St. John Rivers Quotes

“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence.”
“All men must die,” said a voice, quite close at hand; “but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 28. The door of Moor House is shut to the destitute Jane, who lies on the ground waiting on God to decide if she lives or dies. But home owner St. John Rivers returns in time to save her. The clergyman offers her shelter.

He was young – perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty – tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline; quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin…He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 29. Jane describes the physical features of St. John Rivers, who came to Jane’s rescue when he found her in a desperate state on his doorstep. Words like “pure” and “straight” hint at the personality of the young man of high principles who wants to become a missionary. In facial looks, St. John is about as opposite to Rochester as you can get. One is fair and handsome, the other dark and stern.

This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 29. Jane attempts to read St. John’s personality, noticing that he has a hardness and restlessness to his nature. While there may be a gentleness about his physical appearance, she doesn’t believe that his nature is gentle, yielding or placid.

“Mr. Rivers,” I said, turning to him and looking at him as he looked at me, openly and without indifference, “you and your sisters have done me a great service, the greatest man can do a fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harboured as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind – my own security.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 29. After spending three days and nights in bed recovering at Moor House, Jane thanks St. John and his sisters for rescuing her from certain death.

My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you…as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 29. St. John Rivers tells Jane how welcome she is at the Rivers family home. His sisters wish her to stay, he reveals. He uses a metaphor to compare Jane to a half-frozen bird.

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him; he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 30. While Jane finds Diana and Mary Rivers friendly and welcoming, she doesn’t have the same experience with their brother St. John. Reserved and brooding and not one to enjoy the pleasures of life, he proves difficult to make friends with.

“I mean now to open a second school, for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’ house…Will you be this mistress?”…In truth it was humble – but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum; it was plodding – but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron; it was not ignoble – not unworthy – not mentally degrading. I made my decision.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 30. When St. John Rivers arranges a school teacher’s position for Jane, she has a home of her own for the first time in her life.

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 31. St. John tells Jane how hard it is to overcome natural inclinations, but he assures her that it can be done. Shortly after this we learn what St. John means. He is actually in love with Roamond Oliver, but constantly uses religion to temper his actions and supress his desires.

A year ago, I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry; its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burned for the more active life of the world – for the more exciting toils of a literary career – for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest…After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell; my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds – my powers heard a call from Heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 31. St. John explains to Jane how he decided to become a missionary. He went through a period of struggle and misery as a bored priest. During that time he “burned for the more active life of the world.” Then he received the summons from God to spread his wings and follow the missionary road.

A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white – a youthful,
graceful form: full, yet fine in contour…What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 31. St. John and Jane’s conversation is interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful young woman dressed in white. Rosamond Oliver is one of the benefactors of the school in Morton. When she appears at St. John’s side, Jane wonders what he thinks of her.

I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion…His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 31. An “earthly angel” in white suddenly appears at the side of St. John Rivers. Jane notices that St. John is in love with Rosamond Oliver, but he supresses his feelings for her. Using simile images Jane describes how his chest heaves as if his heart is trying to break free, but he curbs it like a rider restrains a steed. St. John believes that God has called him to be a missionary to serve the people of India. He is sacrificing his love for Rosamond for his vocation.

St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. St. John refuses to marry Rosamond even though they love each other. He simply cannot envisage her settling down to missionery life with him in India, a path he intends to follow. For him the love he will experience serving God is more important than human love.

“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly – with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating – I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. St. John Rivers displays his cold and unemotional side in this speech. Describing his mixed feelings about Rosamond, he speaks in a calm, almost disinterested way about his intense love for her, and how unsuitable she is as a missioner’s wife.

“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects; they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to; cooperate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. St. John Rivers may have received the missionary call from God, but he doesn’t believe Rosamond Oliver has. He is responding here to Jane’s suggestion that he should marry Rosamond. While he admits being attracted by Rosamond’s charms, he rules her out as a missionary’s wife. Rivers is not looking for love, but a wife who will benefit his work.

Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I should do.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. St. John replies to Jane who asks if Rosamond Oliver’s disappointment and sorrow are of no interest to him in his refusal to ask her to marry him. He coldly dismisses Rosamond’s feelings by saying she will find someone else.

You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away…You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. Aware of how much St. John adores Rosamond Oliver, Jane tells him bluntly that he is wasting away by repressing his desire for Rosamond.

He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. St. John is surprised by how direct and outspoken Jane is about his repressed feelings for Miss Oliver. She has told St. John how he is “wasting away” and trembles and becomes flushed whenever Rosamond enters the schoolroom. He was not used to a woman speaking to him so frankly, but Jane continues to defy the expectations of women in Victorian society.

“You are original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions…When I colour and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble – a mere fever of the flesh; not, I declare, a convulsion of the soul…Know me to be what I am – a cold, hard man.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 32. There you have it! St. John admits to Jane to being emotionally cold and hard. When it comes to duty to serving God versus passion for a woman, duty comes first. The affairs of the soul take precedence to the desires of the flesh, which St. John dismisses as weakness. So for the unfortunate Miss Oliver there is no place in St. John’s scheme of things. However, he appears to be taking an interest in Jane, admiring her for her brave spirit.

“Well, what did he want?”
“Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich – merely that – nothing more.”
“I! – rich?”
“Yes, you, rich – quite an heiress.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. Jane is astonished to learn from St. John that she has inherited a fortune of twenty thousand pounds from her late uncle John Eyre. There is a certain irony here, as the despised impoverished orphan child Jane becomes an heiress and more successful than her spoiled Reed cousins.

“I am cold: no fervour infects me.”
“Whereas I am hot and fire dissolves ice.”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. This is the first instance of Jane standing up to St. John. Ice and fire are recurring symbols in the novel. He is compared metaphorically to ice, while the rebellious and passionate Jane retorts that she is made of fire. This foreshadows the moment when Jane will confront St. John and his anger, assert her independence and leave him. Jane is not a woman who allows a man dicate the course of her life.

I had found a brother: one I could be proud of, – one I could love; and two sisters whose qualities were such that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed…were my near kinswomen, and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed! – wealth to the heart! – a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing…not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. Jane speaks of her joy of discovering a family and home at last. She has learned that the Rivers family are her blood relatives and cousins. While she has inherited a fortune from her uncle, finding a brother and sisters like St. John, Diana and Mary means more to her than wealth. Using metaphor and simile, Jane speaks of discovering a “mine” of pure affections, not like the “ponderous gift of gold” of her inheritance.

I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars; – every one lighted me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke; – I could free them: they were scattered; – I could reunite them: the independence, the affluence, which was mine, might be theirs too…Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin, – it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. A big-hearted woman, Jane is extraordinarily generous and quite unique for a wealthy woman of her era. She decides to share her “ponderous gift of gold” – her inheritance – with her new-found family. Her cousins St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers had cared for her and shown her love, saving her life. She could now help free the Rivers from their “yoke,” having herself known what it is to struggle in life. She hopes that money will make them financially independent, allowing them to live together without working.

“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?”

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 33. This passage emphasizes the importance of a sense of home and family to Jane, who as a child did not have the benefit of a loving family. She is speaking here to St. John about her joy in finding a family with him and his sisters Diana and Mary. She desires to share her twenty thousand pounds legacy with the family that saved her and live with them at Moor House.

St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him…he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone – at his fine lineaments fixed in study – I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. While Jane accepts that St. John is a good man, she believes that he is not good husband material. She speaks of how hard and cold he is, using a a simile to compare his forehead to white stone. For St. John, the pleasures of life have no attraction, she observes. He never rests not does he wish others to rest. Jane’s reflections come after St. John shows a disappointing lack of interest in her improvements to Moor House.

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master; he expected me to do a great deal, and when I fulfilled his expectations he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind…I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by…When he said “go,” I went! “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. St. John insists that Jane become his student and learn the Hindostenee language. While she concedes that he is patient, she finds him extremely demanding. Jane goes on to describe a form of mental imprisonment imposed on her. It is done by a man who clearly likes to exert a domineering and controlling influence over a woman. Jane doesn’t like her “servitude” one bit. Her cousin St. John behaves as her “master,” takes away her mental freedom and prevents her from being able to talk or laugh freely. St. John doesn’t see Jane as an independent person with free will and her own personal inclinations.

As for me, I daily wished more to please him: but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half of my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. As Jane tries to please St. John, she learns that in order to do so she has to become somebody she is not. Jane has always been her own person, someone of integrity who treasures independence and freedom. The manipulative and controlling St. John continues to force her to change her own nature and adopt pursuits she finds impossible. Using a simile she compares this to trying to mold her irregular face to his correct features, and change her green eyes to the sea blue of his.

God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal but mental endowments they have given you; you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must – shall be. You shall be mine; I claim you – not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. St. John makes the marriage proposal from hell to Jane, as he commands her to marry him and become a missionary in India. He believes that he knows God’s will for Jane better than she does. Instead of doing her the courtesy of asking her, St. John instead “claims” Jane as his wife. God and nature made her for this role, he feels. Not a man given to romantic gestures, St. John treats Jane like she is a possession. He displays a shocking lack of regard for Jane’s feelings, telling her that she was made for work, not love. He sees her, not as a woman, but a tool to enhance his missionary work.

I have made study of you for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school, I found that you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas: – lucre had no undue power over you…Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself – I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. In a marriage proposal to Jane that can only crash and burn, St. John expresses no love or passion. For him it is all about a job, not a relationship. He has made a study of Jane teaching at the village school and feels that she has all the qualities necessary to help others. He believes that she should come with him to India to be a missionary’s wife. The qualities St. John admires in Jane include her lack of interest in personal riches, her constancy and her courage. But lacking in the relationship is St. John’s love for Jane, and also feelings on Jane’s part for him.

He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations – coolly put into practice his plans – go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt he would not scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him – not as his wife: I will tell him so.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. Jane says this to herself after St. John Rivers asks her to marry him and accompany him on his missionary work to India. But Jane knows that he will never love her. St. John “has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge.” Jane decides to make clear that if she goes, it will be as his equal and they go as brother and sister, not husband and wife. “I am ready to go to India, if I may go free,” she tells him after the above passage.

“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding, but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour: accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition…I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under a rather stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came; and sentiments growing there, fresh and sheltered, which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife – at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked – forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital – this would be unendurable.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 34. We get a glimpse into Jane’s inner conflict over St. John’s proposal that she should join him as his wife on his missionary trip to India. The proposal briefly tempts her. It would be a rare opportunity to perform good deeds for other people, while fulfilling her own personal needs. Looking at his beautiful, commanding features, she fancies herself “in idea” his wife. But then she realizes the reality of the kind of prison she would live in under St. John’s masculine dominance. She speaks of his “warrior-march” and his “austerity” and the “stringent yoke” she would be tied to under his “masterhood.” Using metaphorical imagery, she decides that the “fire” of her nature and its “imprisoned flame” would not endure being his wife.

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