CHAPTER XXIII 319
" It is a long way to Ireland , Janet , and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels : but if I can ' t do better , how is it to be helped ? Are you anything akin to me , do you think , Jane ?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time : my heart was still .
" Because ," he said , " I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you -- especially when you are near me , as now : it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs , tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame . And if that boisterous Channel , and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us , I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt ; and then I ' ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly . As for you , -- you ' d forget me ."
" That I NEVER should , sir : You know -- " Impossible to proceed . " Jane , do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood ? Listen !"
In listening , I sobbed convulsively ; for I could repress what I endured no longer ; I was obliged to yield , and I was shaken from head to foot with acute distress . When I did speak , it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had never been born , or never come to Thornfield .
" Because you are sorry to leave it ?"
The vehemence of emotion , stirred by grief and love within me , was claiming mastery , and struggling for full sway , and asserting a right to predominate , to overcome , to live , rise , and reign at last : yes , -- and to speak .
" I grieve to leave Thornfield : I love Thornfield : - I love it , because I have lived in it a full and delightful life , -- momentarily at least . I have not been trampled on . I have not been petrified . I have not been buried with inferior minds , and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high . I have talked , face to face , with what I reverence ,