I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with

relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to

a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways

(I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as

derived their interest from the great scale on which they were

acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised); and I

had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in

imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in

thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or

troubled by one noxious allusion.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the

friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me,

drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather

than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not

mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I

become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine

after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the

blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I

gathered flesh and strength.

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude,

and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the

object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering

than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults;

indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He

was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in

my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by

unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably

so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him

sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms;

and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl

blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his

harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say FORMER, for now

he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of

fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies,

higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had

developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought

there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they

hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I

grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much

to assuage it.




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