The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introdu to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintah the plad its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of petent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was itted eo my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon fot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but her had she any deficy or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable progress, eained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affe; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, iurn, with a degree of attat suffit to make us both tent in each other』s society.
This, par parenthèse, will be thought cool language by persons who eain solemn does about the angeliature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to ceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo t, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a stious solicitude for Adèle』s welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society proportioo the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adèle played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies ioreroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attid having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-lihat then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I desired more of practical experiehan I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintah variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called distented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silend solitude of the spot, and allow my mind』s eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expa with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my imaginatioed, and narrated tinuously; quied with all of i, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have a; and they will make it