Monday, September 23, 2013

Monday morsel: "mysteries beyond the visible"

 image: www.freeimages.co.uk


This quotation about writer Emily Bronte is from Margot Peters' Unquiet Soul (a biography of Charlotte Bronte):


"It was Emily's great gift to understand that the spiritual mysteries of life are made tangible in simple, daily, natural things -- snow, hearth fire, gate, wind, stable, heath blossom, linnet.  [Wuthering Heights] is a triumph of realistic art because its clear, homely, concrete detail has the power to evoke mysteries beyond the visible -- mysteries of love, hate, suffering, and the yearning of the spirit for immortality.  In this the novel and poems are like their creator:  at once a homely, simple girl who baked white bread, ironed and starched and sewed, picked the black currants, whistled to the dogs, and lay on her back in the heather to hear the lark's song pouring through the air; and a silent, aloof being whose mind, unfettered from the daily fret and care of ordinary mortals, ranged far into the mysteries of nature to commune with the soul of things -- a shy yet strong creature, curiously compounded of love and hate, kindness and indifference, pride and humility."


2 comments:

  1. Curiously compounded? Aren't we all!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, in that sense she wasn't really unique, was she?

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