Jane eyre《簡愛》英文原版

1、The Bront? SistersWorksWuthering HeightsAnneThe Tenant of Wildfell HallCharlotteShirleyJane EyreBiographyCharlotte Bront? (1816-1855).Novelist, daughter of the Rev. Patrick B., a clergyman of Irish descent and of eccentric habits who embittered the lives of his children by his peculiar theories of e

2、ducation. Brought up in a small parsonage close to the graveyard of a bleak, windswept village on the Yorkshire moors, and left motherless in early childhood, she was “the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters,” of whom two, Emily and Anne, shared, but in a less degree, her talents. Af

3、ter various efforts as schoolmistresses and governesses, the sisters took to literature and published a vol. of poems under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which, however, fell flat. Charlotte then wrote her first novel, The Professor, which did not appear until after her death, and bega

4、n Jane Eyre, which, appearing in 1847, took the public by storm. It was followed by Shirley in 1849, and Villette in 1852. In 1854 she was married to her fathers curate, the Rev. A. Nicholls, but after a short though happy married life she died in 1855. Anne B. (1820-1849) was the authoress of The T

5、enant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey (1848). She had not the intellectual force of her sisters. The novels of Charlotte especially created a strong impression from the first, and the published of Jane Eyre gave rise to much curiosity and speculation as to its authorship. Their strength and original

6、ity have retained for them a high place in English fiction which is likely to prove permanent. There is a biography of Charlotte by Mrs. Gaskell (q.v.). Emily Bront? (1818-1848).Novelist and poet. Sister to Charlotteand Anne. Wrote a story of extraordinary reality and imagination in Wuthering Height

7、s; in whose pages the Yorkshire moors are given a wild and tragic personal reality. The same emotional force marks the best of her poems, though written with an apparently heedless pen for her own relief. PrefaceA preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave none: this secon

8、d edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.My thanks are due in three quarters.To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions.To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant.To my Pub

9、lishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended Author.The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous cr

10、itics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me

11、, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotrythat parent of crimean

12、insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the fac

13、e of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, tha

14、t only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There isI repeat ita difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for

15、 it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worthto let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and exposeto rase the gilding, and show base metal under itto penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charn

16、el relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them t

17、o faithful counsel.There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like an

18、d as vitala mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in timethey o

19、r their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead.Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the dayas the v

20、ery master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic

21、powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does t

22、o the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to himif he will accept the tribute of a total strangerI have dedicated this second edition of “JANE EYRE.”CURRER BELL.December 21st, 1847.Note to the Third EditionI avail myself of the opportunity which a

23、third edition of “Jane Eyre” affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and cons

24、equently, denied where it is justly due.This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made, and to prevent future errors.CURRER BELL.April 13th, 1848.Chapter 1There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an

25、 hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly

26、 afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now cl

27、ustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me

28、 at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner something lighter, franker, more natural, as it wereshe really must ex

29、clude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.“Jane, I dont like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can s

30、peak pleasantly, remain silent.”A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk;

31、 and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves

32、 of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.I returned to my bookBewicks History of British Birds: the letterpre

33、ss thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, st

34、udded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,Boils round the naked, melancholy islesOf farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surgePours in among the stormy Hebrides.”Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak

35、shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, s

36、urround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through childrens brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselv

37、es with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite soli

38、tary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.The fiend pinning down the thiefs pack behind him,

39、I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting

40、as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reeds lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention w

41、ith passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon.

42、 The breakfast-room door opened.“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.“Where the dickens is she!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rainbad animal!”“It is well I dre

43、w the curtain,” thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”And I cam

44、e out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence.“Say, What do you want, Master Reed?” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to app

45、roach and stand before him.John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, whi

46、ch made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sen

47、t him from home; but the mothers heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that Johns sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and p

48、unished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against ei

49、ther his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however,

50、behind her back.Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would p

51、resently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,” said he, “and for your

52、 sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!”Accustomed to John Reeds abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he a

53、sked.“I was reading.”“Show the book.”I returned to the window and fetched it thence.“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemens children like us, and eat the same meals w

54、e do, and wear clothes at our mamas expense. Now, Ill teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when

55、I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax

56、; other feelings succeeded.“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murdereryou are like a slave-driveryou are like the Roman emperors!”I had read Goldsmiths History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to

57、have declared aloud.“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Wont I tell mama? but first”He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or tw

58、o of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I dont very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me “Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near hi

59、m: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!”Then Mrs. Reed subjoined“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately laid upo