Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St Matthew;

True, reader;

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,

Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind.

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 more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

It had a master; for my part, I liked it better.

While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful.

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish.

yet he was imperious sometimes still, but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way.

And was Mr Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see;

not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The

an obstacle of custom – a mere conventional impediment7

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.24

Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence.

Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine:

the retreat of bats and owls.

The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates;

I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me – a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them – ‘Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.’12

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.

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.

My home, then – when I at last find a home – is a cottage; a little room with white-washed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf.

God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!

I wonder at the goodness of God, the generosity of my friends, the bounty of my lot.

Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell – the hell of your own meanness.

Here was a new card turned up! 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.

comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife.

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.

He will never love me; but he shall approve me;

‘I scorn your idea of love,’ I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. ‘I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St John, and I scorn you when you offer it.’

Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour.

Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?

Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever.

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