Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 32.

 

 

 

 

I continued the labours of the village school as actively and
faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time
elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars
and their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid,
they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull
alike: but I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference
amongst them as amongst the educated; and when I got to know them,
and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their
amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways, once subsided,
I found some of these heavy looking, gaping rustics wake up into
sharp witted girls enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and
amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few examples of
natural politeness, and innate self respect, as well as of excellent
capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration.

These soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their
persons neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and
orderly manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances,
was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it:
besides, I began personally to like some of the best girls; and they
liked me. I had amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters:
young women grown, almost. These could already read, write, and sew;
and to them I taught the elements of grammar, geography, history,
and the finer kinds of needlework. I found estimable characters
amongst them characters desirous of information and disposed
for improvement with whom I passed many a pleasant evening hour
in their own homes. Their parents then (the farmer and his wife)
loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting
their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a consideration
a scrupulous regard to their feelings to which they were
not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and
benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it
made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.

I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went
out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with
friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but
the regard of working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm
and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray.
At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with
thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell
you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence after
a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars, an evening
spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone I used to rush into
strange dreams at night: dreams many coloured, agitated, full of
the ideal, the stirring, the stormy dreams where, amidst unusual
scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic
chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some
exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing
his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving
him, being loved by him the hope of passing a lifetime at his
side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire.

Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated.
Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering;
and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of
despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next
morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled,
prepared for the steady duties of the day. Rosamond Oliver kept
her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was generally
made in the course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the
door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything
more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her
Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls
that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be
imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and
glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children.

 

 

She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in
giving his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of
the visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort of instinct
seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it;
and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she
appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble seeming
features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably,
and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour,
stronger than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.

Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could
not, conceal it from her. In spite of his christian stoicism, when
she went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly,
even fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn.
He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not
say it with his lips, "I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is
not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart,
I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on
a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it. It will soon be
no more than a sacrifice consumed."

And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud
would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand
hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect,
at once so heroic and so martyr like. St. John, no doubt, would
have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus
left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish,
for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise.
Besides, he could not bind all that he had in his nature the
rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest in the limits of a
single passion. He could not he would not renounce his wild
field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale
Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite
his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.

Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage.
I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or
disguise: she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not
worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was
not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good humoured; vain (she
could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such
a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal handed; innocent
of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay,
lively, and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to
a cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly
interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of
mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John.
Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except that,
for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer
affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive
adult acquaintance.

She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr.
Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, "not one tenth so handsome,
though I was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel."
I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was
a lusus naturae, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she
was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful
romance. One evening, while, with her usual child like activity,
and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging
the cupboard and the table drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered
first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and
dictionary, and then my drawing materials and some sketches,
including a pencil head of a pretty little cherub like girl, one of my
scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton
and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise,
and then electrified with delight.

 

 

"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What
a love what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in
the first school in S . Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show
to papa?" "With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist delight
at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She
had then on a dark blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were
bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over
her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a
sheet of fine card board, and drew a careful outline. I promised
myself the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it was getting late
then, I told her she must come and sit another day.

She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver
himself accompanied her next evening a tall, massive featured,
middle aged, and grey headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter
looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret. He appeared
a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage; but he was very kind
to me. The sketch of Rosamond's portrait pleased him highly: he
said I must make a finished picture of it. He insisted, too, on
my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall.

I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee
and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and
when he entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed
in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school,
and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good
for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
"Indeed," cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess
in a high family, papa."

I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family
in the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers of the Rivers family
with great respect. He said it was a very old name in that
neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that
all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he considered
the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliance
with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a
young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary;
it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then,
that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond's
union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient
compensation for the want of fortune. It was the 5th of November,
and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me to clean my house,
was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid. All about
me was spotless and bright scoured floor, polished grate, and well
rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon
before me to spend as I would.

 

 

The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I
got my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because
easier occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The
head was finished already: there was but the background to tint
and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to
the ripe lips a soft curl here and there to the tresses a
deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I
was absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after
one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.

"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said. "Not,
I hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will
not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have
borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening
solace," and he laid on the table a new publication a poem: one
of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate
public of those days the golden age of modern literature. Alas!
the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will
not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead,
nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind
or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence,
their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe
in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones
weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished?
No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought.
No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their
divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell the
hell of your own meanness.

While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of "Marmion" (for
"Marmion" it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. his
tall figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I
looked up at him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well,
and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and
cooler than he: I had then temporarily the advantage of him, and
I conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could.
"With all his firmness and self control," thought I, "he tasks
himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within expresses,
confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk
a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to
marry: I will make him talk."

 

I said first, "Take a chair, Mr. Rivers." But he answered, as
he always did, that he could not stay. "Very well," I responded,
mentally, "stand if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am
determined: solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me.
I'll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence,
and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed
one drop of the balm of sympathy." "Is this portrait like?" I asked
bluntly. "Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely." "You did,
Mr. Rivers." He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness:
he looked at me astonished. "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered
within. "I don't mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part;
I'm prepared to go to considerable lengths." I continued, "You
observed it closely and distinctly; but I have no objection to your
looking at it again," and I rose and placed it in his hand.

 

"A well executed picture," he said; "very soft, clear colouring;
very graceful and correct drawing." "Yes, yes; I know all that.
But what of the resemblance? Who is it like?"
Mastering some hesitation, he answered, "Miss Oliver, I presume."
"Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I
will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this
very picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable
to you. I don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an
offering you would deem worthless." He continued to gaze at the
picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he held it, the more he
seemed to covet it. "It is like!" he murmured; "the eye is well
managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!"
"Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting?
Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or
in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your
possession? or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated
to enervate and distress?"

He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,
disturbed: he again surveyed the picture. "That I should like
to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious or wise
is another question." Since I had ascertained that Rosamond
really preferred him, and that her father was not likely to
oppose the match, I less exalted in my views than St. John
had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their
union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor
of Mr. Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with
it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his
strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion
I now answered "As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more
judicious if you were to take to yourself the original at once."

By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table
before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly
over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my
audacity. I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject
he had deemed unapproachable to hear it thus freely handled
was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure an unhoped for
relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion
of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The
sternest seeming stoic is human after all; and to "burst" with
boldness and good will into "the silent sea" of their souls is
often to confer on them the first of obligations.

"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair,
"and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl
rather thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both
yourself and her. You ought to marry her." "DOES she like me?"
he asked. "Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of
you continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches
upon so often." "It is very pleasant to hear this," he said "very: go on for
another quarter of an hour." And he actually took out his watch
and laid it upon the table to measure the time. "But where is the use
of going on," I asked, "when you are probably preparing some iron
blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?"

 

 

"Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting,
as I am doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain
in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I
have so carefully and with such labour prepared so assiduously
sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self denying plans. And
now it is deluged with a nectarous flood the young germs swamped
delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on
an ottoman in the drawing room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond
Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voice gazing
down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well
smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine I am hers
this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say
nothing my heart is full of delight my senses are entranced
let the time I marked pass in peace."

I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I
stood silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the
watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion.
I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup. The
pillow was burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has
a bitter taste: her promises are hollow her offers false: I
see and know all this." I gazed at him in wonder.
"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so
wildly with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the
object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating
I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that
she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited
to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage;
and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of
regret. This I know." "Strange indeed!" I could not help ejaculating.

"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her
charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they
are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to co
operate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer,
a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!" "But you need
not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme."

"Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation
laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered
in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of
bettering their race of carrying knowledge into the realms of
ignorance of substituting peace for war freedom for bondage
religion for superstition the hope of heaven for the fear of
hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my
veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for."
After a considerable pause, I said "And Miss Oliver? Are her
disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?"
"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less
than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will
forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her
far happier than I should do."

"You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are
wasting away." "No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about
my prospects, yet unsettled my departure, continually
procrastinated. Only this morning, I received intelligence that the
successor, whose arrival I have been so long expecting, cannot be
ready to replace me for three months to come yet; and perhaps the
three months may extend to six." "You tremble and become flushed
whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom." Again the surprised
expression crossed his face. He had not imagined that a woman
would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort
of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong,
discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had
passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the
threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart's very
hearthstone.

 

"You are original," said he, "and not timid. There is something
brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow
me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You
think them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a
larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I
colour, and when I shade before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself.
I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the
flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. THAT is just
as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know
me to be what I am a cold hard man." I smiled incredulously.

"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now
it is much at your service. I am simply, in my original state
stripped of that blood bleached robe with which christianity covers
human deformity a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection
only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason,
and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire
to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour
endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the
means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.
I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen
of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not because I deeply
compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer."
"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.

"No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers:
I believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I
am not a pagan, but a christian philosopher a follower of the
sect of Jesus. As his disciple I adopt his pure, his merciful,
his benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to spread
them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original
qualities thus: From the minute germ, natural affection, she has
developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild
stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of
the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for
my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's
kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So
much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to
the best account; pruning and training nature. But she could not
eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated 'till this mortal
shall put on immortality.'" Having said this, he took his hat,
which lay on the table beside my palette. Once more he looked
at the portrait. "She IS lovely," he murmured. "She is well
named the Rose of the World, indeed!"

 

"And may I not paint one like it for you?" "CUI BONO? No."
He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was
accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard
from being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it
was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye.
He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a
glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible:
a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in
my shape, face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as
lightning. his lips parted, as if to speak: but he checked the
coming sentence, whatever it was. "What is the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper,
I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It
disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good
afternoon," he vanished. "Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression
of the district, "that caps the globe, however!" I, in my turn,
scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains
of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pondered the
mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and being certain
it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it.

 

 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 33.>