Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
weak and silly to say you _cannot bear_ what it is your fate to be
required to bear.”
I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of
endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the
forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen
Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected
she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter
deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
“You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very
good.”
“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss
Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in
order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my
lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot
_bear_ to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very
provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and
particular.”
“And cross and cruel,” I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my
addition: she kept silence.
“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?”
At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her
grave face.
“Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one,
even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them
gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed
liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that
even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to
cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most
highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.”
“That is curious,” said I, “it is so easy to be careful.”
“For _you_ I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this
morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed
to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you.
Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss
Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the
very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think
I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the
bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our
house;—then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened;
and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the
visionary brook, I have no answer ready.”
“Yet how well you replied this afternoon.”
“It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had
interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was
wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and
unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity
it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no
farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to
look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age
was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor
murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they
had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!”
Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very
well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject
she discussed. I recalled her to my level.
“And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?”
“No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something
to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is
singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is
often just what I wished to gain.”
“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?”
“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination
guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.”
“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I
ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who
are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own
way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but
would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we
should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to
teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are
but a little untaught girl.”
“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to
please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me
unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me
affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and
civilised nations disown it.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most
certainly heals injury.”
“What then?”
“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts;
make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.”
“What does He say?”
“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that
hate you and despitefully use you.”
“Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her
son John, which is impossible.”
In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith
to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments.
Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve
or softening.
Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a
remark, but she said nothing.
“Well,” I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad
woman?”
“She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes
your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely
you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep
impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage
so brands its record on my feelings. 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.”
Helen’s head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this
sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but
rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time
for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up,
exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent—
“Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up
your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at
it!”
Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor
without reply as without delay.
CHAPTER VII
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 unwonted 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