HELEN: Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god:
nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took
steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you
would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the
greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may
look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in
their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long
appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides,
Jane -- if all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own
conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without
friends. You think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive,
too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it,
has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures
feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an
invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is
everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us;
and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and
hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if
innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has
weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a
sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only
the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then,
should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and
death is so certain an entrance to happiness -- to glory?
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