“Your god, sir, is the World. In my eyes, you, too, if not an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship: in all things you appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre. Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best -- making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living. In his realm there is hatred -- secret hatred: there is disgust -- unspoken disgust: there is treachery -- family treachery: there is vice -- deep, deadly, domestic vice. In his dominions, children grow unloving between parents who have never loved: infants are nursed on deception from their very birth: they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies ... All that surrounds him hastens to decay: all declines and degenerates under his sceptre. Your god is a masked Death.”

“When do you wish to go?”“Early to-morrow morning, sir.”“Well, you must have some money; you can’t travel without money, and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?” he asked, smiling.I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. “Five shillings, sir.” He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: “Here,” said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.“I don’t want change; you know that. Take your wages.”I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said—“Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not plenty?”“Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.”“Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.”“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity.”“Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.”“You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?”“Yes; what then?”“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it.”“To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There’s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the devil?”“I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.”“In course!” he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes.“And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?”“No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of them—but I shall advertise.”

“You are going, Jane?""I am going, sir.""You are leaving me?""Yes.""You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard was it to reiterate firmly, "I am going!""Jane!""Mr. Rochester.""Withdraw then, I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room, think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings; think of me."He turned away, he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my hope, my love, my life!" broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob.”

“But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir; it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”

“You say you cannot love God; but it strikes me that if you rightly consider who and what He is, you cannot help it. He is your father, your best friend: every blessing, everything good, pleasant, or useful, comes from Him; and everything evil, everything you have reason to hate, to shun, or to fear, comes from Satan- HIS enemy as well as ours. And for this cause was God manifest in the flesh, that He might destroy the works of the Devil: in one word, God is love; and the more of love we have within us, the nearer we are to Him and the more of His spirit we possess.”

“Are you in earnest? - Do you truly love me? - Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?''I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.''Then, sir, I will marry you.''Edward - my little wife!''Dear Edward!''Come to me - come to me entirely now,' said he: and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, 'Make my happiness - I will make yours.”

“I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more - never more see birds making nests and singing idylls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you; but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay.We know that God is everywhere but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.”