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A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not—never doubted – that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls – occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to recall what I had heard of dead men troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes revising the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit harassed by the wrong of his sister’s child might quit its abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed – and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me or elicit from the gloom some haloed face bending over me with strange pity. This idea consolatory in theory I felt would be terrible if realized: with all my might I endeavored to stifle it—I endeavored to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes I lifted my head and tried to look boldly around the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it I asked myself a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still and this stirred; while I gazed it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was in all likelihood a gleam from a * carried by some one across the lawn; but then prepared as my mind was for horror shaken as my nerves were by agitation I thought the swift-darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned Bessie and Abbot entered.
P12
The next thing I remember is waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare and seeing before me a terrible red glare crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices too speaking with a hollow sound and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water agitation uncertainty and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm and felt easy.
In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed and that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table: Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow leaning over me.
I felt an inexpressible relief a soothing conviction of protection and security when I knew that there was a stranger in the room and inpidual not belonging to Gateshead and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot for instance would have been) I scrutinized the face of the gentlemen: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd an apothecary sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servant were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
P14
Bessie had been down into the kitchen and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate whose bird of paradise nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy such a privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! Coming like most other favours long deferred and often wished for too late! I could not ear the tart: and the plumage of the bird the tints of the flowers seemed strangely faded! I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered a narrative of facts and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wallnooks I had at length make up my mind to the sad truth that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker and the population more scant; whereas Lilliputt and Brobdingnag being in my creed solid parts of the earth’s surface I doubted not that I might one day by taking a long voyage see with my own eyes the little fields houses and trees the diminutive people the tiny cows sheep and birds of the one realm; and the cornfields forest-high the mighty mastiffs the monster cats the tower-like men and women of the other. Yet when this cherished volume was now placed in my hands—when I turned over its leaves and sought in its marvelous pictures the charm I had till now never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary ; the faints were gaunt goblins the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book which I dared no longer peruse and put it on the table beside the untasted tart.
P16
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him: he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and gray not very bright; but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking-face. Having considered me at leisure he said ‘what made you ill yesterday?’
P20
From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a movie for wishing to get well: a change seemed near—I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried however; days and weeks passed; I had regained my normal state of health but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye but seldom addressed me; since my illness she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself condemning me to take my meals alone and pass all my time in the nursery while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint however did she drop about sending me to school; still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance now more than ever when turned on me expressed and insuperable and rooted aversion.
P21
Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but on hearing this strange and audacious declaration she ran nimbly up the stair swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery and crushing me down on the edge of my crib dared me in and emphatic voice to rise from that place or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.
“What would Uncle Reed say to you if he were alive? ” was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
P22
I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red I undressed hastily tugging at knots and strings as I best might and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something and in the dearth of worthier objects of affection I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzled me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my nightgown; and when it lay there safe and warm I was comparatively happy believing it to be happy likewise.
Long did the hour seem while I waited the departure of the company and listened for the sound of Bessie step on the stairs. Sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or cheese-cake – then would sit on the bed while ate it and when I had finished she would tuck the clothes round me and twice she kissed me and said ’Good night Miss Jane.’ When thus gentle Bessie seemed to me best prettiest kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable and never push me about or scold or task me unreasonably as she was too often wont to do.
P23
As to her money she first secreted it in odd corners wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid Eliza fearful of one day losing her valued treasure consented to entrust it to her mother at a usurious rate of interest—fifty or sixty per cent—which interest she exacted every quarter keeping her account in a little book with anxious accuracy.
Georgiana sat on high stool dressing her hair at the glass and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my bed having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under nursery-maid to tidy the room dust the chair etc.). Having spread the quilt and folded my nightdress I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll’s house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors the fairy plates and cups were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then for lack of other occupation I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which I might look out on the grounds where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
P24
I was spared the trouble of answering for Bessie seemed to be in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand inflicted a merciless but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap water and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush denuded me of my pinafore and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs bid me go down directly as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.
I would have asked who wanted me—I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone and had closed the nursery door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months I had never been called to Mrs. Reed’s presence; restricted so long to the nursery the breakfast- dining- and drawing- rooms were become to me awful regions on which it dismayed me to intrude.
It now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door and I stopped intimidate and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon had fear engendered of unjust punishment made of me in those days! I feared to returned to nursery and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesetation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must enter.
‘Who could want me? ’ I asked inwardly as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle which for a second or two resisted my efforts. ‘What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?—a man or a woman?’ The handle turned the door unclosed and passing through and curtseying low I looked up at a black pillar! – such at least appeared to me at first sight the straight narrow sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug; the grim face at the top was like a carved mask placed above the shaft by way of capital.
‘I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; an if any one asks me how I liked you and how you treated me I will asy the very thought of you makes me sick and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.’
‘How dare you affirm that Jane Eyre?’
‘How dare I Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the red-room and locked me up there to my dying day though I was in agony though I cried out while suffocating with distress ‘Have mercy! Have mercy Aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knock me down for nothing I will tell anybody who asks me question this exact tale. People think you a good woman but you are bad hard-hearted. You are deceitful!’
Ere I had finished this reply my soul began to expand to exult with the strangest sense of freedom of triumph I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened: her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hand rocking herself to and fro and even twisting her face as if she would cry.
‘Jane you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?’
‘No Mrs. Reed.’
‘Is there anything else you wish for Jane? I assure you I desire to be you friend.’
‘Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character a deceitful disposition; and I’ll let everybody at Lowood know what you are and what you have done.’
‘Jane you don’t understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults.’
‘Deceit is not my fault!’ I cried out in a savage high voice.
‘But you are passionate Jane that you must allow; and now return to the nursery—there’s a dear—and lie down a little.’
‘I am not your dear; I cannot lie down. Send me to school soon Mrs. Reed for I hate to live here.’
‘I will indeed send her to school soon’ murmured Mrs. Reed sotto voce; and gathering up her work she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone—winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought and the first victory I had gained. I stood awhile on the rug where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood and I enjoyed my conqueror’s solitude. First I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders as I had done—cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play as I had given mine—without experience afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath alive glancing devouring would have been a great emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed; the same ridge black and blasted after the flames are dead would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition when half an hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time. An aromatic wine it seemed on swallowing warm and racy; its after-flavour metallic and corroding gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I knew partly from experience and partly from instinct that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.Good Paragraphs (continued)
P51
‘She has been unkind to you no doubt because you see she dislikes your cast of chatacter as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity together with the passionate emotion it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are and must be one and all burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when I trust we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh and only the spark of the spirit will remain—the impalpable principle of life and thought pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature; whence it came it sill return perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory from the pale human soul to brighten to seraph! Surely it will never on the contrary be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No I cannot believe that: I hold another creed which no one ever taught me and which I seldom mention but in which I delight and to which I cling for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity arrest—a mighty home – not a terror and an abyss. Besides with this creed I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed revenge never worries my heart degradation never too deeply disgusts me injustice never crushes me too low; I live in calm looking to the end.’
P52
My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties habituating myself to new roles and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot though these were no trifles. During January February and part of March the deep snows and after their melting the almost impassable roads prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls except to go to church but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold; we had no boots the snow got into our shoes and melted there; our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains as were our feet. I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening when my feet inflamed and the torture of thrusting the swelled raw and stiff toes into my shies in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity whey would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at teatime and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of m mug of coffee I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
P62
‘Hush Jane! You think too much of the love of human beings you are too impulsive too vehement: the sovereign Hand that created your frame and put life into it has provided you with other resources than your feeble self or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth and besides the race of men there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirit: that world is round us for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame if scorn smote us on all sides and hatred crushed us angels see our torture recognize our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at secondhand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front) and God waits only a separation of spirit from flexh to crown us with a full reward. Why then should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress when life is so soon over and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?’
P61
‘Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: not is he even a great and admired man:; he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favorite you would have found enemies declared or covert all around you; as it is the greater number would offer ou sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for the temporary suppression. Besides Jane --’ She paused.
‘Well Helen?’ said I putting my hand into hers. She chafed my fingers gently to warm them and went in—
‘If all the world hated you and believed you wicked while your own conscience approved you and absolved you from guilt you would not be without friends.’
P63
‘I resolved in the depth of my heart that I would be most moderate—most correct; and having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange coherently what I had to say I told herr all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen’s warnings against the indulgence of resentment I infused into the narrative for less of gall and wormwood thant ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified it sounded more credible: I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.’
P66
Next morning Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuious characters on a piece of pasteboard the word ‘Slattern’ and bound it like a phylactery round Helen’s large mild intelligent and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening patient unresentful regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school I ran to Helen tore it off and thrust it into the fire. The fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day and tears hot and large had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
P67
But the privation or rather the hardships of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on – she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted itss cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched fe3et flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the playhour passed in the garden; sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial and a greenness grew over those brown beds which freshening daily suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out among the leaves: snowdrops crocuses purple auriculas and and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside under the hedges.
P77
I went to my window opened it and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote the blue peaks. It was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed *-ground exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain and vanishing in a gorge between two. How I longed to follow it father! I recalled the time when I had traveled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight. An age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school. Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world. School rules school duties school gabits and notions and boices and faces and phrases and costumes and preferences and antipathies: such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough. I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I pgasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned iiit and framed a humbler supplication. For change stimulus. That petition too seemed swept off into vague space. ‘Then’ I cried half desperate ‘grant me at least a new servitude!’
Here a bell ringing the hour of supper called me downstairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime; even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur by a prolonged effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her! It seemed as if could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief.
P78
‘A new servitude! There is something in that ’ I soliloquized (mentally be it understood; I did not talk aloud). ‘I know there is because it does not sound too sweet. It is not like such words as Liberty Excitement Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly but no more than sounds for me and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be a matter of fact. Any one may serve. I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will! Is not the thing feasible! Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.’
‘What do I want? A new place in a new house amongst new faces under new circumstances. I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends I suppose. I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?’
I could not tell: nothing answered me. I then ordered my brain to find a response and quickly. It worked and worked faster. I felt the pulse throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour I got up and took a turn in the room undrew the curtain noted a star to two shivered with cold and gain crept to bed.
A kind fairy in my absence had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow for as I lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind: ‘Those who want situations advertise: you must advertise in the –shire Herald.’
‘How? I know nothing about advertising.’
Replies rose smooth and prompt now—
document.write(',')//www.lwcool.com MS Song">‘You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald. You must put it the first opportunity you have into the post at Lowton. Answers must be addressed to J.E. at the post office there. You can go and inquire in about a week after you send the letter if an are come and act accordingly.’
This scheme I went over twice thrice; it ws then digested in my mind: I had it in clear practical form: I felt satisfied and fell asleep.
P85
It is very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world cut adrift from every connexion uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation the glow of pride warms it: but then the throb of fear disturbs it and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.
P97
When we left the dining room she proposed to show me over the rest of the house: and I followed her upstairs and downstairs admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand; and some of the third-story rooms. Though dark and low were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casements showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut looking with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ head like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third story of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past—a shrine of memory. I liked the hush the gloom the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in some of them with doors of oak; shaded others with wrought English old hangings crusted with thick work portraying effigies of strange flowers an stranger birds and strangest human beings – all which would have looked strange indeed by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
P98
‘On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?’ I followed still up very narrow staircase to the attics and thence by a ladder and through a trapdoor to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map; the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the gray base of the mansion; the field wide as a park dotted with its ancient timber; the wood dun and sere pided by a path visibly overgrown greener with moss than the trees with foliage; the church at the gates the road the tranquil hills all reposing in the autumn day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky azure marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trapdoor I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up and to that sunlit scene of grove pasture green hill of which the hall was the center and over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trapdoor. I by dint of groping found the outlet from the attic and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led separating the front and back rooms of the third story – narrow low and dim wit only one little window at the far end and looking with its two rows of small black doors all shut like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.
While I paced softly on the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region a laugh struck my ears. It was a curious laugh—distinct formal mirthless I stopped. The sound ceased only for an instant. It began again louder—for at first though very distinct it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to echo in every lonely chamber though it originated but in one and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
P99
I really did not expect any Grace to answer for the laugh was as tragic as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and but that it was high noon and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favored fear I should have been superstitiously afraid. However the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
P100
Anybody may blame me who likes when I add further that now and then when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and I looked through then along the road; or when while Adele played with her nurse and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom I climbed the three stair cases raised the trapdoor of the attic and having reached the leads looked out afar over sequestered field and hill and along dim skyline—that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world towns regions full of life I had heard of but never seen; that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind of acquaintance with variety of character than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs.. Fairfax and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story backwards and forwards safe in the silence and solitude of the spot. And allow my mind’ eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and certainly they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement which while it swelled it in trouble expanded it with life; and best of all to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my imagination created and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident life fire feeling that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
P102
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides politically rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint too absolute a stagnation precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them. Or laugh at them if they seek to do ore or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone I not unfrequently herd Grace Poole’s laugh: the same peal the same low slow ha! Ha! Which when first heard had thrilled me: I heard too her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin or a plate or a tray in her hand go down to the kitchen and shortly return generally (oh romantic reader forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
P102
The ground was hard the air was still my road was lonely: I walked fast till I got warm and then I walked slowly to enjoy and to analyze the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield in a lane noted for wild roses in summer for nuts and blackberries in autumn and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred it made no sound here; for there was not a holly not an evergreen to rustle and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white worn stones which cause-wayed the middle of the path. Far and wide on each side there were only fields where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds which stirred occasionally in the hedge looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined uphill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me and sheltering my hands in my muff I did not feel the cold though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway where a little *let now congealed had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my set I could look down on Thornfield: the gray and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery arose against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward.
On the hilltop above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as cloud but brightening momently; she looked over Hay which half lost in trees sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys; it was yet a mile distant but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear too felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but here were many hills beyond Hay and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening clam betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams the sough of the most remote.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet as the path was narrow I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred maturing youth added to them a vigor and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk I remembered certain of Bessie’s tale wherein figured a North-of England spirit called a ‘Gytrash’; which in the form of horse mule or large dog haunted solitary ways and sometimes came upon belated travelers as this horse was now coming upon me.
P105
Something of daylight still lingers and the moon was waxing bright; I could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak fur collared and steel clasped; its derails were not apparent but I traced the general points of middle HEiGhT and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth but had not reached middle age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome heroic-looking young gentleman I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty elegance gallantry fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me and should have shunned them as one would fire lightning or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humored to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown the roughness of the traveler set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go and announced—
‘I cannot think of leaving you sir at so late and hour in this solitary lane till I see you are fit to mount your horse.’
I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment no romance no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed: I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial transitory though the deed was it was yet an active thing and I was weary of an existence all-passive. The new face too was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly because it was masculine; and secondly because it was dark strong and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay and slipped the letter into the post office; I saw it as I walked fast downhill all the way home. When I came to the stile I stopped a minute looked round and listened with an idea that a horse’s hoofs might ring on the causeway again and that a rider in a cloak and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur my eye traversing the hall front caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late and I hurried on.
I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall to ascend the darksome staircase to seek my own lonely little room and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax and spend the long winter evening with her and her only was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk—to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of a uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes; just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a ‘too easy chair’ to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir under my circumstances as it would be under his.
I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement: the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house—from the gray hollow filled with rayless cells as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me—a blue sea absolved front taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march her orb seeming to look up as she left the hilltops from behind which she had come far and farther below her and aspired to the zenith midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course they made my heart tremble my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed. I turned from moon and stars opened a side-door and went in.
P111
Two wax candles stood lighted on the table and two on the mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire lay Pilot—Adele knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester his foot supported by a cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog. The fire shone full on his face. I knew my traveler with his broad and jetty eyebrow his square forehead made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognize3d his decisive nose more remarkable for character than beauty; his full mostrils denoting I thought choler; his grim mouth chin and jaw—yes all three were very grim and no mistake. His shape now pested of cloak I perceived harmonized in squareness with his physiognomy. I suppose it was as good figure in the athletic sense of the term—broad-chested and thin-flanked though neither tall nor graceful.
Good Sentences
1. I felt an inexpressible relief a soothing conviction of protection and security when I knew that there was a stranger in the room and inpidual not belonging to Gateshead and not related to Mrs. Reed.
2. Our progress was leisurely and gave me ample time to reflect. I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey.
3. My rest might have been blissful enough only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping woods its inward bleeding its riven chords.
4. I heard voices too speaking with a hollow sound and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water agitation uncertainty and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties.
5. Ere I had finished this reply my soul began to expand to exult with the strangest sense of freedom of triumph I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty.
6. Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time. An aromatic wine it seemed on swallowing warm and racy; its after-flavour metallic and corroding gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
7. Something of daylight still lingers and the moon was waxing bright; I could see him plainly.
Comments
Jane Eyre is a touching story of a strong lady Jane Eyre. She lost her parents when she was still an infant. After spen ding a painful time at her aunt’s house and a school whose rules were too rigid for a child she became an tutor at Thornfield and felt in love with her boss—Mr. Rochester. However she was not able to marry him for he already had a wife who was a bulky and crazy. The desperate Jane left him and accidentally found her cousins and inherited her uncle’s legacy. She shared the money with her cousins. When she found out her love Mr. Rochester was blind she decisively went back to him.
Every human being can find his reflection in Jane Eyre. She was not pretty not brilliant not wealthy and had no family. Similarly we were all born with some defects or other. In other words we are all bound to face these imperfections of life and we all need the strength to live with them. Sometimes we need some role models to warm our hearts and light our paths. Jane Eyre is one. However gloomy her days were she never lost her dignity nor did she give herself up. So when we lose hope or complain about the imperfections of life we can always get some guidance and reassurance from Jane.
I would also like to point out another thing I admire about Jane. Wealth could never affect her peace of mind. She was not overwhelmed by the joy of getting a large amount of money from his uncle. She generously shared it with her cousins. When Rochester was blind and lost his big house Jane immediately came to his help and comforted him. Her love was generous and pure like the spring sun reviving the desert in Rochester’s heart. Money is just an additional bonus of life. It is a tool a means but never the main tune of life. Only love can be the reason of life. Only love can heal the broken hearts and carry the desperate ones through the gloomy days.
Jane Eyre is part of me and is now residing in my heart. She will give me strength and power when I am depressed.
