never speaks the language of religious resignation like Anne and
Charlotte. It is most unlikely that she relied, openly or in secret, on
"the merits of the Redeemer", or on any of the familiar consolations of
religion. As she bowed to no disaster and no grief, consolation would
have been the last thing in any religion that she looked for. But, for
height and depth of supernatural attainment, there is no comparison
between Emily's grip of divine reality and poor Anne's spasmodic and
despairing clutch; and none between Charlotte's piety, her "God
willing"; "I suppose I ought to be thankful", and Emily's acceptance and
endurance of the event.

I am reminded that one event she neither accepted nor endured. She
fought death. Her spirit lifted the pathetic, febrile struggle of
weakness with corruption, and turned it to a splendid, Titanic, and
unearthly combat.

And yet it was in her life rather than her death that she was splendid.
There is something shocking and repellent in her last defiance. It
shrieks discord with the endurance and acceptance, braver than all
revolt, finer than all resignation, that was the secret of her genius
and of her life.

There is no need to reconcile this supreme detachment with the storm and
agony that rages through _Wuthering Heights_, or with the passion for
life and adoration of the earth that burns there, an imperishable flame;
or with Catherine Earnshaw's dream of heaven: "heaven did not seem to be
my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and
the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the
heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy".
Catherine Earnshaw's dream has been cited innumerable times to prove
that Emily Bronte was a splendid pagan. I do not know what it does
prove, if it is not the absolute and immeasurable greatness of her
genius, that, dwelling as she undoubtedly did dwell, in the secret and
invisible world, she could yet conceive and bring forth Catherine
Earnshaw.

It is not possible to diminish the force or to take away one word of Mr.
Swinburne's magnificent eulogy. There _was_ in the "passionate great
genius of Emily Bronte", "a dark, unconscious instinct as of primitive
nature-worship". That was where she was so poised and so complete; that
she touches earth and heaven, and is at once intoxicated with the
splendour of the passion of living, and holds her spirit in security and
her heart in peace.