Jane Eyre: ‘…utter solitude and leafless repose…’

This is a fragment from the book Jane Eyre which is very dear to me and is very fitting for this time of the year, so I thought why not share it. It describes Jane’s walk not long after she arrives at Thornfield Hall, and before she meets Mr Rochester.

It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun.  I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in Autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose.  If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.

—Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)