英文版讀書筆記

　　‘what do i want? a new place in a new house amongst new faces under new circumstances. i want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. how do people do to get a new place? they apply to friends i suppose. i have no friends. there are many others who have no friends who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?’

　　i could not tell: nothing answered me. i then ordered my brain to find a response and quickly. it worked and worked faster. i felt the pulse throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos and no result came of its efforts. feverish with vain labour i got up and took a turn in the room undrew the curtain noted a star to two shivered with cold and gain crept to bed.

　　a kind fairy in my absence had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow for as i lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind: ‘those who want situations advertise: you must advertise in the –shire herald.’

　　‘how? i know nothing about advertising.’

　　replies rose smooth and prompt now—

　　‘you must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the herald. you must put it the first opportunity you have into the post at lowton. answers must be addressed to j.e. at the post office there. you can go and inquire in about a week after you send the letter if an are come and act accordingly.’

　　this scheme i went over twice thrice; it ws then digested in my mind: i had it in clear practical form: i felt satisfied and fell asleep.

　　p85

　　it is very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world cut adrift from every connexion uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. the charm of adventure sweetens that sensation the glow of pride warms it: but then the throb of fear disturbs it and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed and still i was alone. i bethought myself to ring the bell.

　　p97

　　when we left the dining room she proposed to show me over the rest of the house: and i followed her upstairs and downstairs admiring as i went; for all was well arranged and handsome. the large front chambers i thought especially grand; and some of the third-story rooms. though dark and low were interesting from their air of antiquity. the furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casements showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut looking with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ head like types of the hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. all these relics gave to the third story of thornfield hall the aspect of a home of the past—a shrine of 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 english old hangings crusted with thick work portraying effigies of strange flowers an stranger birds and strangest human beings – all which would have looked strange indeed by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

　　p98

　　‘on to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?’ i followed still up very narrow staircase to the attics and thence by a ladder and through a trapdoor to the roof of the hall. i was now on a level with the crow colony and could see into their nests. leaning over the battlements and looking far down i surveyed the grounds laid out like a map; the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the gray base of the mansion; the field wide as a park dotted with its ancient timber; the wood dun and sere pided by a path visibly overgrown greener with moss than the trees with foliage; the church at the gates the road the tranquil hills all reposing in the autumn day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky azure marbled with pearly white. no feature in the scene was extraordinary but all was pleasing. when i turned from it and repassed the trapdoor i could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which i had been looking up and to that sunlit scene of grove pasture green hill of which the hall was the center and over which i had been gazing with delight.