Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more then I am always a pleasure to myself - but, as my own being.

This line is spoken by Catherine Earnshaw to Nelly Dean in Emily Brontë’s novel *Wuthering Heights* (1847). Catherine is trying to explain the nature of her bond with Heathcliff at a moment of emotional crisis, when her choices—especially her decision to marry Edgar Linton—have forced her to articulate what Heathcliff means to her beyond romance or social attachment. The confession comes in the intimate setting of Nelly’s narration, where Catherine’s private thoughts are reported secondhand, heightening the sense that this is a raw, unguarded truth rather than a public declaration.

Catherine’s claim collapses the boundary between self and other: Heathcliff is not merely beloved but constitutive of her identity. By rejecting the language of “pleasure,” she insists the attachment is not contingent on happiness, gratification, or choice; it is as involuntary and constant as self-awareness. The line captures the novel’s radical vision of love as elemental and metaphysical—an affinity that defies social norms, moral categories, and even individual autonomy. It also foreshadows the story’s destructive intensity: if Heathcliff is her “being,” separation becomes a kind of annihilation, helping explain the extremity of both characters’ later suffering and obsession.