“ Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. ”
 Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (16 October 1847). copy citation

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“This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence—shown to you, not my resolution (that word is weak) , but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane— give it me now. ”
“ Why are you silent, Jane? ” Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty— “ Depart! ” “ Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—‘I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.’ ” “ Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours. ”
“ Jane! ” recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising—” source