“Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin; it was burned down just about harvest time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed; hardly any other furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle; I witnessed it myself.”
“It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma’am; he wouldn’t leave the house till every one else was out before him. As he came down the great stair-case at last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash—all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt…He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.”
There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity, with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him…It brought to life and light my whole nature; in his presence I thoroughly lived, and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead; his lineaments softened and warmed.
“Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life—if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer—if ever I wished a righteous wish, I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.”
I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blessed—blessed beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine…To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company…All my confidence is bestowed on him; all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character; perfect concord is the result.
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