Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Thornfield Hall

"A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses - fancying she has stirred: he withdraws; not for world would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends over her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty - warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus gasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter - by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he find she is stone-dead.

I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin."

-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

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