There I plant my foot

Here’s another excerpt from a different classic, Jane Eyre, which I was reminded of by yesterday’s excerpt from Adam Bede. This is Rochester urging Jane to be his mistress (while the lunatic wife Jane has just learnt of remains locked away), and Jane’s ensuing struggle:

... Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law – no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me.’

This was true: and while he spoke my very Conscience and Reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. ‘Oh, comply!’ it said. ‘Think of his misery; think of his danger – look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair – soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?’

Still indomitable was the reply – ‘I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad – as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth – so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane – quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.

And it’s almost a silly endeavour to try and elaborate, as the beauty of such story telling is it perfectly conveys its point. Both of these excerpts, and their wider stories, illuminate the importance of character formation in life’s times of support and strength, to fortify ourselves against those assaults on our best principles when they come. They illustrate the meaning of 2 Peter 1:5-7.