Richard Mason Jane Eyre Quotes

I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 18. Jane is describing Richard Mason, who is visiting Thornfield to speak with Rochester. Mason, brother to Bertha Mason, is a significant minor character in the story. It is clear Jane doesn’t like his appearance and this is foreshadowing of the trouble he brings with him to Thornfield.

When the moon, which was full and bright…came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awakening in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk – silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.
Good God! What a cry!

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 20. Jane wakes up to the moon shining full and bright through her window. The moon appears as a warning. Its description of being “too solemn” is foreshadowing of danger ahead. Jane next hears a scream running from one end of Thornfield to the other. We will later learn that madwoman Bertha Mason has attacked her visiting half-brother Richard Mason and stabbed and bitten him.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shown out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling…I walked round to the other side of the large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat at it, dressed with the exception of his coat: he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face – the stranger, Mason: I saw, too, that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 20. The Gothic aspect of the novel comes across strongly in this passage, as Richard Mason is discovered soaked in blood and the snarling of a wild beast is heard. The dark, the candlelight, the pale and lifeless face, heighten the Gothic atmosphere of menace and threat from some mysterious force. We find out later that Mason was attacked by his sister Bertha.

What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? – what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 20. Jane asks herself this as she watches the injured body of Richard Mason, who has been stabbed and bitten in the middle of the night. She wonders what manner of mysterious creature with its demonic scream and wearing a woman’s face is prowling the halls of Thornfield. Jane will later learn that the bed burning incident and wounding of Richard Mason were carried out not by a demon, but by Rochester’s insane wife Bertha. She is cloistered in the highest place within Thornfield Hall.

“When will he come?” I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered – as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened; and neither day nor aid arrived…The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of gray light edging the window-curtains; dawn was then approaching…in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock warned me my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours; many a week has seemed shorter. Mr. Rochester entered.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 20. An anxious Jane tends to the bleeding Richard Mason while she waits for Rochester to return with the doctor. She is relieved when as dawn approaches Rochester finally arrives with a surgeon to dress Mason’s wounds.

She bit me…She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her…She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 20. Jane overhears Richard Mason telling Rochester and the doctor how he was victim to a bestial and vampiric attack.
It turns out to be Mason’s sister Bertha – Rochester’s wife – who stabbed him with a knife in the arm and bit him. Using a simile, Mason describes his crazy sister as being “like a tigress.”
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