Jane Eyre
In Chapter 26 of Emily of New Moon, Dean Priest meets Emily, and saves her life from falling down the Malvern Cliffs. He falls in love with her. After she departs, he picks up the flower she had abandoned and places it in a volume of Jane Eyre.
He stooped and picked up the broken aster. Emily’s heel had met it squarely and it was badly crushed. But he put it away that night between the leaves of an old volume of Jane Eyre, where he had marked a verse,
All glorious rose upon my sight
That child of shower and gleam.
Many parallels can be drawn between Jane Eyre and Emily of New Moon. Like Jane, Emily is a misunderstood orphan, initially out at odds with her surroundings and peers. Emily’s punishment of being locked in the spare room is as terrifying as Jane’s ordeal in the Red Room. Like Jane, Emily can call to her loved ones across time and space. As a dark, brooding, and maimed lover much older than the young heroine, Dean doubtless relates to Rochester. The influence of Jane Eyre on Emily of New Moon is discussed in The Fragrance of Sweet Grass.
Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte(excerpt of Song from Jane Eyre)
“The truest love that ever heart
Felt at its kindled core,
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
The tide of being pour.
“Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein.
“I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.
“But wide as pathless was the space
That lay our lives between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.
“And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.
“I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned
I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
I passed impetuous by.
“On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.
“Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh.
“I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o’er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore:
“Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
Swear endless enmity.
“My love has placed her little hand
With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band
Our nature shall entwine.
“My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
With me to live — to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss.
As I love — loved am I!”
The complete Jane Eyre can be read online at Project Gutenberg
































