第62页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第62页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher;
and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and
importance.
During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy,
because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education
placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a
desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my
teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself
fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first
girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of
teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of
that time I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued
superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best
part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my
continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother,
governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married,
removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy
of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.
From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone
every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in
some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her
nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed
better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had
given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was
content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a
disciplined and subdued character.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between
me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a
post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise
mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my
own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the
half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only
to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my
reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the
afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned
on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming
process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss
Temple- or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere
I had been breathing in her vicinity- and that now I was left in my
natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions.
It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive
were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me,
but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some
years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems;