It was near christmas by the time all was settled: the season of
general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care
that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune
opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give
somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent
to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with
pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we
parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their
affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find
I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised
them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit
them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.

Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty
girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the
key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some
half dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest,
and well informed young women as could be found in the ranks of
the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after
all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most
self respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen
paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant,
coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls. "Do you consider
you have got your reward for a season of exertion?" asked Mr. Rivers,
when they were gone. "Does not the consciousness of having done some
real good in your day and generation give pleasure?" "Doubtless."
"And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted
to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?"

"Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy
my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people.
I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the
school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday." He looked grave.
"What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you
going to do?" "To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you
to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you."
"Do you want her?" "Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary
will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order
against their arrival." "I understand. I thought you were for flying
off on some excursion. It is better so: Hannah shall go with you."
"Tell her to be ready by to morrow then; and here is the schoolroom
key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning."
He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't
quite understand your light heartedness, because I cannot tell what
employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you
are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life
have you now?"

"My first aim will be to CLEAN DOWN (do you comprehend the full
force of the expression?) to CLEAN DOWN Moor House from chamber to
cellar; my next to rub it up with bees wax, oil, and an indefinite
number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every
chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards
I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires
in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your
sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a
beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding
of christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince pies,
and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but
an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose,
in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of
readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition
is to give them a beau ideal of a welcome when they come."
St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.

"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I
trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look
a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys."
"The best things the world has!" I interrupted. "No, Jane, no:
this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make
it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful." "I mean, on the contrary,
to be busy." "Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months'
grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position,
and for pleasing yourself with this late found charm of
relationship; but THEN, I hope you will begin to look beyond
Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish
calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your
energies will then once more trouble you with their strength."
I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you
are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as
a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?"

"To the end of turning to profit the talents which god has committed
to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict
account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously I warn
you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with
which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don't
cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy
and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite
transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?" "Yes; just as if you were
speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I
WILL be happy. Goodbye!"

Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah:
she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle
of a house turned topsy turvy how I could brush, and dust, and
clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse
confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the
chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S
to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me CARTE
BLANCHE to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been
set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting room and bedrooms
I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive
more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs,
and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still
some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy
with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets
and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique
ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors,
and dressing cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they
looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom
I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery:
I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all
was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright
modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of
wintry waste and desert dreariness without.

The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about
dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen
was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in
readiness. St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite
clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare
idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within
its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me
in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea,
then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, "If I was at last
satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered by inviting him to
accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours.
With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house.
He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered
upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great
deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes
in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating
pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode.

This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had
disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this
was the case: no doubt in a somewhat crest fallen tone.
"Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously
respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed
more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes,
for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this
very room? By the bye, could I tell him where such a book was?"
I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and
withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.

Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I
began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard
and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction
for him its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived
only to aspire after what was good and great, certainly; but
still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him.
As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone
at his fine lineaments fixed in study I comprehended all at
once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be
a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration,
the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it
was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise
himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he
should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its
ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he
was of the material from which nature hews her heroes christian
and Pagan her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a
steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the
fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.

"This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the himalayan
ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague cursed Guinea Coast swamp
would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic
life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate they
cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife
and danger where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and
fortitude tasked that he will speak and move, the leader and
superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this
hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's career I see it now."

"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open
the parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully.
Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible.
Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the
wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well known form,
then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their
bonnets, in contact first with Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's
flowing curls. They laughed kissed me then Hannah: patted
Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was
well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.

They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross,
and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances
expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah
brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he
advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his
neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone
a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then,
intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the
parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.

I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give
hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed
me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations
of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich
tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly.
I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes
exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their
joyous return home.

Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so
eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St.
John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but
in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise.
The event of the day that is, the return of Diana and Mary
pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult,
the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer
morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment,
about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered
with the intimation that "a poor lad was come, at that unlikely
time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away."
"Where does she live, Hannah?" "Clear up at Whitcross Brow,
almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way." "Tell him
I will go." "I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road
to travel after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog.
And then it is such a bitter night the keenest wind you ever felt.
You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the
morning."

But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without
one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock:
he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was:
but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed
an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and
deny, and was on better terms with himself. I am afraid the whole
of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was christmas week:
we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry
domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home,
the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some
life giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from
noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty,
pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening
to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke
our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house;
his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily
business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.

One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive
for some minutes, asked him, "If his plans were yet unchanged."
"Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded
to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively
fixed for the ensuing year. "And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary,
the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner
had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to
recall them. St. John had a book in his hand it was his unsocial
custom to read at meals he closed it, and looked up, "Rosamond
Oliver," said he, "is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the
best connected and most estimable residents in S, grandson and
heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father
yesterday." His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three
looked at him: he was serene as glass. "The match must have been
got up hastily," said Diana: "they cannot have known each other long."
"But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S . But
where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case,
where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are
unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S Place, which Sir
Frederic gives up to them, can he refitted for their reception."

The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I
felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed
so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer
him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I
had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking
to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was
congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me
like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences
between us, which did not at all tend to the development of
cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman,
and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between
us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village
schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted
to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised
his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said,
"You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won." Startled at
being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment's
hesitation I answered.

"But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors
whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another
ruin you?" "I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall
never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the
conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank god for it!"
So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence. As our mutual
happiness (i.e., Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled into a quieter
character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies,
St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room,
sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued
a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement)
undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore
of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which
he thought necessary to his plans.

Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and
absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving
the outlandish looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes
fixing upon us, his fellow students, with a curious intensity of
observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever
and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what
it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never
failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment,
namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I
puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or
rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would
invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to
accomplish the task without regard to the elements.

"Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would
say: "she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes
of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and
elastic; better calculated to endure variations of climate than
many more robust." And when I returned, sometimes a good
deal tired, and not a little weather beaten, I never dared
complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him:
on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special
annoyance. One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home,
because I really had a cold. his sisters were gone to Morton in my
stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental
scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to
look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever
watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through
and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it,
and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious as if I were
sitting in the room with something uncanny. "Jane, what are you
doing?" "Learning German." "I want you to give up German and
learn Hindostanee." "You are not in earnest?" "In such earnest that
I must have it so: and I will tell you why."

He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he
was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt
to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have
a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements,
and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered
for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on
me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three.
Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make
the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his
departure. St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt
that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure,
was deep graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana and
Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from
her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed
that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step.
He answered quietly, "I know it."

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting
master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his
expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.
By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away
my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining
than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when
he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me
that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so
fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable,
that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other
became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said "go," I
went; "come," I came; "do this," I did it. But I did not love my
servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him,
bidding him good night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom;
and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who
chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (SHE was not painfully
controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong),
exclaimed "St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but
you don't treat her as such: you should kiss her too."
She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt
uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling,
St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with
mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly he kissed me. There
are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say
my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes;
but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss.
When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking:
I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little
pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters.
He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and
quiescence with which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him
with a certain charm.

As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt
daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half
my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself
to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He
wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked
me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was
as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and
classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea blue
tint and solemn lustre of his own. Not his ascendancy alone,
however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy
enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and
drained my happiness at its source the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst
these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea
was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could
disperse, nor a sand traced effigy storms could wash away; it was
a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it
inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed
me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re entered my cottage every
evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom
each night to brood over it.

In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about
the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present
residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured,
he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs.
Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated
with certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would
elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed
without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day
the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the
keenest anxiety. I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter
having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like
the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not
a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain
expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.

A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer
approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and
wished to accompany me to the sea side. This St. John opposed; he
said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present
life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way
of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in
Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment:
and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him I could not resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the
ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had
told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went
down to take it, almost certain that the long looked for tidings
were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from
Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some
tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and
flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.

St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this
my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the
only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in
the drawing room, Mary was gardening it was a very fine May day,
clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at
this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said
"We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed."
And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and
patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching
with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis
in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes,
and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I
resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John
put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said "Now, Jane,
you shall take a walk; and with me." "I will call Diana and Mary."

"No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you.
Put on your things; go out by the kitchen door: take the road
towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment."
I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my
dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own,
between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always
faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting,
sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither
present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me
to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions;
and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side
by side with him.

The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with
scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream
descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured
along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun,
and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the
track, we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely
enamelled with a tiny white flower, and spangled with a star like
yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the
glen, towards its head, wound to their very core. "Let us rest here,"
said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of
rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down
a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain shook
off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for gem
where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the
fresh for the frowning where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude,
and a last refuge for silence.

I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass
and down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and
returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he
removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow.
He seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye
he bade farewell to something. "And I shall see it again," he said aloud,
"in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote
hour when another slumber overcomes me on the shore of a darker
stream!" Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion
for his fatherland! He sat down; for half an hour we never spoke;
neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced
"Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman
which sails on the 20th of June." "God will protect you; for you have
undertaken his work," I answered. "Yes," said he, "there is my glory
and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master. I am not going out
under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring
control of my feeble fellow worms: my king, my lawgiver, my
captain, is the All perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me
do not burn to enlist under the same banner, to join in the same
enterprise." "All have not your powers, and it would be folly for
the feeble to wish to march with the strong."

"I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only
such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it."
"Those are few in number, and difficult to discover." "You say
truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up to urge and
exhort them to the effort to show them what their gifts
are, and why they were given to speak Heaven's message in their
ear, to offer them, direct from god, a place in the ranks of
his chosen." "If they are really qualified for the task, will
not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it?"
I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over
me: I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once
declare and rivet the spell. "And what does YOUR heart say?"
demanded St. John. "My heart is mute, my heart is mute," I
answered, struck and thrilled. "Then I must speak for it,"
continued the deep, relentless voice. "Jane, come with me
to India: come as my help meet and fellow labourer."

The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had
heard a summons from Heaven as if a visionary messenger, like
him of Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us!" But I
was no apostle, I could not behold the herald, I could not
receive his call. "Oh, St. John!" I cried, "Have some mercy!"
I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed
his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued
"God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is
not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you
are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must
shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you not for my pleasure,
but for my Sovereign's service." "I am not fit for it: I have no
vocation," I said. He had calculated on these first objections:
he was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against
the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his
countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying
opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him
to its close resolved, however, that that close should be
conquest for him.

"Humility, Jane," said he, "is the groundwork of christian virtues:
you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for
it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy
of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St.
Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not
suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know
my Leader: that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has
chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from
the boundless stores of his providence, supply the inadequacy of
the means to the end. Think like me, Jane trust like me. It
is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will
bear the weight of your human weakness." "I do not understand
a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours."
"There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can
set you your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you
from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon
(for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself,
and would not require my help." "But my powers where are they
for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs
in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling no life
quickening no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could
make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless
dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths the fear
of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!"

"I have an answer for you hear it. I have watched you ever
since we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I
have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I
seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform
well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and
inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact:
you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you
learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the
vice of Demas: lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute
readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping
but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the
claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in
the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with
which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested,
and adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity
with which you have since persevered in it in the unflagging
energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties
I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane,
you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant,
and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust
yourself I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of
Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance
will be to me invaluable."

My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with
slow sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his
succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up,
comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague,
so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and
assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited
for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think,
before I again hazarded a reply. "Very willingly," he rejoined;
and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw
himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.

"I CAN do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge
that," I meditated, "that is, if life be spared me. But I feel
mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian
sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to
die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the god
who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England,
I should leave a loved but empty land Mr. Rochester is not there;
and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business
is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag
on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in
circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St.
John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the
one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most
glorious man can adopt or god assign? Is it not, by its noble cares
and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left
by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say,
Yes and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon
half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how
will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for
the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear
to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache,
I SHALL satisfy him to the finest central point and farthest
outward circle of his expectations. If I DO go with him if I
DO make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will
throw all on the altar heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will
never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him energies
he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can
work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.

"Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item
one dreadful item. It is that he asks me to be his wife, and
has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant
of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He
prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all.
Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him
complete his calculations coolly put into practice his plans
go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal
ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would
scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent?
Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows
is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would
be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might
accompany him not as his wife: I will tell him so."
I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate
column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen.
He started to his feet and approached me. "I am ready to go to
India, if I may go free." "Your answer requires a commentary,"
he said; "it is not clear." "You have hitherto been my adopted
brother I, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you
and I had better not marry."

He shook his head. "Adopted fraternity will not do in this case.
If you were my real sister it would be different: I should take
you, and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be
consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical
obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it,
Jane? Consider a moment your strong sense will guide you."
I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me
only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife
should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said
so. "St. John," I returned, "I regard you as a brother you, me
as a sister: so let us continue." "We cannot we cannot," he
answered, with short, sharp determination: "it would not do.
You have said you will go with me to India: remember you
have said that." "Conditionally."

"Well well. To the main point the departure with me from
England, the co operation with me in my future labours you do not
object. You have already as good as put your hand to the plough:
you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to
keep in view how the work you have undertaken can best be done.
Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes,
aims; merge all considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling
with effect with power the mission of your great Master. To
do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother that is a loose
tie but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister
might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet
I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till
death." I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my
marrow his hold on my limbs. "Seek one elsewhere than in
me, St. John: seek one fitted to you." "One fitted to my
purpose, you mean fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it
is not the insignificant private individual the mere man,
with the man's selfish senses I wish to mate: it is the missionary."

"And I will give the missionary my energies it is all he wants
but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell
to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them."
"You cannot you ought not. Do you think god will be satisfied
with half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It
is the cause of god I advocate: it is under his standard I enlist
you. I cannot accept on his behalf a divided allegiance: it must
be entire." "Oh! I will give my heart to god," I said. "YOU do not
want it." I will not swear, reader, that there was not something
of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this
sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently
feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him.
He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How
much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore
tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the
analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his
fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting
there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome
form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, caring as I. The veil
fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the
presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took
courage. I was with an equal one with whom I might argue
one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.

He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently
risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me,
expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. "Is she
sarcastic, and sarcastic to ME!" it seemed to say. "What does this
signify?" "Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter," he said
ere long; "one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without
sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve
your heart to god: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from
man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's
spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour;
you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You
will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by
our physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that
gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and
designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor caprices
all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling all scruple
about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal
inclination you will hasten to enter into that union at once."

"Shall I?" I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful
in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity;
at his brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep
and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and
fancied myself in idea HIS WIFE. Oh! it would never do! As his
curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with
him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with
him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and
vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed
at his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the christian from the
man: profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I
should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity:
my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and
mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn
to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in
moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which
would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing
there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight,
nor his measured warrior march trample down: but as his wife
at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked
forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel
it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned
flame consumed vital after vital THIS would be unendurable.

"St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
"Well?" he answered icily. "I repeat I freely consent to go with
you as your fellow missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot
marry you and become part of you." "A part of me you must
become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the whole bargain
is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to
India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can
we be for ever together sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst
savage tribes and unwed?" "Very well," I said shortly; "under the
circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister,
or a man and a clergyman like yourself." "It is known that you
are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it
would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the
rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's
heart and it would not do." "It would do," I affirmed with some
disdain, "perfectly well. I have a woman's heart, but not where
you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade's constancy;
a fellow soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like;
a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing
more don't fear." "It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself;
"it is just what I want. And there are obstacles in the way: they
must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying me
be certain of that; we MUST be married. I repeat it: there is no
other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon
marriage to render the union right even in your eyes."

"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up
and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn
the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn
you when you offer it." He looked at me fixedly, compressing
his well cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or
surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command
his countenance thoroughly. "I scarcely expected to hear that
expression from you," he said: "I think I have done and uttered
nothing to deserve scorn." I was touched by his gentle tone,
and overawed by his high, calm mien. "Forgive me the words,
St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to
speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which
our natures are at variance a topic we should never discuss:
the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the
reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel?
My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage forget it."

"No," said he; "it is a long cherished scheme, and the only one
which can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further
at present. To morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many
friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be
absent a fortnight take that space of time to consider my offer:
and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny,
but god. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my
wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit
yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.
Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who
have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!" He had done.
Turning from me, he once more, "Looked to river, looked to hill."

But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not
worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward,
I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the
disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met
resistance where it expected submission the disapprobation of a
cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings
and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a
man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only
as a sincere christian he bore so patiently with my perversity,
and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to
forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence.
I who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him was
hurt by the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to
my eyes. "I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,"
said Diana, "during your walk on the moor. But go after him;
he is now lingering in the passage expecting you he will make
it up." I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would
always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him he
stood at the foot of the stairs. "Good night, St. John," said I. "Good
night, Jane," he replied calmly. "Then shake hands," I added.

What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was
deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would
not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to
be had with him no cheering smile or generous word: but still
the christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he
forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing
the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not
having been offended. And with that answer he left me.
I would much rather he had knocked me down.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 35.>