Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?
Chapter 14 · Edward Rochester
Context
Rochester is contrasting his own guilt-stained past with what he imagines to be Jane's unblemished moral record. He addresses her as "Little girl" and asks her to confirm the value of a clean conscience.
Analysis
The metaphors Rochester piles up—"without blot," "exquisite treasure," "inexhaustible source"—idealize Jane's innocence into something almost sacred, but the condescending address "Little girl" reveals his assumption of superiority even as he claims to envy her purity. He isn't asking a peer for insight; he's projecting onto a fantasy of uncorrupted youth that relieves him of the burden of believing in his own reform.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Rochester romanticizes Jane's moral purity in ways that diminish her complexity—by treating her conscience as an "exquisite treasure" he gets to admire rather than a hard-won achievement, he avoids confronting the fact that she too has faced moral choices and deprivations he knows nothing about.