Back then, people used words the way poets do today, to set the mood, to establish a fabric for the story to be played out upon.
Today our national mood can be described as "standing in front of the microwave, tapping your foot."
We want action, and we want it now! (Hmm. Is that the reason I named my third book "Action!"? -- No, It was for another reason, because it was supposed to take place on a movie set!)
I don't use a tapestry of words to set the mood, because we have gotten used to the shorthand signals of impending mood changes. References to the weather, or to the growing darkness.
Not only literature, but movies use this shorthand also. In "The Terminator", at the end of the movie, she asks, "What did he just say?"
-- "There's a storm coming."
*Putting her sunglasses on* "I know!" She drives away.
*Roll credits*
Whoa.
Yeah, at 17 I can definitely say that I was far more interested in action than poetic backdrops. Like watching a movie; I tend NOT to spend much time studying the details on the set, although a set designer and property crew invested considerable time and attention to all of the objects found there.
I've an acquaintance working over at Pixar, and speaking with him is an education in how a technical critic looks at a film. Far less focus upon storyline and far more on renderings, lighting, set details, camera angles; all of the minutiae that, translated to the printed page, make rich works like "Wuthering Heights" a challenging read. We've become used to those details being presented implicitly, not explicitly, so when confronted with them in explicit form, they become a sort of literary hiccup; a speed bump on the way to (in the way of?) a plot line. In fact, if we are watching a movie, and there is more attention given to the set than a dramatic, sweeping pan and zoom in upon the characters, we find it distracting, no matter how breathtaking the scenery.
Likely I'd be more tolerant of such literary devices, now, but I've so many other unread books backlogging my shelves that I think it unlikely "Wuthering Heights" will have a second opportunity.