Jane, be still; dont struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.
—I have as much soul as
you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty
and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as
it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the
medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—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!”
“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his
arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so,
Jane!”
“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “and yet not so; for you are a married
man—or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you—to one
with whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love;
for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union:
therefore I am better than you—let me go!”
“Where, Jane? To Ireland?”
“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.”
“Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is
rending its own plumage in its desperation.”
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an
independent will, which I now exert to leave you.”
Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my
hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.”
“You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.”
“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and
best earthly companion.”
“For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by
it.”
“Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still
too.”
A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through
the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite
distance—it died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the
hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet,
looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke;
he at last said—
“Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.”
“I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot
return.
There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to
me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my
abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had
of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think
it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he
shed it over me now.
“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up
home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s
threshold.”
All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to
colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to
leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. I
said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me—
“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad
to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only
home.”
I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he
tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs.
Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and
even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there
is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and
feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my
ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and
coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her
knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on
the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection
seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent
prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus
sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to
take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he
supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted
daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer
sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even
after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his
protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.
No sight so sad as that of a naughty child, he began, especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?They go to hell, was my ready and orthodox answer.And what is hell? Can you tell me that?A pit full of fire.And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?No, sir.What must you do to avoid it?I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: I must keep in good health and not die.
was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for
some minutes. Presently he addressed me—“Your name, little girl?”
“Jane Eyre, sir.”
In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman;
but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all
the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.
“Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?”
Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a
contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an
expressive shake of the head, adding soon, “Perhaps the less said on
that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.”
“Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;” and bending
from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair
opposite Mrs. Reed’s. “Come here,” he said.
I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him.
What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a
great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!
“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a
naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?”
“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer.
“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”
“A pit full of fire.”
“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for
ever?”
“No, sir.”
“What must you do to avoid it?”
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable:
“I must keep in good health, and not die.”
“How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily.
I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,—a
good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the
same could not be said of you were you to be called hence.”
Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down
on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself
far enough away.
“I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having
been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress.”
“Benefactress! benefactress!” said I inwardly: “they all call Mrs. Reed
my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing.”
“Do you say your prayers night and morning?” continued my interrogator.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you read your Bible?”
“Sometimes.”
“With pleasure? Are you fond of it?”
“I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel,
and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and
Job and Jonah.
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.These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: 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. There is – I repeat it – a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical
sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended
Author.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I
must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are
certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted
and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to
them, _i.e._, to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say
cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved
me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not,
therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who
doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever
is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against
bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on
earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I
would remind them of certain simple truths.
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.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct
as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be
confounded: 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. There is—I repeat
it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly
and clearly the line of separation between them.
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been
accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show
pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean
shrines. 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.
Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning
him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah
better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped
his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.
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 have been wrongly accused; and you, maam, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.
Resting my head on Helen’s shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she
drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus,
when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a
rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in
through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching
figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.
“I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,” said she; “I want you in my
room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.”
We went; following the superintendent’s guidance, we had to thread some
intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her
apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple
told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the
hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side.
“Is it all over?” she asked, looking down at my face. “Have you cried
your grief away?”
“I am afraid I never shall do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma’am, and everybody
else, will now think me wicked.”
“We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue
to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.”
“Shall I, Miss Temple?”
“You will,” said she, passing her arm round me. “And now tell me who is
the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?”
“Mrs. Reed, my uncle’s wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her
care.”
“Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?”
“No, ma’am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have
often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that
she would always keep me.”
“Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a
criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence.
You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as
you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and
exaggerate nothing.”
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 her 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 far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary.
We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.
I said my evening
prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
I said my evening prayers
Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were
buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for
the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over
me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was
not, at least at the commencement of the night, cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It
plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It
trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter
pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird
with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain
attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was
come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for
the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but
certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest
scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His
worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude,
His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for
Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty
Milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept
space like a soft trace of light—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. I
turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the
Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God’s, and by God
would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere
long in sleep forgot sorrow.
But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little
birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime
of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried—when the long
morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky—I got
up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor!
Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, I felt the torrent come; to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
I looked at my love: that feeling which was my
master’s—which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a
suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it;
it could not seek Mr. Rochester’s arms—it could not derive warmth from
his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was
blighted—confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had
been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice
to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of
stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must
go: _that_ I perceived well. When—how—whither, I could not yet discern;
but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real
affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful
passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even
to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind
had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!
My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round
me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow.
Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down
in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in
remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to
flee I had no strength. 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.”
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it—as I
had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips—it
came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. 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. That
bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, “the waters came into my
soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters;
the floods overflowed me.”
CHAPTER XXVII
Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and
seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I
asked, “What am I to do?
Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and dont shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach - if you have such a thing - is strong as an ostrichs; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.
For his part, when she
challenged his sight, I believe he would have passed from before her
eyes like a phantom, if he could; but being a tall fact, and no fiction,
he was obliged to stand the greeting. He made it brief. It was
cousin-like, brother-like, friend-like, anything but lover-like. The
nameless charm of last night had left his manner: he was no longer the
same man: or, at any rate, the same heart did not beat in his breast.
Rude disappointment, sharp cross! At first the eager girl would not
believe in the change, though she saw and felt it. It was difficult to
withdraw her hand from his, till he had bestowed at least something like
a kind pressure; it was difficult to turn her eyes from his eyes, till
his looks had expressed something more and fonder than that cool
welcome.
A lover masculine so disappointed can speak and urge explanation, a
lover feminine can say nothing; if she did, the result would be shame
and anguish, inward remorse for self-treachery. Nature would brand such
demonstration as a rebellion against her instincts, and would
vindictively repay it afterwards by the thunderbolt of self-contempt
smiting suddenly in secret. Take the matter as you find it: ask no
questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected
bread, and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't
shriek because the nerves are martyrized; do not doubt that your mental
stomach--if you have such a thing--is strong as an ostrich's; the stone
will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a
scorpion. Show no consternation: close your fingers firmly upon the
gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your
hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed
scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to
endure without a sob. For the whole remnant of your life, if you survive
the test--some, it is said, die under it--you will be stronger, wiser,
less sensitive. This you are not aware of, perhaps, at the time, and so
cannot borrow courage of that hope. Nature, however, as has been
intimated, is an excellent friend in such cases, sealing the lips,
interdicting utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation--a
dissimulation often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down
to sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a
convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because it is half-bitter.
Half-bitter! Is that wrong? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is
strength--it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you
find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic
exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a
dangerous energy--deadly when confronted with injustice.
Who has read the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee"--that old Scotch ballad,
written I know not in what generation nor by what hand?
But life is a battle: may we all be enabled to fight it well!
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
Miltons Eve! Miltons Eve! ... Milton tried to see the first woman; but Cary, he saw her not ... I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus --Pagan that you are! what does that signify?I say, there were giants on the earth in those days: giants that strove to scale heaven. The first womans breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence: the stregth which could bear a thousand years of bondage, -- the vitality which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, -- the unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation. ...I saw -- I now see -- a woman-Titan: her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from hear head to her feet, and arabesques of lighting flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear -- they are deep as lakes -- they are lifted and full of worship -- they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers: she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro Moor; her mighty hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That Eve is Jehovas daughter, as Adam was His son.
The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.
I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane, said Diana, during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you - he will make it up.I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him - he stood at the foot of the stairs.
I do not think the sunny youth of either will prove the forerunner of stormy age. I think it is deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy - not as angels but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives are thus blessed: it is Gods will: it is the attesting trace and lingering evidence of Eden. Other lives run from the first another course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty wild and variable - breast adverse winds are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of God and I know that amidst His boundless works is somewhere stored the secret of this last fates justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its mercy.
Happiness is the cure—a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both.
And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.
I knew you would do me good in some way, at some time--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you.
~Do you like him much?~I told you I like him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much? He is full of faults.~Is he?~All boys are.~More than girls?~Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anyboy perfect, and as to likes and diskiles, we should be friendly to all, and worship none.
You are going, Jane?I am going, sir.You are leaving me?Yes.You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard was it to reiterate firmly, I am going!Jane!Mr. Rochester.Withdraw then, I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room, think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings; think of me.He turned away, he threw himself on his face on the sofa. Oh, Jane! my hope, my love, my life! broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob.
I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast.
