"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off." "Why?" "Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."

On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored.

I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood.

I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression.

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.

It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion.

I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity.

Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never had I loved him so well.

But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?

A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh.