Here, in this virgin soul, whose past was a blank, there was nothing for memory or resignation to cling to; nothing before that last journey, as nothing after; unless it be mournful vigils by the side of the brother she nursed—­the almost demented brother, whose life was wrecked by his idleness and a great unfortunate passion; who became an incurable opium-eater and drunkard.  Then, shortly before her twenty-ninth birthday, on a December afternoon, as she sat in the little whitewashed parlour combing her long black hair, the comb slipped from the fingers that were too weak to retain it, and fell into the fire; and death came to her, more silent even than life, and bore her away from the pale embraces of the two sisters whom fortune had left her.

101.  “No touch of love, no hint of fame, no hours of ease lie for you across the knees of fate,” exclaims Miss Mary Robinson, who has chronicled this existence, in a fine outburst of sorrow.  And truly, viewed from without, what life could be more dreary and colourless, more futile and icily cold, than that of Emily Bronte?  But where shall we take our stand, when we pass such a life in review, so as best to discover its truth, to judge it, approve it, and love it?  How different it all appears as we leave the little parsonage, hidden away on the moors, and let our eyes rest on the soul of our heroine!  It is rare indeed that we thus can follow the life of a soul in a body that knew no adventure; but it is less rare than might be imagined that a soul should have life of its own, which hardly depends, if at all, on incident of week or of year.  In “Wuthering Heights”—­wherein this soul gives to the world its passions, desires, reflections, realisations, ideals, which is, in a word, its real history—­in “Wuthering Heights” there is more adventure, more passion, more energy, more ardour, more love, than is needed to give life or fulfilment to twenty heroic existences, twenty destinies of gladness or sorrow.  Not a single event ever paused as it passed by her threshold; yet did every event she could claim take place in her heart, with incomparable force and beauty, with matchless precision and detail.  We say that nothing ever happened; but did not all things really happen to her much more directly and tangibly than unto most of us, seeing that everything that took place about her, everything that she saw or heard, was transformed within her into thoughts and feelings, into indulgent love, admiration, adoration of life?  What matter whether the event fall on our neighbour’s roof or our own?  The rain-drops the cloud brings with it are for him who will hold out his vessel; and the gladness, the beauty, the peace, or the helpful disquiet that is found in the gesture of fate, belongs only to him who has learned to reflect.  Love never came to her:  there fell never once on her ear the lover’s magical footfall; and, for all that, this virgin, who died in her twenty-ninth year, has known love, has spoken