Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 7.

My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden
age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in
habituating myself to new rules and unwanted tasks. The fear of
failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships
of my lot; though these were no trifles.


During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows,
and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented
our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but
within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open
air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe
cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there:
our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains,
as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I
endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and
the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes
in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing:
with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely
sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid.

From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed
hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had
an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their
portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the
precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea time; and after
relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have
swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret
tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.


Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk
two miles to Brocklebridge church, where our patron officiated.
We set out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning
service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return
to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same
penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served
round between the services.

At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and
hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of
snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.


I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our
drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered,
gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and
example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said,
"like stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor things, were
generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of
cheering others.


How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got
back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each
hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double
row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched
in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.


A little solace came at tea time, in the shape of a double ration
of bread a whole, instead of a half, slice with the delicious
addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat
to which we all looked forward from sabbath to sabbath. I generally
contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself;
but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the church
catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St.
Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller,
whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent
interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of
Eutychus by some half dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with
sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the
fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust
them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them
to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their
feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then
propped up with the monitors' high stools.

I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed
that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first
month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend
the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had
my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at last.


One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting
with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my
eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure
just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline;
and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included,
rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to
ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured
the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself
had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so
ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at
this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst,
buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower,
and more rigid than ever.


I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too
well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my
disposition, etc.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise
Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along
I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise, I had been
looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting
my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for
ever: now there he was.

He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did
not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched
her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb
turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and
as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most
of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.



"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do;
it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico
chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss
Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles,
but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not,
on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil:
if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them.

And, O ma'am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!
when I was here last, I went into the kitchen garden and examined
the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose
in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in them I was
sure they had not been well mended from time to time." He paused.
"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple. "And,
ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two
clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one."


"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine
Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last
Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion."
Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.

"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance
occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me;
I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch,
consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to
the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over
the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who
introduced this innovation? and by what authority?"


"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple:
"the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly
eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner time."
"Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing
up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and
indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self denying.

Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such
as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the
incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something
more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating
the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual
edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude
under temporary privation.

A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a
judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the
sufferings of the primitive christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the
exhortations of our blessed lord himself, calling upon his disciples
to take up their cross and follow him; to his warnings that man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of god; to his divine consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or
thirst for My sake, happy are ye." Oh, madam, when you put bread
and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths,
you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how
you starve their immortal souls!"

Mr. Brocklehurst again paused perhaps overcome by his feelings.
Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but
she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble,
appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material;
especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's
chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.



Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands
behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his
eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked
its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used.



"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what WHAT is that girl with curled
hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled curled all over?" And extending his
cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.
"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair?
Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house,
does she conform to the world so openly here in an evangelical,
charitable establishment as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"
"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.


"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish
these girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance?
I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be
arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair
must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to morrow: and I
see others who have far too much of the excrescence that tall
girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up
and direct their faces to the wall."

Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth
away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order,
however, and when the first class could take in what was required
of them, they obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could
see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this
manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too;
he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the
outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his
interference than he imagined.


He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,
then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom
"All those top knots must be cut off." Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.
"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not
of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts
of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame facedness
and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each
of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in
plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat,
must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of "


Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies,
now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to
have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired
in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls
of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion,
shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful
head dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled;
the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with
ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.


These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs.
and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the
top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their
reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of
the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper,
questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They
now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith,
who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of
the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said;
other matters called off and enchanted my attention.

Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and
Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to
secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if
I could only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back
on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my
slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped
notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from
my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every
eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick
up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came.


"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after
"It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw
breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her."
Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! "Let the child who broke
her slate come forward!"


Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but
the two great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs
and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently
assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel "Don't
be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished."
The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.


"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought
I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded
in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns. "Fetch that stool,
" said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a
monitor had just risen: it was brought. "Place the child upon it."

And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition
to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up
to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard
of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses
and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.
Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed. "Ladies," said he, turning to his family,
"Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"


Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning glasses
against my scorched skin. "You see she is yet young; you observe she
possesses the ordinary form of childhood; god has graciously given has
her the shape that he given to all of us; no signal deformity points her
out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already
found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."


A pause in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that
the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must
be firmly sustained.

"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,
"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you,
that this girl, who might be one of god's own lambs, is a little castaway:
not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an
alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example;
if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut
her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your
eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions,
punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible,
for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native
of a christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its
prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut this girl is a liar!"

Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in
perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts
produce their pocket handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,
while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two
younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.


"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable
lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own
daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl
repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her
excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young
ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity:
she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their
diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent,
I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her."


With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button
of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to
Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room.
Turning at the door, my judge said, "Let her stand half an hour longer on
that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day."



There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear
the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room,
was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What
my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all
rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came
up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes.

What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that
ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a
martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength
in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took
a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about
her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry,
returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by.

What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the
effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked
lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from
the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm
"the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by
Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because
she had blotted an exercise in copying it out.

Such is the imperfect nature of man! Such spots are there on the disc
of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those
minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 8.>