Sunday Selections: Wuthering Heights

Welcome to Sunday Selections, a meme devoted to sharing and discussing our favorite quotes and passages from our favorite books. If you'd like to share a selection, please leave a comment with a link to your post.

This week I've chosen to share the last line from one of my favorite classics, Wuthering Heights (Signet Classics):

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.








As far as last lines go, I think this is one of the very best. The prose is poetic and soothing, yet the contrast of images brought forth, the peaceful countryside and the restless, tortured spirits of Heathcliff and Catherine, are disquieting. I think this last line really puts the rest of the novel in perspective. Two people too caught up in their own twisted wants and desires to allow the quiet beauty that surrounded them to nurture them, to calm them and to provide them with peace and happiness, even in death.