or twice, after we had gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again and seen her sitting crying on the stairs'-top; and then I've shut myself in quick, for fear of being moved to interfere. I did pity her then, I'm sure: still I didn't wish to lose my place, you know. 'At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me out of my wits, by saying, "Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying--I'm sure he is, this time. Get up, instantly, and tell him." 'Having uttered this speech, she vanished again. I lay a quarter of an hour listening and trembling. Nothing stirred--the house was quiet. 'She's mistaken, I said to myself. He's got over it. I needn't disturb them; and I began to doze. But my sleep was marred a second time by a sharp ringing of the bell--the only bell we have, put up on purpose for Linton; and the master called to me to see what was the matter, and inform them that he wouldn't have that noise repeated. 'I delivered Catherine's message. He cursed to himself, and in a few minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room. I followed. Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands folded on her knees. Her father-in-law went up, held the light to Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him; afterwards he turned to her. '"Now--Catherine," he said, "how do you feel?" 'She was dumb. '"How do you feel, Catherine?" he repeated. '"He's safe, and I'm free," she answered: "I should feel well--but," she continued, with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, "you have left me so long to struggle against death alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!" 'And she looked like it, too! I gave her a little wine. Hareton and Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and heard our talk from outside, now entered. Joseph was fain, I believe, of the lad's removal; Hareton seemed a thought bothered: though he was more taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton. But the master bid him get off to bed again: we didn't want his help. He afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself. 'In the morning, he sent me to tell her she must come down to breakfast: she had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she was ill; at which I hardly wondered. I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he replied,--"Well, let her be till after the funeral; and go up now and then to get her what is needful; and, as soon as she seems better, tell me."' Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah; who visited her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled. Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton's will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week's absence, when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor, he could not meddle with. However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them in his wife's right and his also: I suppose legally; at any rate, Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession. 'Nobody,' said Zillah, 'ever approached her door, except that once, but I; and nobody asked anything about her. The first occasion of her coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon. She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a Quaker: she couldn't comb them out. 'Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays:' the kirk, you know, has no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean; and they call the Methodists' or Baptists' place (I can't say which it is) at Gimmerton, a chapel. 'Joseph had gone,' she continued, 'but I thought proper to bide at home. Young folks are always the better for an elder's over-looking; and Hareton, with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour. I let him know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been always used to see the Sabbath respected; so he had as good leave his guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed. He coloured up at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes. The train-oil and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to give her his company; and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be presentable; so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion. He grew sullen, and began to swear. 'Now, Mrs. Dean,' Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner, 'you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton; and happen you're right: but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her, now? She's as poor as you or I: poorer, I'll be bound: you're saying, and I'm doing my little all that road.' Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid; and she flattered him into a good humour; so, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former insults, he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's account. 'Missis walked in,' she said, 'as chill as an icicle, and as high as a princess. I got up and offered her my seat in the arm-chair. No, she turned up her nose at my civility. Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come to the settle, and sit close by the fire: he was sure she was starved. '"I've been starved a month and more," she answered, resting on the word as scornful as she could. 'And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both of us. Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and discovered a number of books on the dresser; she was instantly upon her feet again, stretching to reach them: but they were too high up. Her cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage to help her; she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand. 'That was a great advance for the lad. She didn't thank him; still, he felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained; nor was he daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his finger: he contented himself with going a bit farther back and looking at her instead of the book. She continued reading, or seeking for something to read. His attention became, by degrees, quite centred in the study of her thick silky curls: her face he couldn't see, and she couldn't see him. And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching; he put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in such a taking. '"Get away this moment! How dare you touch me? Why are you stopping there?" she cried, in a tone of disgust. "I can't endure you! I'll go upstairs again, if you come near me." 'Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do: he sat down in the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another half hour; finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me. '"Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I'm stalled of doing naught; and I do like--I could like to hear her! Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask of yourseln." '"Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am," I said, immediately. "He'd take it very kind--he'd be much obliged." 'She frowned; and looking up, answered-- '"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! I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you! When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off. But I won't complain to you! I'm driven down here by the cold; not either to amuse you or enjoy your society." '"What could I ha' done?" began Earnshaw. "How was I to blame?" '"Oh! you are an exception," answered Mrs. Heathcliff. "I never missed such a concern as you." '"But I offered more than once, and asked," he said, kindling up at her pertness, "I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you--" '"Be silent! I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your disagreeable voice in my ear!" said my lady. 'Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him! and unslinging his gun, restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer. He talked now, freely enough; and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude: but the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to condescend to our company, more and more. However, I took care there should be no further scorning at my good nature: ever since, I've been as stiff as herself; and she has no lover or liker among us: and she does not deserve one; for, let them say the least word to her, and she'll curl back without respect of any one. She'll snap at the master himself, and as good as dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows.' At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me: but Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton in an independent house; and I can see no remedy, at present, unless she could marry again; and that scheme it does not come within my province to arrange. * * * * * Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story. Notwithstanding the doctor's prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength; and though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look out for another tenant to take the place after October. I would not pass another winter here for much.

Chapter 30

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-30

Nelly tells Lockwood that she has not seen Cathy since that day. Her only source of gossip is Zillah, the housekeeper at the Heights. Zillah briefly takes over the narrative: back at the Heights, Cathy tries to convince Heathcliff that his son is dying. Heathcliff doesn't care and won't spend the money for a doctor. Linton dies. Cathy doesn't come out of her room for two weeks. Finally Heathcliff goes upstairs to show her Linton's will. Linton has left everything to his father, which means Cathy gets nothing. Hareton, Cathy, and Heathcliff are now the only ones left at the Heights. Cathy tells Hareton that he has been cruel to side with Heathcliff. He tells her that he tried to help. Zillah tells Nelly that no one likes Cathy, and that even she thinks the girl is prideful. Nelly's story finally ends. Lockwood announces his plan to go to the Heights and give Heathcliff notice that he will leave the Grange for London.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_30_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 31

chapter 31

{"name": "Chapter 31", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-31", "summary": "Lockwood goes up to the Heights and delivers a note to Cathy from Nelly. Cathy cannot send a response because she has no paper. Heathcliff has taken everything away from her and Hareton has hidden some of her books in his room. After Cathy humiliates him for his illiteracy, Hareton returns the books to her. When she continues to mock him, he hits her and throws her books into the fire. Lockwood overhears Heathcliff tell himself how much Hareton's face reminds him of Catherine's. Lockwood stays for dinner. As he rides back to the Grange, he muses to himself, \"What a realization of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!\" . He is truly out of it.", "analysis": ""}

Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I proposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not conscious of anything odd in her request. The front door stood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages. I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home? He answered, No; but he would be in at dinner-time. It was eleven o'clock, and I announced my intention of going in and waiting for him; at which he immediately flung down his tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute for the host. We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful in preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked more sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness as before; never returning my bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment. 'She does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.' Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen. 'Remove them yourself,' she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done; and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in her lap. I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton--but she asked aloud, 'What is that?' And chucked it off. 'A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,' I answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it should be imagined a missive of my own. She would gladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her; he seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first. Thereat, Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin, after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could. Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a few questions to me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home; and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy: 'I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be climbing up there! Oh! I'm tired--I'm _stalled_, Hareton!' And she leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness: neither caring nor knowing whether we remarked her. 'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said, after sitting some time mute, 'you are not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies of talking about and praising you; and she'll be greatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter and said nothing!' She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,-- 'Does Ellen like you?' 'Yes, very well,' I replied, hesitatingly. 'You must tell her,' she continued, 'that I would answer her letter, but I have no materials for writing: not even a book from which I might tear a leaf.' 'No books!' I exclaimed. 'How do you contrive to live here without them? if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with a large library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and I should be desperate!' 'I was always reading, when I had them,' said Catherine; 'and Mr. Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy my books. I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once, I searched through Joseph's store of theology, to his great irritation; and once, Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in your room--some Latin and Greek, and some tales and poetry: all old friends. I brought the last here--and you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing! They are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall. Perhaps _your_ envy counselled Mr. 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_ of your attainments. He'll be a clever scholar in a few years.' 'And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,' answered Catherine. 'Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders he makes! I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday: it was extremely funny. I heard you; and I heard you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you couldn't read their explanations!' The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it. I had a similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I observed,--'But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.' 'Oh!' she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice.' Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming,--'Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!' 'I won't have them now,' she answered. 'I shall connect them with you, and hate them.' She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it from her. 'And listen,' she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion. But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated from them; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result. 'Yes that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!' cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration with indignant eyes. 'You'd _better_ hold your tongue, now,' he answered fiercely. And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder asked,--'What's to do now, my lad?' 'Naught, naught,' he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude. Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed. 'It will be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him. 'But when I look for his father in his face, I find _her_ every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him.' He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance. I had never remarked there before; and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone. 'I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,' he said, in reply to my greeting; 'from selfish motives partly: I don't think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wondered more than once what brought you here.' 'An idle whim, I fear, sir,' was my answer; 'or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week; and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there any more.' 'Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, are you?' he said. 'But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won't occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from any one.' 'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed, considerably irritated. 'Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now,' and I drew my note-book from my pocket. 'No, no,' he replied, coolly; 'you'll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return: I'm not in such a hurry. Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome. Catherine! bring the things in: where are you?' Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks. 'You may get your dinner with Joseph,' muttered Heathcliff, aside, 'and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.' She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them. With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish. 'How dreary life gets over in that house!' I reflected, while riding down the road. 'What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!'

Chapter 31

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-31

Lockwood goes up to the Heights and delivers a note to Cathy from Nelly. Cathy cannot send a response because she has no paper. Heathcliff has taken everything away from her and Hareton has hidden some of her books in his room. After Cathy humiliates him for his illiteracy, Hareton returns the books to her. When she continues to mock him, he hits her and throws her books into the fire. Lockwood overhears Heathcliff tell himself how much Hareton's face reminds him of Catherine's. Lockwood stays for dinner. As he rides back to the Grange, he muses to himself, "What a realization of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!" . He is truly out of it.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/768-chapters/33.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Wuthering Heights/section_31_part_0.txt

Wuthering Heights.chapter 32

chapter 32

{"name": "Chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-32", "summary": "Some time has passed since Lockwood left, when he finds himself in the vicinity of the Grange. He arrives at the Grange to find that Nelly has moved up to the Heights. Lockwood visits the Heights and is immediately struck by the changes in its appearance. The gate, for once, is not locked. Doors and windows are open and a fire lights up the chimney. More shocking than the change in atmosphere is the fact that Cathy is teaching Hareton to read. Lockwood observes affection between the two cousins, who then leave for a walk. He encounters Nelly, who tells Lockwood that Zillah has left and that she has been at the Heights since he left for London. Nelly tells Lockwood that Heathcliff is dead. Cathy is now in charge of the Grange. Nelly resumes the narrative, telling Lockwood of Heathcliff's \"queer\" end. She begins: Shortly after Lockwood left the Grange, Heathcliff calls for Nelly to return to the Heights. Cathy spends her time picking on Hareton, though she is clearly interested in his attention. A gun accident confines Hareton to the fireside. Now he and Cathy are stuck together. They make amends. She tells him she is glad that he is her cousin. He informs her that he had often stuck up for her side against Heathcliff. Cathy and Hareton enjoy looking at books and reading together. Though Joseph is disgusted at the sight of any friendship, \"the intimacy,\" Nelly announces, \"grew rapidly\" . Back to the present, momentarily, Nelly announces that Hareton and Cathy are soon to be married.", "analysis": ""}

1802.--This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside public-house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,--'Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest.' 'Gimmerton?' I repeated--my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. 'Ah! I know. How far is it from this?' 'Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road,' he answered. A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again. Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours. I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was sweet, warm weather--too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath. I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe. 'Is Mrs. Dean within?' I demanded of the dame. 'Mistress Dean? Nay!' she answered, 'she doesn't bide here: shoo's up at th' Heights.' 'Are you the housekeeper, then?' I continued. 'Eea, aw keep th' hause,' she replied. 'Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay all night.' 'T' maister!' she cried in astonishment. 'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha' send word. They's nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t' place: nowt there isn't!' She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed. I would go out for a walk; and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary. She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return. Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted the court. 'All well at the Heights?' I inquired of the woman. 'Eea, f'r owt ee knaw!' she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders. I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front--one fading, and the other brightening--as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock--it yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees. Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a coal-district, a fine red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered. 'Con-_trary_!' said a voice as sweet as a silver bell. 'That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or I'll pull your hair!' 'Contrary, then,' answered another, in deep but softened tones. 'And now, kiss me, for minding so well.' 'No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.' The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention. Its owner stood behind; her light, shining ringlets blending, at intervals, with his brown looks, as she bent to superintend his studies; and her face--it was lucky he could not see her face, or he would never have been so steady. I could; and I bit my lip in spite, at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides staring at its smiting beauty. The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses; which, however, he generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very mean and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen. There was unobstructed admittance on that side also; and at the door sat my old friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from musical accents. 'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn to neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!' said the tenant of the kitchen, in answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. 'It's a blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld! Oh! ye're a raight nowt; and shoo's another; and that poor lad 'll be lost atween ye. Poor lad!' he added, with a groan; 'he's witched: I'm sartin on't. Oh, Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer rullers!' 'No! or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose,' retorted the singer. 'But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and never mind me. This is "Fairy Annie's Wedding"--a bonny tune--it goes to a dance.' Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced; and recognising me directly, she jumped to her feet, crying--'Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood! How could you think of returning in this way? All's shut up at Thrushcross Grange. You should have given us notice!' 'I've arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay,' I answered. 'I depart again to-morrow. And how are you transplanted here, Mrs. Dean? tell me that.' 'Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went to London, and stay till you returned. But, step in, pray! Have you walked from Gimmerton this evening?' 'From the Grange,' I replied; 'and while they make me lodging room there, I want to finish my business with your master; because I don't think of having another opportunity in a hurry.' 'What business, sir?' said Nelly, conducting me into the house. 'He's gone out at present, and won't return soon.' 'About the rent,' I answered. 'Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle,' she observed; 'or rather with me. She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act for her: there's nobody else.' I looked surprised. 'Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see,' she continued. 'Heathcliff dead!' I exclaimed, astonished. 'How long ago?' 'Three months since: but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I'll tell you all about it. Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you?' 'I want nothing: I have ordered supper at home. You sit down too. I never dreamt of his dying! Let me hear how it came to pass. You say you don't expect them back for some time--the young people?' 'No--I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles: but they don't care for me. At least, have a drink of our old ale; it will do you good: you seem weary.' She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have followers at her time of life? And then, to get them jocks out o' t' maister's cellar! He fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it.' She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing a reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness. And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff's history. He had a 'queer' end, as she expressed it. I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My first interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had altered so much since our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted me, and he was tired of seeing Catherine: I must make the little parlour my sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement; and, by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles, that had formed her amusement at the Grange; and flattered myself we should get on in tolerable comfort. The delusion did not last long. Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew on; for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her frequently, and she complained of loneliness: she preferred quarrelling with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude. I did not mind their skirmishes: but Hareton was often obliged to seek the kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself! and though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him--and though he was always as sullen and silent as possible--after a while, she changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder how he could endure the life he lived--how he could sit a whole evening staring into the fire, and dozing. 'He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?' she once observed, 'or a cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me!' Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look again. 'He's, perhaps, dreaming now,' she continued. 'He twitched his shoulder as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen.' 'Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you up-stairs, if you don't behave!' I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his fist, as if tempted to use it. 'I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,' she exclaimed, on another occasion. 'He is afraid I shall laugh at him. Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once; and, because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it: was he not a fool?' 'Were not you naughty?' I said; 'answer me that.' 'Perhaps I was,' she went on; 'but I did not expect him to be so silly. Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I'll try!' She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck. 'Well, I shall put it here,' she said, 'in the table-drawer; and I'm going to bed.' Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed. But he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to her great disappointment. I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness and indolence: her conscience reproved her for frightening him off improving himself: she had done it effectually. But her ingenuity was at work to remedy the injury: while I ironed, or pursued other such stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me. When Hareton was there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book lying about: that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire, the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it. On fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the court or garden the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and said she was tired of living: her life was useless. Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment. Owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen. His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and tranquillity, till he made it up again. It suited Catherine to have him there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up-stairs more than ever: and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might accompany me. On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen. Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window-panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate. At a notice that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but, presently, I heard her begin--'I've found out, Hareton, that I want--that I'm glad--that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not grown so cross to me, and so rough.' Hareton returned no answer. 'Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?' she continued. 'Get off wi' ye!' he growled, with uncompromising gruffness. 'Let me take that pipe,' she said, cautiously advancing her hand and abstracting it from his mouth. Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the fire. He swore at her and seized another. 'Stop,' she cried, 'you must listen to me first; and I can't speak while those clouds are floating in my face.' 'Will you go to the devil!' he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be!' 'No,' she persisted, 'I won't: I can't tell what to do to make you talk to me; and you are determined not to understand. When I call you stupid, I don't mean anything: I don't mean that I despise you. Come, you shall take notice of me, Hareton: you are my cousin, and you shall own me.' 'I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your damned mocking tricks!' he answered. 'I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I look sideways after you again. Side out o' t' gate, now, this minute!' Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip, and endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob. 'You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. 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: 'why have I made him angry, by taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and despised me, and--Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you worried me out of the kitchen!' 'I didn't know you took my part,' she answered, drying her eyes; 'and I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me: what can I do besides?' She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He blackened and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct, must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the window, quite demurely. I shook my head reprovingly, and then she blushed and whispered--'Well! what should I have done, Ellen? He wouldn't shake hands, and he wouldn't look: I must show him some way that I like him--that I want to be friends.' Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful, for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes. Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to 'Mr. Hareton Earnshaw,' she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the present to its destined recipient. 'And tell him, if he'll take it, I'll come and teach him to read it right,' she said; 'and, if he refuse it, I'll go upstairs, and never tease him again.' I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my employer. Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee. He did not strike it off, either. I returned to my work. Catherine leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed: all his rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him: he could not summon courage, at first, to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured petition. 'Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking that little word.' He muttered something inaudible. 'And you'll be my friend?' added Catherine, interrogatively. 'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life,' he answered; 'and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.' 'So you won't be my friend?' she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and creeping close up. I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies. The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home. He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder; and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity: it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day's transactions. At length he summoned Hareton from his seat. 'Tak' these in to t' maister, lad,' he said, 'and bide there. I's gang up to my own rahm. This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us: we mun side out and seearch another.' 'Come, Catherine,' I said, 'we must "side out" too: I've done my ironing. Are you ready to go?' 'It is not eight o'clock!' she answered, rising unwillingly. 'Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I'll bring some more to-morrow.' 'Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak' into th' hahse,' said Joseph, 'and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!' Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing up-stairs: lighter of heart, I venture to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps, during her earliest visits to Linton. The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point--one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed--they contrived in the end to reach it. You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's heart. But now, I'm glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there won't be a happier woman than myself in England!

Chapter 32

https://web.archive.org/web/20201204120110/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/wuthering-heights/summary/chapter-32

Some time has passed since Lockwood left, when he finds himself in the vicinity of the Grange. He arrives at the Grange to find that Nelly has moved up to the Heights. Lockwood visits the Heights and is immediately struck by the changes in its appearance. The gate, for once, is not locked. Doors and windows are open and a fire lights up the chimney. More shocking than the change in atmosphere is the fact that Cathy is teaching Hareton to read. Lockwood observes affection between the two cousins, who then leave for a walk. He encounters Nelly, who tells Lockwood that Zillah has left and that she has been at the Heights since he left for London. Nelly tells Lockwood that Heathcliff is dead. Cathy is now in charge of the Grange. Nelly resumes the narrative, telling Lockwood of Heathcliff's "queer" end. She begins: Shortly after Lockwood left the Grange, Heathcliff calls for Nelly to return to the Heights. Cathy spends her time picking on Hareton, though she is clearly interested in his attention. A gun accident confines Hareton to the fireside. Now he and Cathy are stuck together. They make amends. She tells him she is glad that he is her cousin. He informs her that he had often stuck up for her side against Heathcliff. Cathy and Hareton enjoy looking at books and reading together. Though Joseph is disgusted at the sight of any friendship, "the intimacy," Nelly announces, "grew rapidly" . Back to the present, momentarily, Nelly announces that Hareton and Cathy are soon to be married.