Monday, December 17, 2012

!!! Jane Eyre !!!

Since this is a Classic, I will not be able to write anything which has not been written or spoken before.
But I will share how I was introduced to the world of Jane Eyre.

I was 15 when I first saw the movie Jane Eyre(1996), I had missed about 15 minutes of starting but got hold of the story nevertheless. The movie was based on the book Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë before that I would have to say I wasn't aware of this book. That was the first time I got to know about the
Brontë sisters. I was not able to get the movie out of my head for next couple of weeks. The character Sketch of Jane was so impressive, insightful, amazingly modernized specially comparing the era the book was published in. Though I only got a chance to read the book last year and I just had to ... "had to" share some of my very favorite lines here. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did, its a world of its own. 

Some fav. lines from the book :
I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible.

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to
be communicated to some being higher than man— perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!
Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: 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 deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.’

It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many
impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.

‘Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away.’

omission arises from insolence

‘Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don’t venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one’s meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school- girl- governesses would have answered me as you have just done.

I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?’

‘You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current as I am now.

‘I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great plague-house? How I do still abhor -.’

The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way.

His face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest
fire.

Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!’

Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.

I have never heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before
night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient.


I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I
had rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part.

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 droughts nevertheless.

‘He is not to them what he is to me,’ I thought: ‘he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;— I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me
mentally to him.

This book is another readers delight if like me you also enjoy old English Literature...

Written by - Ritika Patel