I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you—wiser—almost as stainless.
Chapter 14 · Edward Rochester
Context
Rochester is confessing his past mistakes to Jane, explaining that he was led astray in his youth. He interrupts himself mid-sentence to admit that he prefers to blame circumstances rather than his own choices.
Analysis
The parenthetical aside—"for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune"—undercuts Rochester's self-justification even as he offers it. By naming his own evasion, he both performs honesty and avoids full responsibility: he admits to dodging blame while still dodging it. The nautical metaphor ("thrust on to a wrong tack") makes his life sound passively redirected by external winds, not steered by his own hand.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Rochester's confessions are structured as simultaneous self-exposure and self-excuse—he reveals his flaws but frames them as misfortunes, a pattern that becomes crucial when Jane must later decide whether his past actions disqualify him from her love.