: a passion such as might boil
and glow in the bad essence of some evil genius; a fire that might form the
tormented centre - the ever-suffering soul of a magnate of the infernal world:
and by its quenchless and ceaseless ravage effect the execution of the decree
which dooms him to carry Hell with him wherever he wanders. No; the single link
that connects Heathcliff with humanity is his rudely confessed regard for
Hareton Earnshaw - the young man whom he has ruined; and then his half-implied
esteem for Nelly Dean. These solitary traits omitted, we should say he was child
neither of Lascar nor gipsy, but a man's shape animated by demon life - a Ghoul
- an Afreet.
    Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not
know: I scarcely think it is. But this I know; the writer who possesses the
creative gift owns something of which he is not always master - something that
at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay down rules and devise
principles, and to rules and principles it will perhaps for years lie in
subjection; and then, haply without any warning of revolt, there comes a time
when it will no longer consent to »harrow the vallies, or be bound with a band
in the furrow« - when it »laughs at the multitude of the city, and regards not
the crying of the driver« - when, refusing absolutely to make ropes out of
sea-sand any longer, it sets to work on statue-hewing, and you have a Pluto or a
Jove, a Tisiphone or a Psyche, a Mermaid or a Madonna, as Fate or Inspiration
direct. Be the work grim or glorious, dread or divine, you have little choice
left but quiescent adoption. As for you - the nominal artist - your share in it
has been to work passively under dictates you neither delivered nor could
question - that would not be uttered at your prayer, nor suppressed nor changed
at your caprice. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who
little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who
almost as little deserve blame.
    »Wuthering Heights« was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of
homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary moor: gazing
thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, savage, swart,
sinister; a form moulded with at least one element of grandeur - power. He
wrought with a rude chisel, and from no model