Jane Eyre Read-Along: Parts 2, 3, & 4

I finished Jane Eyre today - just a week behind schedule, according to Amy's online read-along.  I'm so glad Amy hosted this read-along.  I'm not sure that I would have taken time to read the book otherwise, but I'm so glad I did.  


Of course, the most endearing part of the book is Jane herself.  She is such a strong woman and quite a personable narrator.  I would have been severely disappointed had the story not ended happily for Jane.  All along, I wasn't sure what "happily ever after" would look like for her - certainly it would include Mr. Rochester, but it wasn't until he suffered some setbacks and sufferings that they truly seemed a perfect match.


The following are two more passages that stood out to me.


In chapter 27, Jane struggles mightily with the decision to leave Thornfield and a distraught Mr. Rochester:

"...and while he spoke my very Conscience and Reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him.  They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly.  'Oh, comply!' it said. 'Think of his misery; think of his danger - look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair - soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his.  Who in the world cares for you?  or who will be injured by what you do?'

Still indomitable was the reply - 'I care for myself.  The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I respect myself.  I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man.  I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad - as I am now.  Laws and principles are not for the 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 individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?  They have a worth - so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane - quite insane; with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.  Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."

Bravo, Jane!  Oh, that I could be so rational in the face of flailing emotions.


And a bit of wisdom from St John in chapter 31:

"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination, and turn the bent of nature: but that it may be done, I know from experience.  God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get - when our will strains after a path we may not follow - we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste - and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it."