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Chapter 12

The promise of a smooth career, which my first call introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place in its inmates.

Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman of competent education and average intelligence.

My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoiled and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward.

But as she was committed entirely to my care, and no in judicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement,

she soon forgot her little freaks and became obedient and teachable.

She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste, which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood.

But neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it.

She made reasonable progress, entertained for me, a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound affection.

And by her simplicity, gay prattle and efforts to please inspired me in return with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.

This will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion.

But I'm not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant or to prop up humbug by merely telling the truth.

I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self, just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax, a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me and the moderation of her mind and character.

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that now and then when I took a walk by myself in the grounds, when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road, or when while Adele played with her nurse and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom,

I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out a far over sequestered field in hill, and along dim skyline, that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit, which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen.

The then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed, more of intercourse with my kind of acquaintance with variety of character than was here within my reach.

I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax and what was good in Adele, but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.

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