good paragraphs
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 lantern 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.’
