"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired

man: he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself

liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have

found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the

greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and

pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly

feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in

doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more

evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane"--she

paused.

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"Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my

fingers gently to warm them, and went on "If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own

conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not

be without friends."

"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough:

if others don't love me I would rather die than live--I cannot bear

to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real

affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love,

I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to

let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it

dash its hoof at my chest--"

"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are

too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your

frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources

than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides

this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world

and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is

everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to

guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us

on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures,

recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of

this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated

at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your

ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the

separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward.

Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life

is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--

to glory?"




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