[Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte]@TWC D-Link bookJane Eyre CHAPTERXIV
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However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour.
Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have just done.
But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points." "And so may you," I thought.
My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined-- "Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you.
God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself.
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