I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
Chapter 33 · Narrator
Context
Jane observes St. John by the firelight after he arrives through the storm. She notices his pale, stern features and the visible marks of suffering etched into his face.
Analysis
The simile 'chiselled marble' turns St. John into something sculpted rather than alive—beautiful but cold, fixed rather than feeling. Jane then undercuts her own admiring comparison by noting the 'hollow trace' worn into that marble surface, as if even stone can suffer. The verb 'graved' (an archaic past tense of 'engrave') reinforces the image of something carved permanently, suggesting St. John's sorrow isn't passing emotion but damage cut deep.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Brontë codes St. John as fundamentally incompatible with Jane's desire for warmth and mutuality—he is presented through imagery of beautiful lifelessness, making him an object of pity rather than romantic attraction.