Charlotte Bronte Quotes

Jane Eyre, Chapter 9. Jane describes the arrival of spring at Lowood, where she and the other girls have suffered under the school’s harsh regime and deprivations. The coming of the pleasant spring weather lifts her spirits and reflects a new hope and inner strength felt by Jane. This is an example of pathatic fallacy, where nature imagery is used to comment on human nature. Here is the fuller quote: “But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grewover those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”