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I2O THE BRONTES hers which, as her poems show, was as charac- teristic of her nature as that other characteristic of violent feeling and manifested itself in Wuthering Heights in the way in which she used Time to soften the sense of tragedy, took the place in her mind that a more scientific understanding of the psychology of human beings takes in the minds of readers of to-day. Heathcliff is no more mon- strous to us than he was to Emily. We see him, at first, as no more than an ill-used sullen boy, growing bitter under Hindley's ill treatment and Catherine's apparently uncertain affection and thoughtless coquetries ; he disappears and we see him returned and faced with the irrevocable fact of Catherine's marriage to his loathed rival, Edgar, and her breakdown and death ; we see HeathclifFs bitterness and rage hardening into relentless scheming to wreck the lives and capture the fortunes of both families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons ; we see his almost complete triumph, his haunted pursuit of the mocking spirit of Catherine and his sudden tormented end. There are passages in which Heathcliff is described to seem literally diabolical, and his mysterious origin and dark, swarthy appearance- " as black as if he came from the devil " - as well as the super- natural element in the story are in keeping with that impression of him, at any rate upon a men- tality as naturally superstitious as Mrs. Dean's. And as it is Mrs. Dean who is telling the story that impression is, of course, conveyed to the reader. But, after the book has been read more than once, reflection suggests that Heathcliff was