Jane Eyre, pt. 3

And so I’ve reached the end of Jane Eyre, which I began reading in January. In March, I remarked upon Mr Rochester’s “marvelous ferocity.” Now here’s someone worth knowing, I thought. But I expected his brutal way of speaking would be tamed by love.

Fortunately I was wrong. Love embraced it:

I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

And so I (JP) was treated to a stimulating ping-pong match: Rochester slamming and spinning with all his force; Jane neutralizing each blow, often with a mere “Yes, sir” or “No, sir”: these artless, artful utterances causing Rochester to stagger. Jane says “Master” and “Sir” to Rochester knowing that she owns him; and when she says “I love you” it’s the freshest sentence in the world.

There are other interesting competitions in the book, not least the one between heavenly and earthly pursuits. But the novel’s greatest achievement is its depiction of two true originals and their delight in one another.

(And yet I worry that outside of fiction, this ping-pong match would be unsustainable. Over time, would sour words continue to excite? Or would they inevitably corrode?)