Quote 4
"Oh, don’t fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."
"Sir, you have given me my 'cadeau'; I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet; praise of their pupils' progress." (1.13.30-31)
This little moment where Rochester tells Jane she’s a good teacher is important, because Jane never tells us so herself. It’s one of the things she forgets to mention, or maybe leaves out—her modesty is getting in the way of telling her own story. It won’t be the last time that Jane can’t be trusted to depict herself accurately.
Quote 5
"You are my little friend, are you not?"
"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right." (2.5.138-139)
You can’t forget that, whatever else is going on between Jane and Rochester, they’re never really equals. One of their first big conversations is an argument about whether Jane is going to let Rochester order her around and why she should, and he only wins the argument because she helps him.
And remember: Jane likes to call Mr. Rochester her "master." Yeah, it’s a little weird, but Jane, like Kate at the end of The Taming of the Shrew, knows that you can actually be in charge by seeming like you’re not in charge. If you’re really good at that kind of thing.
Quote 6
"No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came upon me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"
"I have none."
"Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"
"No."
"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?
"For whom, sir?"
"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?"
I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay Lane or the fields about it could you find a trace of them. I don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more." (1.13.40-47)
At Jane’s second meeting with Rochester, he accuses her, playfully, of being a fairy or a sprite who enchanted his horse and caused the accident in which he sprained his ankle. Jane isn’t about to be outdone and banters with him readily and quick-wittedly, seeming to take fairy tales as seriously as he himself is pretending to do.
Although Jane’s unearthly fairy qualities are mostly a joke here, there is definitely something strange and uncanny about her quiet demeanor, plain dress, and strong personality. Rochester has met his match—and she is a little bit eerie.