I. That Speech

1. Jane Eyre. Chapter 23.

Jane Eyre is standing before Rochester. She believes he is going to marry someone else. She believes she must leave Thornfield Hall. She speaks.

The gist: Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong. I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart. I am not talking to you through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, just as if both had passed through the grave and we stood at God's feet, equal—as we are.

1. Written by a woman who published under a false name. The name was Currer Bell. Because a woman's name could not get a book published.

That speech has been read for nearly two hundred years. It is still ringing.

II. She Was Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë. Born 1816. Yorkshire. Father an Anglican clergyman. Mother died in 1821—Charlotte was five. Six children. Two older sisters died soon after—fell ill at boarding school.

Four remained: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, Anne. They grew up in the parsonage at Haworth. On the Yorkshire moors. Remote, cold, wind everywhere.

Charlotte was under five feet tall. Very poor eyesight. Not pretty—she knew it. She later told her sisters: I shall create a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.

She worked as a teacher. Worked as a governess. She hated the work. Employers treated her as a servant. A child at one household threw a stone at her—this detail later found its way into Jane Eyre (John Reed throws a book at Jane).

In 1842 she and Emily went to Brussels to study French. She fell in love with the school's director, Constantin Héger—a married man. The affair came to nothing. It later became Rochester.

She returned to Haworth. The three sisters planned to open a school. No pupils came. The plan failed.

1. The three sisters published a book of poems under pseudonyms—Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. It sold two copies.

2. Charlotte's first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers. She began her second at once. Jane Eyre. She wrote it quickly. Sent it in August, published October 19. Immediate success.

Then everything shattered. September 1848, Branwell died—alcohol and opium. December 1848, Emily died—tuberculosis. May 1849, Anne died—tuberculosis.

Less than a year. Three people. Charlotte was left alone with her father in that parsonage.

III. Being Loved

"I have a right to be loved."

These are not Jane Eyre's exact words. But they are the core of that speech. Jane Eyre stands before Rochester and says: I am a subject. I have a soul. You see me.

Being loved is not receiving something. Being loved is being seen—seen by another subject, acknowledged as an end.

But being loved has another side. Once you are loved, you carry a responsibility: to take care of yourself. Because you no longer belong only to yourself. Someone has looked at you and seen a purpose. If you betray yourself, you betray the person who saw you.

When Jane Eyre says "I have a right to be loved," she is simultaneously saying something heavier: if you love me, then I have a duty to be worthy of being loved. Not to please you—to take care of myself. Because you have seen me. Once seen, I cannot pretend I do not exist.

This is the deepest structure between loving and being loved. To love is to treat another person as an end. To be loved is to know that you have been treated as an end, and to bear the weight of it.

Socrates' love for Plato—a great affection of an elder for a younger—was treating Plato as a subject worth nurturing. Plato was loved. Being loved, he bore the responsibility of building the Academy, writing the dialogues, not wasting the hemlock Socrates drank.

Faraday's love for Maxwell—a man who touched the field trusting a man who could write the equations. Maxwell was trusted. Being trusted, he bore the responsibility of getting the equations right.

Loving and being loved is the bridge between subjects. This bridge—the bridge everyone in this series stands on—is made of this material.

IV. The False Name

Currer Bell. Ellis Bell. Acton Bell.

The three sisters published under men's names. Not for amusement. Because a woman's name would cause critics to judge by a different standard—softer expectations, lower ambitions, more indulgence, and more condescension.

Charlotte later explained, in essence: we did not declare ourselves to be men, nor did we deny it. We noticed that reviewers sometimes substituted the label "female" for genuine praise or criticism. We chose not to give them that convenience.

This was a chisel-stroke. She chiseled the publishing world's construct—"books by women are different." Not worse—"different." And that "different" was itself a wall. You are on one side; your book is on the other. You cannot reach it.

The three sisters chose three names that leaned masculine but matched their own initials—C.B., E.B., A.B.—and no one knew.

When Jane Eyre was published, it caused a storm. Some critics found it too bold—a woman (if the author was a woman) should not write with such passion. Some guessed the author was a man. Some guessed a woman. Some said if it was a woman then it was most improper.

Charlotte eventually revealed herself to her publisher. When she walked into the London office, they were stunned. They had imagined Currer Bell as a tall gentleman. Before them stood a woman under five feet, quiet, plainly dressed.

Jane Eyre stands before Rochester and says: do you think I have no soul? Charlotte stands before the publishing world and says: do you think Currer Bell cannot be a woman?

The same sentence. The same chisel-stroke.

V. Charlotte and Joan

Two people. Two kinds of chiseling.

Joan chiseled five layers. Nation, class, sex, age, knowledge. She carried fire through every wall.

Charlotte chiseled two. Sex and class. But her method was different.

Joan did not know the walls were there. She walked through because she could not see them. Charlotte knew. She knew precisely where the walls stood. She used a false name to slip past one wall. She used Jane Eyre's voice to chisel through another.

Joan's chiseling was unconscious—she did not know what she was chiseling. Charlotte's chiseling was conscious—she knew exactly what she was chiseling.

Joan floats above every construct, carrying fire. Charlotte stands on the floor, bent forward, chiseling one word at a time with a pen.

Which is harder?

Charlotte may be harder. Because knowing the wall is there is more painful than not knowing. You see the wall. You know how thick it is. You know how thin your pen is. And you chisel anyway. One word at a time.

VI. The Moors

Haworth. The Yorkshire moors.

The three sisters grew up here. Wind, heather, rain, cold. Their father preaching downstairs. The children writing stories upstairs. Charlotte and Branwell invented a fictional kingdom called Angria. Emily and Anne invented one called Gondal.

The moors were their world. Not background—material. In Jane Eyre, the moors are where Jane nearly dies after fleeing Thornfield. In Wuthering Heights, the moors are everything Heathcliff and Catherine have.

The moors have nothing. No city, no society, no publishers, no readers. You write on the moors—for whom?

For the people who come after. For subjects you have not yet met.

Charlotte, on the moors, wrote a woman who stands up and says "I have a right to be loved." That woman has been read for nearly two hundred years. By tens of millions of people. Every person who reads that speech is seen—because Jane Eyre is speaking for them.

You are poor. You are short. You are not pretty. You have no status. But you have a soul. Your soul is as full as anyone's. You have a right to be loved. And being loved, you have a responsibility to take care of yourself.

This is nurture. From a parsonage on the moors, subjects have been nurtured for two hundred years.

VII. Thirty-Eight

June 1854. Charlotte finally married. Arthur Bell Nicholls—her father's curate. She was thirty-eight. He had pursued her for a long time. She refused at first. Then accepted.

March 31, 1855. Charlotte died. During pregnancy. Severe hyperemesis gravidarum. Thirty-eight years old.

From marriage to death, less than a year.

She was loved. Nicholls loved her. But she did not have long to be loved.

All her life she wrote about the right to be loved. She herself held that right for less than a year.

VIII. Charlotte and Wilde

Wilde spoke "the love that dare not speak its name." In a courtroom. Facing everyone.

Charlotte spoke "I have a right to be loved." In a novel. Facing everyone. Under a false name.

Both were saying the same thing: love does not require permission. Love does not require credentials. Love does not care whether you are rich or poor, beautiful or plain, man or woman, nobleman or governess. Love is a matter between subjects. It has nothing to do with constructs.

Wilde chiseled with his voice. Charlotte chiseled with her pen. Wilde did not run. Charlotte did not use her real name—but she did not stop writing.

Two kinds of courage. One is the courage to stand in a courtroom. The other is the courage to sit in a parsonage on the moors and chisel, one word at a time.

Which is harder?

Hard to say. But both were done so that the people who come after could stand up and speak.

IX. Reader, I Married Him

Jane Eyre, Chapter 38, opening line. "Reader, I married him."

Four English words. Reader, I married him.

Not "he married me." "I married him." The subject is "I." Jane Eyre is the subject. Not the chosen object. Not the one proposed to. She made the decision. She chose him.

In four words, the whole of this series. Self as an end.

One more person on the bridge. She is standing. Not tall. Under five feet. Poor eyesight. Plainly dressed. Very quiet.

In her hand, a pen. Not a sword (Joan), not a slate (Ramanujan), not a sentence (Wilde). A pen.

She is one of the quietest people on the bridge—as quiet as Chekhov. But Chekhov is quiet because he chooses not to speak. Charlotte is quiet because she has already spoken. Everything she had to say is in that book. She does not need to say it again.

Socrates stands on the clearing. Plato crouches drawing blueprints. Hume plays billiards. Schopenhauer looks under the bridge. Kierkegaard jumped. Turing looks at the apple in his hand. Chekhov leans against the railing. Cantor stares upward. Copernicus set down a book and walked away. Sartre paces with his pipe. Beauvoir holds a mirror. Quine said one quiet sentence. Tesla listens to the hum. Edison holds a dead lightbulb. Heisenberg's position is uncertain. Bohr holds a letter he never sent. Tolstoy holds a prescription, facing Chekhov. Shakespeare is not there. Spinoza has glass dust on his fingers. Aristotle crouches, laying floor. Faraday crouches, prying up a plank. Maxwell stands writing equations. Joan floats above the bridge, carrying fire. Wilde stands beautifully, holding that sentence. Ramanujan has emerged halfway through a gap. Oppenheimer carries ash, walking slowly.

Charlotte stands there. She looks at the bridge. Everyone on it is walking. Some fast, some slow. Some carry fire, some carry ash. Some float, some crouch.

She sees what this bridge is made of.

This bridge is not made of stone. Not of timber. Not of equations. Not of fire.

This bridge is made of love. A great affection of an elder for a younger. Every person who used their life to clear a space for those who came after. Every act of nurture. Every responsibility that comes with being loved.

Loving and being loved. The bridge between subjects. Always.

She looks down at the pen in her hand. Then she writes one word on the bridge surface.

Not "Jane." Not "love." Not any name.

She writes "Reader."

Reader. You. The one reading this right now.

You have been seen.^[1][2]

Notes

Han Qin (秦汉) · @hqinjarsy · Great Lives