[music] Jane Eyre, An Autobiography, by Charlotte Bronte, Preface. A Preface to the first edition of Jane Eyre being unnecessary, I gave none. This second edition demands a few words, both of acknowledgement and the salanias remark. My thanks are due in three quarters, to the public for the indulgent air it has inclined to a plain tear with few pretensions, to the press, for the fairfield its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant, to my publishers, for the aid that attacked the energy, the practical sense, and frank liberality have afforded in a known 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 spigotry, that parent of crime, and insult to piety, that region of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions, I would remind them of certain simple troops. Confessionality is not morality, self-righteousness is not religion, to attack the first is not to assail the last, to pluck the mass 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 its fights from virtue, men who often confound them, they should not be confounded. Appearing should not be mistaken for truth, narrow human doctrines that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the well-redeeming greed of Christ. There is, a repeated, a difference, and it is a good and not a bad action to mark broadly and clear the line of separation between them. The world may not like to see these ideas descended, for it has been accustomed to blemming, finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling wirth, to let white washed walls vouch for clean shrines, it may hate him who dares to scrutinize and expose, to raise the building and show base metal under it, to penetrate the sapphire and reveal charmer ranks, but hate as it will, it is indebted to him. Ahab did not like the car, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but even probably, he liked the sycophon, son of Shanana better, yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death had he but stalked his ears to flattery and opened them to faithful castle. There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed in tickle delicate ears, who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlan came before the throne kings of Judah and Israel, and who speaks truth as deep with a power as prophet-like and as vital, a mean as dauntless and as damned, is the satirist of vanity fair admired in high places, I cannot tell, but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the leaven brand of his denunciation, where to take his warnings in time, they or their seed might yet escape a fatal rim of gilliant. Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I've seen him, an intellect profounder, and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized, because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day, as the very master of that working core, who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things, because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found a comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterizes tablet, they say he is like fielding, they talk of his wit, humor, comic powers, he resembles fielding as an eagle das of vulture, fielding could stoop on Caron, but factory never das, his wit is bright, his humor attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lamp and sheet lightning playing under the edge of summer cloud, das to the electric death spark hid in its warmth. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Factory, because to him, if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger, I have dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre, Curabelle, December 21st, 1847. Note to the third edition, I avail myself of the opportunity, which a third edition of Jane Eyre forced me of again addressing a word to the public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone, if therefore the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me and honor is awarded where it is not merited and consequently denied where it is justly due. This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made and to prevent future errors. Curabelle, April 13th, 1848. Aspirate. Aspirate. Now, a person who has ambitions to achieve something. Personification. Personification. Now, a figure intended to represent an abstract quality. Carping. Carping. Agitive. Continually complaining or finding fault about trivial matters, difficult to please. Confound. Confound. Verb. Caused surprise or confusion in someone, especially by not according with their expectations, mix up something with something else. Sickle fact. Sickle fact. Now, a person who acts obsequiously towards someone important in order to gain a frontage. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. By Charlotte Bronte. Chapter One. There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wondering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery and hour in the morning. But since dinner, the cold winter wind had brought with it cloud so somber and rain so penetrating that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it. I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. Dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight with nipped fingers and toes and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered around their mama in a drawing room. She lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside and with her darlings about her looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying she regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance, but that until she heard from Bessie and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner, something lighter, flanker, more natural as it were. She really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contended happy little children. "What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked. "Jane, I don't like cabellars or questioners. Besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child ticking up her eldest in that manner. He seated somewhere, and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent. The breakfast room adjoined the drawing room. I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase. I soon possessed myself from a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the windows seat, gathering up my feet. I sat cross-legged like a turk, and, having drawn the red marine curtain nearly close, I was shrying in double retirement. Folds of scarlet draperies shut in my view to the right hand, to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the tree in November day. In intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. The far, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud, near a scene of wet-long and stone-beached shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. I returned to my book. Buick's history of British birds. The letter pressed thereof I cared little for, generally speaking, and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blend. They were those which treat of the horns of sea-fowl, of the solitary rocks and promontory, each by them only inhabited, of the coast of Norway, started with aisles from its southern extremity, litmus or nays to the north cave. Where the northern ocean in fast Wales, boils round naked, melonthony aisles, or farthest throughly, and the Atlantic search, bores in among the stormy hebrides. Nor could I pass and notice the suggestion of the bleak shores of Latin, Siberia, Spritzberg, Novosembler, Iceland, Greenland, with the fast sweep of the Arctic sun. In those forlorn regions of dreary space, they're reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries or winters, glazed in alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and consented and multiplied rickness of extreme cold. These stepped white rounds, I formed an idea of my own, shadowing like old half comprehended notions that float dimmed through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in the sea of below and spray, did the broken boat stranded on the desolate coat, to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking. I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the point solitary church art with its inscribed headstone, its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly risen crescent, testing the hour of even tide. The two ships be calmed on a top at sea, I believe to be marine phantoms, the fiend penning down the thieves packed behind him, I passed over quickly, it was an object of terror. So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying distant crowds surrounding a gallows. Each picture told a story, mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting, as interesting as the tales blessy sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chance to be in good humour, and when, having brought her ironing table to the nursery half, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lays thrills and crimped her nightcare borders, fared her eager tension with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales in other ballads, all from the pages of Pamella and Henry, Bell of Mordent. With Buick on my knee, I was then happy, happy at least in my way, I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon, the breakfast room door opened. Ooh, Madame Bo, tried the voice of John Reed, then he paused, he found the room apparently empty. Where the Dickens is she, he continued, "Lizzie Georgie, John is not here, tell mama she's ran out into the rain, bad animal." It is well I drew the curtain, thought I, and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding place, nor would John Reed have found it out himself, he was not quick either efficient or conception, but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once, "She is in the window's seat to be sure, Jack, and I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged for, by the said Jack. What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence. "Say, what do you want?" Master Reed was the answer, "I want you to come here, and seating himself in an armchair, he intimidated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him. John Reed was a school boy of fourteen years old, four years older than I, for I was but ten, large and stout for his age, with the dingy and unwholesome skin, thick liniumens in his spacious fissish, heavy limbs, and large extremities. He gouged himself habitually at table, which made him biddies, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks, he ought now to have been at school, but his mama had taken him home for a month or two. On account of his delicate health, Mr Miles the master affirmed that he would do very well if he had fever cakes and sweet meats sent him from home, but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's salamice was owing to over-application and perhaps to pinning after home. John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me, not two or three times in the week, nor one is what twice in the day, but continually. Every nerve I had feared him, and every muscle of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his afflictions. The servants did not like to offend the young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs Reed was blind in death on the subject. She never saw him strike or hurt him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence more frequently, however, behind her back. A virtually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. He spent some three minutes in flusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots. I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face, for all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I taught it, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair. That is for your impudence in answering mama while sins, said he, and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes, two minutes since you rat. I customed to John Reed's abuse. I never had an idea of replying to it. My care was now to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult. "What were you doing behind a curtain?" he asked. I was reading. Showed a book. I returned the window and fetched it thence. "You have no business to take out books. You are a dependent," mama says. "You have no money. Your father left you not. You ought to beg and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do and wear clothes at our mama's expense." Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves, for they are mine, or the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and windows. I did so, not at first aware what was his intention, but when I saw him lift and poised the book and stand in act to hurt, I instinctively started aside with a cry of a laugh. Not soon enough, however, the volume was flung. It hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled. The pain was sharp. My terror had passed its climax. Other feelings succeeded. "Wicked and cruel boy," I said. "You are like a murderer. You are like a slave driver. You are like the Roman Empress." I had read Goldsmith's history of Rome and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, etc. Also, I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud. "What, what?" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her lies and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama?" But first, he ran headlong at me. I felt him grasp my hair in my shoulder. He had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat crunching and suffering. These sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic salt. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me Rat Rat and bellowed out loud. Eight was near him. Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was scorned upstairs. She now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her main habit. We were parted. I heard the words, "Dear dear, what a viry to fly at Master John. Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion?" Then Mrs. Reed subjoined, check her way to the Red Room, and lock her in there. Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was born upstairs. Kavler. Kavler. Now, a person races annoying petty objections or quibbles. Vignettes. Vignettes. Now, a small illustration or portrait photograph, which fades into its background without a definite border. Linearment. Linearment. Now, a distinctive feature or characteristic, especially of the face. Antipathy. Antipathy. Now, a deep-seated feeling of perversion. Jane Eyre. An autobiography. By Charlotte Bronte. Chapter Two. I resisted all the way. A new thing for me, and the circumstances which greatly strengthened the battle pinion, Bessie and Miss Abbott, were disposed to the entertainment of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself, or rather out of myself, as the French would say. I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and like any other rebel's slave, I fell resolved in my desperation to go all names. "Hold her ass, Miss Abbott. She's like a madcat. For shame, for shame," cried the ladies made. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactor's son, your young master. Master, how is he my master? Am I a servant? No, you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness. They had got me by this time into the apartment, indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool. My impulse was to rise from it like a spring. The two pair of hands arrested me instantly. If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbott, lend me your garters. She would break mine directly." Miss Abbott turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary liquor-chair. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me. "Don't take them off," I cried. "I will not stir." In guarantee, whereof, I had attached myself to my seat by my hands. "Mind you, don't," said Bessie, and when she had a certain that I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me. Then she and Miss Abbott stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity. She never did so before, at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail. But it was always in her, was the reply. "I've told Mrs., often my opinion about the child, and Mrs. agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing. I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover." Bessie answered not. "But ere long, adjusting me," she said. "You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed. She keeps you. If she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor house." I had nothing to say to these words. They were not new to me. My very first recollections of existence included hints of the same time. This reproach of my dependence had become a fake sing-song in my ear, very painful and crushing, but only half-intelligible. Miss Abbott joined in, and you ought not to thank yourself on any quality with the Mrs. Reed and Master Reed, because Mrs. kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none. It is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them. What we tell you is for your good, added Bessie, in no harsh voice. You should try to be useful and pleasant, then perhaps you will have a home here, but if you become passionate and rude, Mrs. will send you away, I am sure." "Besides," said Miss Abbott, "God will punish him. He might strike her dead in the midst of attentions, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie. We will leave her. I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Bessie, when you are by yourself, for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down a chimney and fetch you away." They went, shutting a door and locking it behind them. The Red Room was a square chamber. Very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of fisters at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained. Yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. Abbott supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damage, stood out like a tabernacle in the center. The two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half-shouted in for students and falls of similar drapery. The carpet was red. The table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth. The walls were a soft-phone color with a blush of pink in it. The wardrobe, the toilet table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high and glad white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed spread with a snowy, must-say counterpane. Scastly less prominent was an ample cushioned, easy chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it and looking as I thought like a pale throne. This room was chill because it seldom had a fire. It was silent because remote from a nursery and kitchen, solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The housemate alone came here on Saturdays to wipe from the mirrors and furniture a week's quiet dust. And Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to refute the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers' parchment, her jewel casket and a miniature of her deceased husband. And in those last words lies the secret of the Red Room, the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of his grander. Mr. Reed had been dead nine years. It was in this chamber he breathed his last. Here he lay in state, hence his coffin was spawned by the undertaker's men, and since that day, a sense of gerry consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion. My seat, to which bassy and bitter Miss Abbott had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney piece. The bed rose before me. To my right hand, there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels. To my left were the muffled windows, a great-looking glass between them repeated the faken majesty of the Red Room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door, and when I dared move, I got up and went to sea. Alas, yes, no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking glass, my fascinated glance in voluntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that fissionary hollow than in reality, in a strange little figure that gazing at me, with a white face and arms pecking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, at the effect of the real spirit. I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half-end, bassy evening stories were presented as coming out of the lone, ferny, dales, and moans, and appearing before the eyes of belated travelers. I returned to my stool. Superstition was with me at that moment, but it was not yet her hour for complete victory. My blood was still warm. The mood of the refalted slave was still braising me with its bitter figure. I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quail to the dismal present. All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters prowled in difference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid world. Why was I always suffering, always brow-beating, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win anyone's favor? Delanza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very accurate spite, a cactus and insulin carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John, no one thwarted, much less punished, though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little peachyck, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hot house fines of their fruit, and broke the butts off the choicest plans in the conservatory. He called his mother old girl, too. Sometimes, we failed her for her dark skin, similar to his own. Bluntly disregarded her wishes, not unfrequently tall and spoiled her silver tire, and he was still her own dying. I dared commit no fault. I strove to fulfill every duty, and I was tempted naughty in time, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night. My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received. No one had reproved John for wanting these striking me, and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general appropriator. "Unjust, unjust," said my reason, forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious, though transitory power, and resolved, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression, as running away, or, if that could not be affected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die. What a consternation of soul was mine their dreary afternoon, how all my brain was entombled, and all my heart in insurrection, yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle thought. I could not answer the ceaseless inward question. Why, I thus suffered, now at the distance of, I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. I was a discord and Gateshead Hall. I was like nobody there. I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or children, or her chosen facelage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound, regardless of affection, a thing that could not sympathize with one amongst them. A heterogeneous thing opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities. A useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure. A nauseous thing, cherishing the gems of indignation at the treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, accepting, handsome, wronging child, though equally dependent and friendless, Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently. Her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow feeling. The servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery. Daylight began to forsake the Red Room. It was past four o'clock. And the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall. I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, fall on depression, felt damp on the embers of my decaying eye. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so. What thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime, and was I fit to die? Or was the fault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting born? In such fault I had been told that Mr. Reed lie buried, and led by this thought to recall his idea. I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him, but I knew that he was my own uncle, my mother's brother, that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house, and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept his promise, and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her. But how could she really like an interloper not of her race and unconnected with her after her husband's death by any time? It must have been most absent to find herself bound by a hard run connection, standing the stead of a parent to its strange child she could not love, and to see an unconscionable alien permanently intruded under her family. 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 said, looking at white bed and overshadowed walls, occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming road. I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in the graves by the violation of their last wishes, refisting the year after punished and procured and avenged the oppressed. I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, my quit is abound, whether in the church's fault or India no world of the departed, and rise before me in this chamber. I wipe my tears and hush my sobs, fearful less any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some halo'd face bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible and realized, with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it, I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lived in my head and tried to look boldly round 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 someone across the lawn, but then prepared as my mind was for horror. Shaking as my nerves were by agitation. I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming fission from another world, my heartbeat thick, my head grew hot, a sound filled my ears which I deemed the rushing of wings, something seemed near me, I was suppressed, 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 Abbott entered. "Bessie, are you ill?" said Bessie. "What a dreadful noise, it went quite through me," exclaimed Abbott. "Take me out, let me go into the nursery," was my pride. "What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demanded Bessie. "Oh, I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come." I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me. She has screamed out on purpose, declared Abbott, in some disgust, and what a scream. If she had been in great pain, one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here, I know her naughty tricks. "What is all this?" demanded another voice, preemptorily. And Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her cat flying wide, her gown rustling stonily. "Ebbard and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red room till I came to her myself." Ms. Jane screamed so loud, man, pleaded Bessie. "Let her go," was the only answer. "Luge, Bessie's hand, child, you cannot succeed in getting out by these means. Be assured. I have bore out of us, particularly in children. It is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer. You will now stay here and hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then. "Oh, Aunt, have pity. Forgive me, I cannot endure it. Let me be punished some other way. I shall be killed if silence. This violence is almost repulsive, and so no doubt should fit. I was a precocious actress in her eyes. She sincerely looked on me as the compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity. Bessie and Ebbard having retreated, Mrs. Reed impatient of my now frantic anguish and well-saupts abruptly thrust me back and locked me in without father party. I heard her sweeping away, and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of it, unconsciousness close to sea." Aspirant. Aspirant. Agitive. Having ambitions to achieve something, typically to follow a particular career. A pro-brium. A pro-brium. Now, harsh criticism or censure. Pro-cocious. Pro-cocious. Additive. Over-child. Having developed certain abilities or inclinations at an earlier age than as usual or expected. Insurrection. Insurrection. Now, a violent uprising against an authority or government. Hethrogenious. Hethrogenious. Additive. Diverse in character or content. Interloper. Interloper. Now, a person who becomes involved in a place or situation where they are not wanted or are considered not to belong. Prampteredly. Prampteredly. Edverb. In a way that leaves no opportunity for denial or refusal. Verilant. Verilant. Additive. Our disease or poison. Extremely severe or harmful in its effects. Bitly hostile. Duplicity. Duplicity. Now, deceitfulness. The state of being double. Jane Eyre. Enortal biography. By Charlotte Bronte. Chapter Three. 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 gland 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. Eilant. I became aware that someone 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 to nursery fire. It was night. A candle burnt on a table. Bessie stood at the bed foot with her basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in the 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, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reid. Turning from Bessie, I scrutinized the face of the gentleman. I knew him. It was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reid when the servants were ailing. For herself and the children she employed a physician. "Well, who am I?" he asked. I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time I had. He took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by and by." Then he laid me down, an addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he departed, to my grief. I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow, and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened in my heart again sink, inexpressible sadness waded down. "Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie, rather softening. "Scassly dead," I answered, for I feared the next sentence might be rough. "I will try. Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?" "No, thank you, Bessie. Then I think I shall go to bed, for at his past twelve o'clock, but you may call me if you want anything in the night. Wonderful civility, this, it emboldened me to ask a question. Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill? You fell sick, I suppose, in the red room with crying. You'd be better soon, no doubt. Bessie went into the housemates apartment, which was near. I heard her say, "Sara, come and sleep with me in the nursery. I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child tonight. She might die. It's such a strange thing she should have that fit. I wonder if she saw anything. Mrs. was rather too hard." "Sara came back with her. They both went to bed. They were whispering together for half an hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed. Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished. A great black dog behind him. Three loud raps on the chamber door. A light in the church are just over his grave, etc. At last both slept. The fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness. Here, I, in mine, were like strained by dread. Such dread as children only can feel. No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this instant of the red room. It only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day. "Yes, Mrs. Street. To you, I owe some fearful pains of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did. While rending my heartstrings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities. Next day, by noon, I was up-interest, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weakened broken down, but my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mine. A wretchedness which kept drawing from these silent tears. No sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet I thought I ought to have been happy. For none of the reeds were there, they were all gone out in the carriage with their mum. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room. And Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawings, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwanted kindness. This state of thing should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless faggot. But, in fact, my wrecked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them a grieve. Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted China plate, who spared a paradise, nestling in a reef of convolved beauty in row spots, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration, in 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 of 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. Vane favour, come, like most other favours long deferred and often wish for too late. I could not eat a tart, and the plumage of the bird that tins into 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 peruse with delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in very tales. For as to the elves have sought them in vain among fox-glove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground ivy, mentaling old walnuts. I had at length made of my mind to the sad truth. Then they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and population more scant. Whereas lilyput and broccoli neck being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's service. 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 corn fields for us 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 hand, when I turned over its leaves and sought in its marvellous pictures to charm my head, till now never failed to find, all was eerie and dreary. The giants were gaunt goblins to pick me's malevolent and fearful hymns, golfer and most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on a table beside the untasted tart. Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed her hands she opened a certain little drawer full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana Storm. Meanwhile she sang, her song was, in the days when we went gypsy a long time ago. I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight. For Bessie had a sweet voice, at least I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingingly. A long time ago came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into her another ballot, this time a really dullful one. My feet they are sore, and my limbs stay weary. Long is the way, and the mountains are wide. Soon will the twilight close, moonless and jimmy, over the path of the poor orphan child. Why did they send me so far and so lonely? Up where the more spread and gray rocks are piled, men are hard-hearted and kind angels only. Watch over the steps of a poor orphan child, yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, clouds there are none, and clear stars be mine. God in His mercy, protection is shown, comfort and hope to the poor orphan child. Even should I fall with the broken bridge passing, or stray in the marshes by false lights beguiled, still will my father, with promise and blessing, take to his bosom the poor orphan child. There is a thought that for strength should have failed me, though both of shelter and kindred despoiled, heaven is at home, and the rest will not fail me. God is a friend to the poor orphan child. "Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished. She may as well have set to the fire. "Don't bend, but how could she define the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In a course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again." "What? Already up," said he, as he entered the nursery. "Wellness, how is she?" Bessie answered that I was doing very well. Then she ought to look more cheerful. "Come here, Miss Jane. Your name is Jane, is it not?" "Yes, sir, Jane Eyre." "Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre. Can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?" "No, sir." "Oh, I dare say she's crying because she could not go out with Mrs. in the carriage," interposed Bessie. "Surely not. Why? She's too old for such pattishness." "I thought so too, and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge. I answered promptly. I never cried for such a thing in my life. I hate going up in the carriage. I cry because I'm miserable." "Oh, fine," said Bessie. 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 grey, 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 a legend," he said, "what made you ill yesterday?" "She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her way. "Fall? Why? That is like a baby again. Can't she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old. I was knocked down, was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pain of mortified pride, but that did not make me ill," I added, while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff. As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servant's dinner. He knew what it was. "That's for you, nurse," said he. "You can go down. I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back." Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall. The fall did not make you ill. What did then pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone? I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark. I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. "Ghost? What? You are a baby after all. You are afraid of ghosts? Of Mr. Reed's ghost, I am. He died in that room and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor anyone else will go into it at night, if they can help it. And it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle, so cruel that I think I shall never forget it. Nonsense. And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?" "No, but night will come again before long. And besides, I'm unhappy, very unhappy, for other things. What other things can you tell me some of them? How much I wish to reply fully to this question. How difficult it was to frame any answer. Children can feel, but they cannot analyze their feelings. And if the analysis is partially affected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the processing words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity or relieving my grief by imparting it. I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meager, though as far as it went, true response. For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters. You have a kind answering cousins. Again, I paused, then bunglingly announced. But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red room. Mr. Lloyd is second time producing his snuffbox. Don't you think Gates had a whole and very beautiful house as he? Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at? It is not my house, sir, and ever says I have less right to be here than a servant. For you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place. If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it, but I can never get away from Gates had till I'm a woman. Perhaps you may. Who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed? I think not, sir. None belonging to your father. I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations call there, but she knew nothing about them. If he had such, would you like to go to them? I reflected. 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. Poverty for me was synonymous with degradation. No, I should not like to belong to poor people, was my reply, not even if they were kind to you. I shook my head. I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind, and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing the children or washing the clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead. No, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste. But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people? I cannot tell. Aunt Reed says, if I have any, they must be a bagley set. I should not like to go a bagging. Would you like to go to school? Again, I reflected. I scarcely knew what school was. Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where a young lady sat in the stalks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise. John Reed hated his school and abused his master. But John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school discipline were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed, of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate, till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change. It implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, and entrance into a new life. I should indeed like to go to school, whilst the audible conclusion of my musings. "Well, well, who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd as he caught up. "The child ought to have changed of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself, "nerf's not in a good state." Bessie now returned, at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel walk. "Is that your mistress, Nance?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak to her before I go." Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast room and let the way out. In an interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presumed, from after occurrences that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school, and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted. For, as Abbott said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both set sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed and as they thought to sleep. Mrs. was, she dare say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody and scheming plots on the hand. Abbott, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantying guide-force. On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Mrs. Abbott's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman, that my mother had married him against the wishes of friends, who considered the match beneath him, that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without issue, that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while fisting among the poor of a large manufacturing town, where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevented, that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other. Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pity too, Abbott." Yes, responded Abbott. If she were a nice pretty child, one might compassionate her full onness, but one really cannot care for such a little toe as that. Not a great deal to be sure at Reed Bessie. At any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition. "Yes, I doubt on Miss Georgiana," cried the fervent Abbott, "little darling, with her long curls and her blue eyes, in such a sweet colour as she has, just as if she were painted. Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper, so could I, with a rose onion, come, we'll go down." They went. Peruse. Peruse. Verb. Read something typically in a thorough or careful way.
