And another one, already:
Now that I'm in Rome and have traveled to Venice and Florence, I actually have a reason to maintain a website -- Pictures! Don't expect me to update too often, but I'll try to get all the good shots here eventually. The old stuff is also staying, at least until I'm motivated enough to delete it.. Enjoy.
When I read this book in high school, my entire english class seemed to think Heathcliff was some sort of demon, or at least more of an animal than a man. I, on the other hand, thought he was very human indeed, and found myself constantly defending him in discussions. He's such a great character . Here are some quotes from the book:
"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 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?"
-Heathcliff to Cathy
"Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I forgive my murderer--but yours! How can I?"
-Heathcliff to Cathy
"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!"
-Heathcliff to Cathy after her death
By the way, although it only deals with half of the book, the film version with Lawrence Olivier is really enjoyable.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
I cannot live with You, by Emily Dickinson
640
I cannot live with You --
It would be Life --
And Life is over there --
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to --
Putting up
Our Life -- His Porcelain --
Like a Cup --
Discarded of the Housewife --
Quaint -- or Broke --
A newer Sevres pleases --
Old Ones crack --
I could not die -- with You --
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down --
You -- could not --
And I -- Could I stand by
And see You -- freeze --
Without my Right of Frost --
Death's privilege?
Nor could I rise -- with You --
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' --
That New Grace
Glow plain -- and foreign
On my homesick Eye --
Except that You than He
Shone closer by --
They'd judge Us -- How --
For You -- served Heaven -- You know,
Or sought to --
I could not --
Because You saturated Sight --
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be --
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame --
And were You -- saved --
And I -- condemned to be
Where You were not --
That self -- were Hell to Me --
So We must meet apart --
You there -- I -- here --
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are -- and Prayer --
And that White Sustenance --
Despair --
from Act V, Scene VIII
Macbeth and Macduff are fighting alone on the stage
Macbeth: Thou losest labor.
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests.
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
Macduff: Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripped.
Macbeth: Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
Macduff: Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' th' time.
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit
"Here may you see the tyrant."
Macbeth: I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff.
And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
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