Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly […]
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He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, […]
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‘Jane, will you have a flower?’ He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me. ‘Thank you, sir.’ ‘Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmly atmosphere?’ ‘I do, […]
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I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the […]
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‘Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.’ ‘Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.’ He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look. ‘My little friend!’ […]
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‘Break it, sir.’ ‘There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’’ And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise. ‘Now, sir, what a strange idea!’ ‘But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?’ ‘With the ladies you must have managed well.’ ‘But not with you?’ ‘You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.’ What character […]
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‘Eagerness of a listener!’ repeated she: ‘yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?’ ‘Grateful! I cannot remember […]
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‘You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house.’ ‘I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?’ ‘In my circumstances.’ ‘Yes; just so, in YOUR circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you […]
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The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl— if Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on […]
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Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes briskmand merry. Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir George—whom, bythe-bye, I have forgotten to describe,—a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, […]
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