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392a054
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Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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c885923
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While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed!
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Charlotte Brontë |
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e1ba693
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I have no wish to talk nonsense." "If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense."
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Charlotte Brontë |
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2428b8f
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No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne." "I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you." She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling. "And ask in what sense that young man is worthy of ?"
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courtship
dignity
empowerment
equality
feminism
gender
independence
inferiority
integrity
marriage
marriage-proposal
matrimony
men
self-awareness
self-determination
social-norms
suitability
women
wooing
worthiness
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Charlotte Brontë |
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33cc0f9
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Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is around us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to gaurd us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our innocence, and God waits ony a speration of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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66f6a72
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Rochester talking to Jane: I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,--'I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld; or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.' The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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05ee1e3
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Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words.
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thoughts
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Charlotte Brontë |
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530de66
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It would not be wicked to love me." "It would to obey you."
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Charlotte Brontë |
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4359c0f
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I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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25044f4
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care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold the principles received by me when I was sane, not mad -- as I am now. Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individ..
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morality
principles
steadfastness
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Charlotte Brontë |
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98a54eb
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My love has placed her little hand With noble faith in mine, And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine. My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live -- to die; I have at last my nameless bliss: As I love -- loved am I!
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wedding
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Charlotte Brontë |
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e67a2d3
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I sought her eye, desirous to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies..
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intellect
spark
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Charlotte Brontë |
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28cf1c6
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I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another degree: he is more my own. [ . . . ] Oh! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered--not uttered till; when the hush came, some could not feel it: till, when the sun returned, his light was night to some!
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emmanuel
lost-at-sea
love
missing
storm
villette
waiting
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Charlotte Brontë |
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835e2cc
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I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night. I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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594b76c
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If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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e014531
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Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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1e65d69
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Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
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charlotte-bronte
jane-eyre
revelation
revenge
vengeance
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Charlotte Brontë |
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8c664b5
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If there are words and wrongs like knives, whose deep inflicted lacerations never heal - cutting injuries and insults of serrated and poison-dripping edge - so, too, there are consolations of tone too fine for the ear not fondly and for ever to retain their echo: caressing kindnesses - loved, lingered over through a whole life, recalled with unfaded tenderness, and answering the call with undimmed shine, out of that raven cloud foreshadowin..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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da2e57b
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I believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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94a0341
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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.
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pessimism
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Charlotte Brontë |
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a186d02
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Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."
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forgiveness
love-and-hate
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Charlotte Brontë |
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4e0f66d
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The love, born of beauty was not mine; I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy, consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, submitted by intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, hi..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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49e111c
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Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.
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respect
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Charlotte Brontë |
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1471625
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Do you like him much? ~I told you I like him a little. Where is the use of caring for him so very much? He is full of faults. ~Is he? ~All boys are. ~More than girls? ~Very likely. Wise people say it is folly to think anyboy perfect, and as to likes and diskiles, we should be friendly to all, and worship none.
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girls
love
relationships
romance
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Charlotte Brontë |
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22fbd2f
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You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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c78cfc0
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One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturall..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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ea37dbd
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We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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b61d96a
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I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,--a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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41bae14
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Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state
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Charlotte Brontë |
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e67f6c7
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Rapidly, merrily, Life's sunny hours flit by, Gratefully, cheerily Enjoy them as they fly!
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Charlotte Brontë |
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c89acc1
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What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage.
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courtship
discord
disharmony
empowerment
gender
inequality
irony
love
marriage
matrimony
sarcasm
storytelling
subjection
women
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Charlotte Brontë |
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553d665
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I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest - a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too..
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creed
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Charlotte Brontë |
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84acdf0
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Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, I felt the torrent come; to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
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god
helplessness
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Charlotte Brontë |
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58a7e20
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I soon forgot storm in music.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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f92195c
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I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?
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travel
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Charlotte Brontë |
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51a42f7
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I believe in that goodly mansion, his heart, he kept one little place under the skylights where Lucy might have entertainment, if she chose to call. It was not so handsome as the chambers where he lodged his male friends; it was not like the hall where he accommodated his philanthropy, or the library where he treasured his science, still less did it resemble the pavilion where his marriage feast was splendidly spread; yet, gradually, by lon..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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5b2e05c
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Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual- to me- a perfectly new character, I suspected was yours; I desired to search it deeper, and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent; you were quaintly dress- much as you are now. I made you talk; ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diff..
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Charlotte Brontë |
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8b63de1
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For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shadows of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature - shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my identity - but slow degrees I became a frequenter of this straight narrow path.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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d2807e6
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And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more th..
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jane-eyre
love
mr-rochester
sight
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Charlotte Brontë |
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d63578f
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But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself?
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villette
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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e52d881
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I would not be you for a kingdom.' The remark was too naive to rouse anger; I merely said - 'Very good.' 'And what would you give to be ME?' she inquired. 'Not a bad sixpence - strange as it may sound', I replied. 'You are but a poor creature.' 'You don't think so in your heart.' 'No; for in my heart you have not the outline of a place: I only occasionally turn you over in my brain.
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Charlotte Brontë |
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9d38e5e
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Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little skeptic, you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove; I caused a rumor to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not-I could not-marry Miss Ingram. You-..
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obscure
skeptic
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Charlotte Brontë |
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70d8543
|
My world had for some years been Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.
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living
world
|
Charlotte Brontë |
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f10b08d
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it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.
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Charlotte Brontë |