Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

you were no beauty as a child.”

bruh

“What the deuce is to do now?”

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.

“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?”

“You are dumb, Miss Eyre.”

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

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader:

This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door.

Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but his voice was checked.

That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life;

Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.”

Theodore, do you remember those merry days?” “Yaas, to be sure I do,”

I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Good-night, my—” He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

NOW WHAAAAAATTTT

“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.” She giggled, and her colour rose.

now i’m pissed what abt jane

It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad.

alas! never had I loved him so well.

“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry.”

“Make my happiness—I will make yours.”

I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband’s ardour extends.

“But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?”

Were you jealous, Jane?”

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

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman—almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again:

The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass.

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

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 the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as—under any pretext—with any justification—through any temptation—to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory.

“No, Jane,” he returned: “what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?” I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.

Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol.

Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left?

oh brother

May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.

Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God.

“Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented road,” I reflected. “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.”

“She looks sensible, but not at all handsome.” “She is so ill, St. John.” “Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features.”

pmo

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.

He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But

God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate;

He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse.

“But I apprised you that I was a hard man,” said he, “difficult to persuade.” “And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off.”

He has told me I am formed for labour—not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage.

And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.

Dusk as it was, I had recognised him—it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.

Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight.

“Choose then, sir—her who loves you best.” “I will at least choose—her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?” “Yes, sir.” “A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?” “Yes, sir.” “A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?” “Yes, sir.” “Truly, Jane?” “Most truly, sir.” “Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!” “Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life—if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer—if ever I wished a righteous wish,—I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.”

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