Jane Eyre: An Autobiography

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion.

To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ.

It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does.

I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

She’s an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.

There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring.

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.

I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently;

I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.

Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words.

Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices:

I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.

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.

I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must enter.

I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst’s eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?

Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them.

Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.

A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as 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.

Your Missis has not been my friend: she has been my foe.

The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat!

It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you

it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear

Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances

I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object

She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her situation: of something not round her nor before her

It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.

I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last:

I live in calm, looking to the end.

you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be.

When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.

It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.

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:

I live in calm, looking to the end.

Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.

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.

Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us;

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind.

It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more.

I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies—such was what I knew of existence.

Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the ——shire Herald.

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, 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 never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer.

I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon.

A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.

sunshine and long days make such a difference

Externals have a great effect on the young

I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked

I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth

I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him

you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary

All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory

I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: 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.

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;

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.

I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.

Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.

to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence

Little things recall us to earth

a rill from the outer world was flowing through it

harsh caprice laid me under no obligation

I have examined Adèle, and find you have taken great pains with her

I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known

I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork

You had not enough of the artist’s skill and science to give it full being

These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream

we can none of us help our nature

blood is said to be thicker than water

Beauty of little consequence, indeed!

Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her knuckles

I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself

Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life

Reformation may be its cure

happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I will get it, cost what it may

I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level

I wish I had stood firm—God knows I do!

remorse is the poison of life

Reformation may be its cure

I am paving hell with energy

I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right.

The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.

You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base.

you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current

I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job’s leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.

The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.

I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work.

I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e’en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden.

I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged.

Silence composes the nerves

Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion.

Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly.

People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable.

I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret.

a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.

It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it

He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.

Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?’

I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order

He made me love him without looking at me.

I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong!

I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him.

I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.

I saw Mr. Rochester smile:—his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet.

I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him.

as to the gentlemen, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:—Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip.

I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror.

She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness.

Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face;

If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous.

The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

extremes meet.

You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you.

The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them.

Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results.

You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it.

The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.

Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?

The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.

You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?

I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch.

Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another.

It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study.

The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.

I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.’

Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms.

I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet—

I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected.

The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.

I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenance—these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror.

What crime was this, that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night?

To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day.

The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable.

God, who does the work, ordains the instrument.

Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.

I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own.

he ruined his health and his estate amongst the worst men and the worst women.

the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.

It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion.

I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries

unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated.

I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to subdue her—to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will.

A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.

I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.

Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.

Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person’s strength:

Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity.

You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.

living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.

With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble.

what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?

when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other.

This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.

I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!

it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!

I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady’s robe; and I don’t call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you.

I had rather be a thing than an angel.

I love it now.

I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me—you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart.

Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.

I would rather be excused.

I like you more than I can say; but I’ll not sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I’ll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual advantage.

I care not in this moment sweet, Though all I have rushed o’er Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, Proclaiming vengeance sore: Though haughty Hate should strike me down, Right, bar approach to me, And grinding Might, with furious frown, Swear endless enmity.

I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.

My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven.

He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun.

I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

I thought of the life that lay before me—your life, sir—an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel.

Everything in life seems unreal.

You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.

I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.

I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop—but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every moment.

I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and for a distant country.

the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke.

It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.

Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face.

nerves like yours were not made for rough handling.

It was half dream, half reality.

I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm.

I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout.

Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged!

A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.

My hopes were all dead—struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt.

I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive.

Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.

you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.

Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,

I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief.

If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive.

I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe.

There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission.

Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion.

I resolved to be clean in my own sight—and to the last I repudiated the contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental defects.

Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.

I longed only for what suited me—for the antipodes of the Creole

I was surly; but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority.

I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour;

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge;

I had injured—wounded—left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes.

I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now.

I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness.

I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured.

The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.

I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.

I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, the creased handkerchief:

I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so.

And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper’s grave.

It is the clergyman’s function to help—at least with advice—those who wished to help themselves.

We mean to teach it some time—or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now.

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.

I will trust you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear.

She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed to me full of charm.

Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will.

He was young—perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty—tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin.

Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager.

He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage.

You have never been married? You are a spinster?

I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them. I was brought up a dependent; educated in a charitable institution.

I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here.

I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof.

you and your sisters have done me a great service—the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death.

I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can offer.

I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better

I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow.

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.

Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection—of the strongest kind—was the result.

he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.

I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honour.

His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself.

in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.

I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born.

Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?

God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get—when our will strains after a path we may not follow—we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.

I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them.

I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive.

It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.

Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me.

Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable.

I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.

From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy.

From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice.

So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning and training nature.

But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put on immortality.’

It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once.

Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, Death, Funeral.

It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious—yes, I felt that—that thought swelled my heart.

I now clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.

This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections.

Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin,—it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.

Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.

They were under a yoke,—I could free them: they were scattered,—I could reunite them:

as stone is worn by continual dropping.

Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.

I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful.

I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so.

I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-feeling.

Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully;

The best things the world has!

It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak and move, the leader and superior.

He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself.

The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!

St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent.

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.

I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt.

God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love.

I have watched you ever since we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited?

He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all.

it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.

that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them.

I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I.

Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour;

I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free.

forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—this would be unendurable.

I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.

the very name of love is an apple of discord between us.

Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.

He experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal.

I had burnt it in.

He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.

It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down.

Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed.

Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force!

Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails.

To prolong doubt was to prolong hope.

I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment.

The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight.

He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had.

He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and she deserved it—she was a very good woman.

He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.

My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.

I am my own mistress.

I don’t care about being married.

The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.

I find you lonely: I will be your companion—to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you.

Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and warmed.

I did not like to put my hand into a hireling’s, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane’s little fingers.

To be privileged to put my arms round what I value—to press my lips to what I love—to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice?

I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector.

He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely.

I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker.

I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine.

No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.

He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.

his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon.

His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth—who stand without fault before the throne of God,

No fear of death will darken St. John’s last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast.