Charlotte Brontë

“ If, instead of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars, had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift her head at all; but I will be your friend: I have always liked you!"
"Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your forwardness!" said Mrs. Yorke.
"But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie. "Miss Helstone has never done you any harm: why can't you be kind to her? You sit so stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry: what for? That's just the fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar, and every other young lady who comes to our house. ”

“ Caroline was moved—much moved.
"Be calm, Lina," said Moore, soothingly; "I have no intention, because I have no right, to perturb your mind now, nor for months to come: don't look as if you would leave me: we will make no more agitating allusions: we will resume our gossip. Do not tremble: look me in the face: see what a poor, pale, grim phantom I am—more pitiable than formidable."
She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still, pale as you are," she said, as her eye fell under his.
"To return to Shirley," pursued Moore; "is it your opinion that she is ever likely to marry?" ”

“ There is charm in beauty for itself, Caroline; when it is blent with goodness, there is a powerful charm."
"When mind is added, Shirley?"
"Who can resist it?"
"Remember my uncle, Mesdames Pryor, Yorke, and Mann."
"Remember the croaking of the frogs of Egypt! He is a noble being. I tell you when they are good, they are the lords of the creation,—they are the sons of God. Moulded in their Maker's image, the minutest spark of His spirit lifts them almost above mortality. Indisputably, a great, good, handsome man is the first of created things." ”

“ Caroline is laughing, Mrs. Pryor: I made her laugh; I have done her good."
"I shall like to go, Shirley," again said Miss Helstone. "I long to hear the sound of waves—ocean-waves, and to see them as I have imagined them in dreams, like tossing banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and re-appearing wreaths of foam, whiter than lilies. I shall delight to pass the shores of those lone rock-islets where the sea-birds live and breed unmolested. We shall be on the track of the old Scandinavians—of the Norsemen: we shall almost see the shores of Norway. ”

“ Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they love as the brightest,—the only bright destiny that can await them. Are they wrong?"
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands: and again she paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is an illusion."
"But not love! Love is real: the most real, the most lasting,—the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."
"My dear—it is very bitter. It is said to be strong—strong as death! Most of the cheats of existence are strong. ”

“ You are fond of your cousin's society, I dare say, Miss?"
"Of which cousin's?"
"Oh, of the lady's, of course."
"Hortense is and always has been most kind to me."
"Every sister, with an eligible single brother, is considered most kind by her spinster friends."
"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and settled: "Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?" ”

“ Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is—great, good, disinterested, and then so pure!"
"But not perfect: he made a great blunder once, and we will hear no more about it."
"And shall we think no more about it, Cary? Shall we not despise him in our heart, gentle but just, compassionate but upright?"
"Never! We will remember that with what measure we mete it shall be measured unto us, and so we will give no scorn—only affection."
"Which won't satisfy, I warn you of that. Something besides affection—something far stronger, sweeter, warmer—will be demanded one day: is it there to give?" ”

“ Gratitude is a divine emotion: it fills the heart, but not to bursting: it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss: devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour."
Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore watched the rapid motion of her fingers, as the green and purple garland grew beneath them. After a prolonged pause, he again asked,—
"Is the shadow quite gone?"
"Wholly. As I was two hours since, and as I am now, are two different states of existence. I believe, Mr. Moore, griefs and fears nursed in silence grow like Titan infants." ”

“ I do not feel very ill—only weak."
"But your mind, Caroline: your mind is crushed; your heart is almost broken: you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate."
"I belief grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes think, if an abundant gush of happiness came on me, I could revive yet."
"Do you wish to live?"
"I have no object in life."
"You love me, Caroline?"
"Very much,—very truly,—inexpressibly sometimes: just now, I feel as if I could almost grow to your heart."
"I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor, as she laid Caroline down. ”

“ I don't think we should trust to what they call passion, at all, Caroline. I believe it is a mere fire of dry sticks, blazing up and vanishing: but we watch him, and see him kind to animals, to little children, to poor people. He is kind to us likewise—good—considerate: he does not flatter women, but he is patient with them, and he seems to be easy in their presence, and to find their company genial. He likes them not only for vain and selfish reasons, but as we like him,—because we like him. ”

“ Be satisfied, my dear: let all the single be satisfied with their freedom."
"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay: "you speak like Mrs. Yorke, in her most gloomy moments:—like Miss Mann, when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is terrible!"
"No, it is only true. Oh, child! you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life: the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night are yet to come for you! Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been living. ”

“ Twenty-five years ago, I tried to persuade a beautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her nature: she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless."
"But you loved her, Yorke: you worshipped Mary Cave: your conduct, after all, was that of a man—never of a fortune-hunter."
"Ay! I did love her; but then she was beautiful as the moon we do not see to-night: there is naught like her in these days: Miss Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but nobody else." ”

“ In summer, when you rise early, and run out into the fields to wet your feet with the dew, and freshen your cheek and uncurl your hair with the breeze, you always call him to follow you: you call him sometimes with a whistle that you learned from me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody but Tartar is listening, you whistle the very tunes you imitated from my lips, or sing the very songs you have caught up by ear from my voice: I do not ask whence flows the feeling which you pour into these songs, for I know it flows out of your heart, Miss Keeldar. ”

“ If, while she gazed, a shadow bent between the light and lattice, her heart leaped—that eclipse was Robert: she had seen him. She would return home comforted, carrying in her mind a clearer vision of his aspect, a distincter recollection of his voice, his smile, his bearing; and, blent with these impressions, was often a sweet persuasion that, if she could get near him, his heart might welcome her presence yet: that at this moment he might be willing to extend his hand and draw her to him, and shelter her at his side as he used to do. ”

“ I found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss Keeldar: they were together.
"I said she was lovelier than ever: she is. A fine rose, not deep but delicate, opens on her cheek; her eye, always dark, clear, and speaking, utters now a language I cannot render—it is the utterance, seen not heard, through which angels must have communed when there was 'silence in heaven.' Her hair was always dusk as night, and fine as silk; her neck was always fair, flexible, polished—but both have now a new charm: the tresses are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess-grace. ”

“ The sky since dinner had darkened; it had begun to rain again, to pour fast: secret fears began to steal on Caroline that Robert would be persuaded by Mr. Sykes or Mr. Yorke to remain at Whinbury till it cleared, and of that there appeared no present chance. Five o’clock struck, and time stole on; still the clouds streamed: a sighing wind whispered in the roof-trees of the cottage; day seemed already closing; the parlour-fire shed on the clear hearth a glow ruddy as at twilight.
“It will not be fair till the moon rises,” pronounced Mademoiselle Moore ”

“ Professedly, Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course) tramples on the name of poetry: talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by sarcasm. Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry, beneath his attentive gaze.
Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book—not the Latin grammar, but a contraband volume of Fairy-tales; there will be light enough yet for an hour to serve his keen young vision: besides, the moon waits on him—her beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits. ”

“ Probably in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of honey-dew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and left a well-lit fire behind it.
It seemed, however, but a gentle fire: after two hot days and worried nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle, nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any fear for her: a few days would restore her, every one believed. ”

“ Pryor took care not to approach Caroline's couch for above an hour: she heard her weep, and dared not look on her tears.
As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognising glance.
"I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer-morning," she said, "as I stood at the counting-house window."
Strange words like these from pallid lips pierce a loving listener's heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in books: in real life, they are harrowing. ”

“ Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. She found no high intellect to admire: the old maid was merely sensible; but she discovered so much goodness, so much usefulness, so much mildness, patience, truth, that she bent her own mind before Miss Ainley's in reverence. What was her love of nature, what was her sense of beauty, what were her more varied and fervent emotions, what was her deeper power of thought, what her wider capacity to comprehend, compared to the practical excellence of this good woman? ”

“ It was vain even to try to retain a recumbent posture: she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens.
Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late but too often kept; vigils during which the mind,—having no pleasant food to nourish it—no manna of hope—no hived-honey of joyous memories—tries to live on the meagre diet of wishes, and failing to derive thence either delight or support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation ”

“ We may give one day to dreaming, but the next we must awake; and I shall awake, to purpose, the morning you are married to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me, and shows us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on the picture all the time I have been talking. Look up! What a difference between your head and mine!—I look old for thirty!"
"You are so grave; you have such a square brow; and your face is sallow. I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior." ”

“ At other times this Future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are aware, you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of Calamity—a new Lazarus.
Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's cottage in good health, as she imagined. On waking the next morning, she felt oppressed with unwonted languor: at breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all sense of appetite: palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to her. ”

“ I will do that, and then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents: for four years, I bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."
"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke: "how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this—I prefer that;' such is Jessie's cuckoo-song: while Rose utters the bolder cry, 'I will, and I will not!'"
"I render a reason, mother: besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard once in a twelvemonth. ”

“ Is it my cousin?"
"Certainly, it is your cousin," asserted Hortense.
Then who was this now coming through the passage,—now entering the room? Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert,—the real Robert, as she felt at once.
"Well!" said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished face, "which is which?"
"Ah! this is you!" was the answer.
He laughed. "I believe it is me: and do you know who he is? You never saw him before; but you have heard of him."
She had gathered her senses now.
"It can be only one person: your brother, since it is so like you: my other cousin, Louis." ”

“ In Shirley's nature prevailed at times an easy indolence: there were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye—moments when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being around—and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fulness of happiness, that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon in lying stirless on the turf, at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage: no society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call ”

“ I generally look at her, instead of looking at my prayer-book; for she is like a picture in our dining-room, that woman with the dove in her hand: at least she has eyes like it, and a nose too, a straight nose, that makes all her face look, somehow, what I call clear."
"And you don't know her!" exclaimed Jessy, in a tone of exceeding surprise. "That's so like Rose. Mr. Moore, I often wonder in what sort of a world my sister lives; I am sure she does not live all her time in this: one is continually finding out that she is quite ignorant of some little matter which everybody else knows. ”

“ While the summer thus passed with Moore, how did it lapse with Shirley and Caroline? Let us first visit the heiress. How does she look? Like a lovelorn maiden, pale and pining for a neglectful swain? Does she sit the day long bent over some sedentary task? Has she for ever a book in her hand, or sewing on her knee, and eyes only for that, and words for nothing, and thoughts unspoken? ”

“ FIELDHEAD.
Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb: she had native strength in her girl's heart, and she used it. Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant; unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied.
Miss Helstone was in this position. Her sufferings were her only spur; and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she been seen so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. ”

“ I am not a poet: I cannot live with abstractions. You, Miss Keeldar, have sometimes, in your laughing satire, called me a material philosopher, and implied that I live sufficiently for the substantial. Certainly I feel material from head to foot; and glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife, than through the wild orbs of the highest goddess of Olympus.'
"'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,' said she. ”