CHAPTER VIII 93
alleged against Jane Eyre , and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation . The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me , and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions .
Thus relieved of a grievous load , I from that hour set to work afresh , resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty : I toiled hard , and my success was proportionate to my efforts ; my memory , not naturally tenacious , improved with practice ; exercise sharpened my wits ; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class ; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing . I learned the first two tenses of the verb ETRE , and sketched my first cottage ( whose walls , by-the-bye , outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa ), on the same day . That night , on going to bed , I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes , or white bread and new milk , with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings : I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings , which I saw in the dark ; all the work of my own hands : freely pencilled houses and trees , picturesque rocks and ruins , Cuyp-like groups of cattle , sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses , of birds picking at ripe cherries , of wren ' s nests enclosing pearl-like eggs , wreathed about with young ivy sprays . I examined , too , in thought , the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me ; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep .
Well has Solomon said -- " Better is a dinner of herbs where love is , than a stalled ox and hatred therewith ."
I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries .