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specially such as I loved; urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me。 In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I altered。
Miss Temple; through all changes; had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother; governess; and; latterly; panion。 At this period she married; removed with her husband (a clergyman; an excellent man; almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county; and consequently was lost to me。
From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every settled feeling; every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me。 I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had bee the inmates of my mind。 I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others; usually even to my own; I appeared a disciplined and subdued character。
But destiny; in the shape of the Rev。 Mr。 Nasmyth; came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post…chaise; shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room; and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half…holiday granted in honour of the occasion。
I walked about the chamber most of the time。 I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss; and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded; and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone; and evening far advanced; another discovery dawned on me; namely; that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple—or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity—and that now I was left in my natural element; and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions。 It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn; but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me; but the reason for tranquillity was no more。 My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide; and that a varied field of hopes and fears; of sensations and excitements; awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse; to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils。
I went to my window; opened it; and looked out。 There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon。 My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote; the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison…ground; exile limits。 I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain; and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood; and I had never quitted it since。 My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs。 Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me。 I had had no munication by letter or message with the outer world: school…rules; school…duties; school…habits and notions; and voices; and faces; and phrases; and costumes; and preferences; and antipathies—such was what I knew of existence。 And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon。 I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing。 I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change; stimulus: that petition; too; seemed swept off into vague space: “Then;” I cried; half desperate; “grant me at least a new servitude!”
Here a bell; ringing the hour of supper; called me downstairs。
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur; by a prolonged effusion of small talk。 How I wished sleep would silence her。 It seemed as if; could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window; some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief。
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman; and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to…night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half… effaced thought instantly revived。
“A new servitude! There is something in that;” I soliloquised (mentally; be it understood; I did not talk aloud); “I know there is; because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty; Excitement; Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them。 But Servitude! That must be matter of fact。 Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere。 Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it。”
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl; and then I proceeded TO think again with all my might。
“What do I want? A new place; in a new house; amongst new faces; under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better。 How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends; I suppose: I have no friends。 There are many others who have no friends; who must look about for themselves and