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APS TOGETHER

Day 11

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Chapter XVI

November 25, 2022 by Yiyun Li

An apt description of depression: self wrestling with self

The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle.

The Penguin Classic edition notes that Emily Brontë used “wuther,” a word local to Yorkshire, first in Wuthering Heights. And Charlotte Brontë’s use of wuther is the second citation.

…sure by the "wuther" of wind amongst trees…

For the first time Lucy steps out from behind her veil: at fourteen she stood on the music stool to gaze at Graham’s portrait; at twenty-four she prays: “Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly,” and steeps the pillow with tears.


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