Wuthering Heights

Chapter 1 Preface to the Second Edition of Wuthering Heights
(1850)
I have just read Wuthering Heights, and for the first time have a clear impression of its supposed, and perhaps real, shortcomings.There is also an unmistakable idea of ​​how it appears to others, strangers who know nothing of the author.They were not acquainted with the country in which the story was set, and to them the inhabitants, the customs, the natural features of the rolling hills and villages of West Riding, Yorkshire, were foreign and unknown to them.

To all these people, Wuthering Heights must have seemed a crude and strange production.The wilds of northern England do not interest them.The speech and behavior of the scattered inhabitants of these districts, as well as the houses themselves and their customs, are largely incomprehensible to such readers, and what they can understand is always accompanied by disgust.There are men and women who may be plain-tempered, mild-tempered in their affections, without a distinct individuality, and who, from their cradles, have grown into the habit of demeanor and speech, and it is difficult for them to appreciate illiterate moor farmers and rough moors. The rough and powerful speech of the squires, the passion they expressed in the primitive way, their unrestrained hatred and desperate love.They have not received much education since they were young, and have never been restrained except for being nurtured by teachers who are as strong as them.There are also a large number of readers who have been very troubled by the verbatim introduction of words into this work, which, as a rule, have only their first and last letters, and are filled in by ellipses.I'd better say right away that I'm not in a position to apologize for that.Because I also think that it is reasonable and reasonable to write words from beginning to end.The use of a single letter to suggest the swear words with which vulgar and raging people often adorn their speech seems to me weak and unhelpful, though well-intentioned.I don't see any advantage in doing this - is it avoiding some emotion, or masking some fear.

As for the rusticity of Wuthering Heights, I admit the charge because I feel its breath.It's rustic from start to finish.It has the color of the wilderness, wild and unruly, intertwined like the roots of heather, very natural.It will not be another way, because the author is a local, born and raised in the wilderness.Doubtless, if fate had thrown her into the city, her words, if she should have written anything at all, would obviously have taken on another character.Even if luck and taste lead her to choose similar subjects, her approach to them will not be the same.If Alice Bell was the pseudonym of Emily Bronte.It is a lady or gentleman who knows the so-called "world", and the remote and uncivilized land in her vision, as well as the inhabitants of that land, are the same as what this country girl who grew up in Si saw in fact, and she will Very different.No doubt it will be wider and more accessible, whether it is more original or more real is another matter.When it comes to scenery and local colors, it is hard to say that it is slightly inferior in terms of resonating with readers.Alice Bell's scenery writing is not like the kind of person who is purely pleasing the scenery.The mountains of her hometown are more than a landscape to her. They are the place where she was born and grew up, just as wild birds are their inhabitants and heather is their product.Therefore, the natural scenery she described is what they should be, all aspects of what they should be.

In terms of portraying human nature, the situation is different.I have to admit that she has no more practical knowledge of the country people in which she lives than a nun does with the villagers who now and then pass by the gates of her monastery.My sister's personality is not very gregarious by nature, and the environment is also adding to the flames, which has further created her habit of being alone.She rarely left the house except to go to church or take walks in the mountains.Although she loved the people around her, she never thought about socializing with them.With occasional exceptions, she has little experience in this area.But she knew them, their way of life, their language, their family history.She could listen to their stories with relish, and describe them in detail, vividly, and accurately.But she seldom communicated with them themselves.The actual notions of them which she had collected in her mind were, therefore, confined entirely to those tragic and dreadful traits of character which could not from time to time be impressed upon her memory by hearing the anecdotal history of every deserted village. .In her imagination, the temperament is more gloomy and less bright, strong but not cheerful, and she finds materials from these characteristics to create characters like Heathcliff, Earnshaw, and Catherine.She created these beings without knowing what she did.If her readers read her manuscripts, and read of nature so cruel and restless, and spirits so depraved and sinking, they are horrified by their nerve-grinding influence; Horrible scenes would make her unable to sleep at night and restless during the day. Alice Bell would only be baffled, wondering whether the complaint was true.If she is still alive, her heart will grow into a big tree, more noble, taller, more luxuriant, and the fruits it bears will be more mellow, sweeter, brighter and dazzling.But for such a mind, only time and experience can change it, and other intellectual influences are powerless.

I have publicly admitted that a large part of "Wuthering Heights" is enveloped by a "dark sense of terror", that is to say, in its stormy atmosphere, lightning and thunder, we can always breathe the smell of thunder and lightning.However, I want to point out that there are still dots of stars, and the skylight covered by thin clouds and the half-hidden sun are still proving their existence.For a truly loving and loyal example, look no further than Nelly Dean.For a model of tenderness and consistency, look to Edgar Linton.It will be thought that this quality is not as glorious in a man as in a woman.But Alice Bell would never come to understand this notion.She would not allow anyone to suggest that loyalty and gentleness, patience and kindness, were respected virtues in Eve's daughters, but became eccentricities in Adam's sons.She believes that love and forgiveness are the most sacred attributes of the great creator who created both men and women, and those qualities that make divinity suddenly shine will never humiliate humanity, which is insignificant in comparison, no matter what form it is .In the portrayal of old Joseph, there is a dry and gloomy emotion, while in little Catherine, there is a little elegance and cheerful brilliance.Even in the first heroine of that name, there is something strangely beautiful in her savagery, or sincerity in her capricious passions and impassioned repetitions.

Heathcliff, indeed, he alone is hopeless.He walked straight to hell, never turned a corner, since the "black-haired, dark-skinned, black little thing from the devil" was first unpacked from the coat bag and placed in the farmhouse kitchen stood on the ground until Nelly Dean found his monstrous, monstrous corpse lying on its back in the bed between the planks, eyes wide open as if "laughing at her attempt to close them, The parted lips and white sharp teeth are also mocking in the same way."

Heathcliff also reveals a lonely human emotion, but that is not his love for Catherine.His love for Catherine was a violent, inhuman emotion; a passion that could seep and burn in the malevolent nature of that evil genius; The fire of the soul; under its relentless, never-ending ravages compelled the relentless unfurling of the belief that doomed him to ever bear hell on his back, wherever he went.The only thing that unites Heathcliff to humanity is his brutal concern for Hareton Earnshaw, a young man he has ruined; and then his concern for Nelly Dean The half hidden respect.Take away these two isolated features, and we should say that he is neither an Indian sailor nor a gypsy child, but a devil in human skin, a ghoul, a demon.

Whether it is right or desirable to create a character like Heathcliff, I don't know.I can hardly imagine it is.But one thing I do understand is that whenever a creative writer has something that he can't always control, it sometimes takes its own way in a strange way.The writer may lay down rules and invent principles, to which he may bow his head for a few years, and then, perhaps showing no sign of rebellion, one day he will no longer "worship the valley, and yoke the plow." ’, instead it “laughed at all the people in the city, and ignored the hoarseness of the coachmen,” instead it flatly refused to rub the rope with sea sand, but started to carve a statue, so you have a Pluto or A Qiufu, a Tisiphone or a Psyche Pluto (Pluto) is Pluto; Qiufu (Jove) is Jupiter; Tisiphone (Tisiphone) is one of the three goddesses of revenge; Psyche (Psyche) ) is the goddess of the soul.A mermaid or a Madonna, driven by fate or inspiration.Whether the work is tiresome or glorious, terrible or sacred, you have little choice but to obey.As for you, titular artist, it is your business to do your job, and to obey orders that you neither give nor have a hand in asking, orders that you do not ask for, and that do not Take back or change your likes and dislikes.If the results are spectacular, the world will praise you, even though you have little to do with the praise.If the result is disgusting, the same world will reprimand you, though you have no less to do with the reprimand.

"Wuthering Heights" was carved in a rough workshop with simple tools and ordinary materials.The sculptor found a large block of granite in a lonely wilderness. She examined it carefully and saw how this rock could carve a head, savage, dark, and cynical; and how to carve a head with at least one kind. The shape of the magnificent composition - strength.She worked with a crude chisel, without a model, imitating the images she had meditated on.Time and labor had given the rock a human form, and there it stood, huge, dark, with furrowed brows, half statue, half stone.As far as the statue is concerned, it is terrible and ghostly; as regards the stone, it is almost beautiful, for its color is a soft gray, covered with the moss of the moor, and with small bell-like flowers, The fragrant heather faithfully clings to the condyle of the giant's foot and grows.

Currer Bell is the pseudonym of Charlotte Brontë.

(End of this chapter)