All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine to memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old-English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings, – all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 11. Mrs. Fairfax gives Jane a tour of Thornfield Hall. From Jane’s description the house is Gothic and foreboding, with its air of gloom and silence, “relics” of old furniture, and paintings of strange flowers, birds and human beings.