Quotation from: Jane Eyre

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess.
I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was
obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my
departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless,
dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me:
I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable
I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me
from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful
nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure -- speed,
secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me everything I
possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of
mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to Whitcross.
To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two
nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing
a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food;
and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost
to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of
want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I
know all your sisters have done for me since -- for I have not
been insensible during my seeming torpor -- and I owe to their
spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your
evangelical charity."

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