The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked
them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could
sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana
and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as
they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There
was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted
by me for the first time the pleasure arising from perfect
congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed,
delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their
sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure,
with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls,
its avenue of aged firs all grown aslant under the stress of
mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly and where
no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom found a charm
both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind
and around their dwelling to the hollow vale into which the
pebbly bridle path leading from their gate descended, and which
wound between fern banks first, and then amongst a few of the
wildest little pasture fields that ever bordered a wilderness of
heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with
their little mossy faced lambs: they clung to this scene, I say,
with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the
feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination
of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye
feasted on the outline of swell and sweep on the wild colouring
communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath bell, by
flower sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite
crag. These details were just to me what they were to them so
many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the
soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise
and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me,
in these regions, the same attraction as for them wound round
my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.

Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished
and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the
path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books
they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them
in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted
thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.
If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.
Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.
In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty
of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.
I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first
gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at
Diana's feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately
to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which
I had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to
learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited
her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures
dovetailed: mutual affection of the strongest kind was the
result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour boxes
were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one
point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and
watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and
a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied,
and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like
days.

As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and
rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One
reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he
was comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time
appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered
population of his parish. No weather seemed to hinder him in these
pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning
study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer,
Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty I scarcely know in which
light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable,
his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar
smile, more solemn than cheerful. "And if I let a gust of wind or a
sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what
preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?"
Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and
some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to
friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and
even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours,
blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy
that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the
reward of every sincere christian and practical philanthropist.
Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers
before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his
hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought;
but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent
flash and changeful dilation of his eye.

I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of
delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in
my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and
an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called
his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone
and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he
seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence
never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they
could yield. Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before
I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its
calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton.
I wish I could describe that sermon: but it is past my power.
I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.

It began calm and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice
went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly
restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted
the nervous language. This grew to force compressed, condensed,
controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the
power of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there
was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness;
stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines election, predestination,
reprobation were frequent; and each reference to these points
sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done,
instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse,
I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me I
know not whether equally so to others that the eloquence to which
I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs
of disappointment where moved troubling impulses of insatiate
yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers
pure lived, conscientious, zealous as he was had not yet
found that peace of god which passeth all understanding: he had no
more found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking
regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium regrets to which I
have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised
over me ruthlessly.

Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor
House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited
them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south of England
city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy
and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependants,
and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and
appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated
the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting woman. Mr.
St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had
promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have
a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a
few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window recess
which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study
and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what
words to frame my inquiry for it is at all times difficult to
break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his when
he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.

Looking up as I drew near "You have a question to ask of me?"
he said. "Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service
I can offer myself to undertake?" "I found or devised something
for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy
here as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your
society gave them unusual pleasure I deemed it inexpedient to break
in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from
Marsh End should render yours necessary." "And they will go in
three days now?" I said. "Yes; and when they go, I shall return to
the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this
old house will be shut up." I waited a few moments, expecting
he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed
to have entered another train of reflection: his look denoted
abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to recall
him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious
interest to me.

"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this
delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it."
"Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to
give, and you to accept." He again paused: there seemed a reluctance
to continue. I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an
eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling
to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.

"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said: "let me frankly tell
you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I
explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if
I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I
am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all
the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the
row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the
yew trees and holly bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an
old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn
the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third considers
himself an alien from his native country not only for life, but
in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by
the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation
from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the
Head of that church militant of whose humblest members he is one,
shall give the word, 'Rise, follow Me!'"

St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with
a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating
radiance of glance. He resumed, "And since I am myself poor and
obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity.
YOU may even think it degrading for I see now your habits have
been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal,
and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I
consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I
hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the
christian labourer's task of tillage is appointed him the scantier
the meed his toil brings the higher the honour. his, under such
circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers
of the Gospel were the Apostles their captain was Jesus, the
Redeemer, himself." "Well?" I said, as he again paused, "proceed."

He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely
to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters
on a page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially
expressed in his succeeding observations. "I believe you will accept
the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it for a while: not
permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep
the narrow and narrowing the tranquil, hidden office of English
country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental
to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind."
"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.

"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is, how trivial
how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my
father is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the
place probably in the course of a twelve month; but while I do stay,
I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton,
when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of
the poor were excluded from every hope of progress. I established
one for boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls. I
have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms
attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary will be thirty
pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but
sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only
daughter of the sole rich man in my parish Mr. Oliver, the
proprietor of a needle factory and iron foundry in the valley. The
same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from
the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such
menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her
occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge
in person. Will you be this mistress?"

He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an
indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not
knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he
could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth
it was humble but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum:
it was plodding but then, compared with that of a governess in
a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with
strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble not
unworthy not mentally degrading, I made my decision. "I thank
you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my heart."

"But you comprehend me?" he said. "It is a village school: your
scholars will be only poor girls cottagers' children at the
best, farmers' daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing,
ciphering, will be all you will have to teach. What will you do
with your accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of
your mind sentiments tastes?" "Save them till they are wanted.
They will keep." "You know what you undertake, then?" "I do."
He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well
pleased and deeply gratified. "And when will you commence
the exercise of your function?" "I will go to my house tomorrow,
and open the school, if you like, next week." "Very well: so be it."
He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again
looked at me. He shook his head. "What do you disapprove of,
Mr. Rivers?" I asked. "You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!"

"Why? What is your reason for saying so?" "I read it in your eye;
it is not of that description which promises the maintenance
of an even tenor in life." "I am not ambitious." He started at the
word "ambitious." He repeated, "No. What made you think of
ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find
it out?" "I was speaking of myself." "Well, if you are not ambitious,
you are " He paused. "What?"

"I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have
misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human
affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am
sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude,
and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly
void of stimulus: any more than I can be content," he added, with
emphasis, "to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains
my nature, that god gave me, contravened; my faculties,
heaven bestowed, paralysed made useless. You hear now how I
contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a humble lot,
and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of
water in god's service I, his ordained minister, almost rave
in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be
reconciled by some means."

He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than
in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day
approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both
tried to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against
was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana
intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had
ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was concerned,
be a parting for years: it might be a parting for life.

"He will sacrifice all to his long framed resolves," she said:
"natural affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks
quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think
him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the
worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him
from his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame
him for it. It is right, noble, christian: yet it breaks my
heart!" And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head
low over her work. "We are now without father: we shall soon be
without home and brother," she murmured, At that moment a little
accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to
prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes never come singly,"
and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the
cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter. He
entered. "Our uncle John is dead," said he.

Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the
tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
"Dead?" repeated Diana. "Yes." She riveted a searching gaze on
her brother's face. "And what then?" she demanded, in a low voice.
"What then, Die?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of
feature. "What then? Why nothing. Read." He threw the letter
into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to Mary. Mary
perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All three
looked at each other, and all three smiled a dreary, pensive smile
enough. "Amen! We can yet live," said Diana at last. "At any rate,
it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked Mary.
"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what
MIGHT HAVE BEEN," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat
too vividly with what IS." He folded the letter, locked it in his
desk, and again went out. For some minutes no one spoke.
Diana then turned to me.

"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and
think us hard hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of
so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known
him. He was my mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled
long ago. It was by his advice that my father risked most of his
property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination
passed between them: they parted in anger, and were never reconciled.
My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it
appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He
was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves and one
other person, not more closely related than we. My father always
cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his
possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed
every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty
guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for
the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course,
to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the
spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed
ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum
would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."

This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further
reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next
day I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary
quitted it for distant B. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired
to the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 31.>