If life be a war, it seemed my destiny to conduct it single-handed.

On the contrary, I'm a universal patriot, if you could understand me rightly: my country is the world.

Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved him well - too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes, would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it - I would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.

For I too liked reading, thought of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.

Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.

I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.