quote from jane eyre

Maybe my aunt's house is boring, but she just sat there on the sofa, moping about and complaining. I couldn't help but think about that paragraph in Jane Eyre. It's one of those paragraphs that jumps out and slaps you in the face, and this was the perfect opportunity...

Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town...One day, however, as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus -

"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered - you must have music, dancing, and society - or you languish, you die away..."

I read it slowly, letting each word drop carefully like a well placed arrow. She promptly left the sofa and quickly became occupied with something more meaningful. 


Today is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday Sarah!