Notes, etc for Jane Eyre edit
Woolf
- "So intense is our absorption that if some one moves in the room the movement seems to take place not there but up in Yorkshire. the writer has us by the hand, forces us along her road, makes us see what she sees, never leaves us for a moment or allows us to forget her." (220)
- "Always to be a governess and always to be in love is a serious limitation in a world which is full, after all, of people who are neither one nor the other. The characters of a Jane Austen or of a Tolstoi [sic] have a million facets compared with these." (221)
- "Charlotte Brontë, at least, owed nothing to the reading of many books. She never learnt the smoothness of the professional writer, or acquired his ability to stuff and sway his language as he chooses." (223)
- "In other words, we read Charlotte Brontë not for exquisite observation of character—her characters are vigorous and elementary; not for comedy—hers is grim and crude; not for a philosophic view of life—hers is that of a country parson's daughter; but for her poetry." (223)
Rhys: To Francis Wyndham, 14 April 1964
- "It is quite true that I've brooded over Jane Eyre for years. The Brontë sisters had of course a touch of genius (or much more) especially Emily. So reading Jane Eyre one's swept along regardless. But I, reading it later, and often, was vexed at her portrait of the 'paper tiger' lunatic, the all wrong creole scenes, and above all by the real cruelty of Mr Rochester. After all he was a very wealthy man and there were many kinder ways of disposing of (or hiding) an unwanted wife—I heard the true story of one—and the man behaved very differently." (410-411)