Who are you, Lucy Snowe?

"Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life."

I had no idea that Charlotte Bronte had written anything beyond Jane Eyre and the opening chapter of Emma Brown until I found myself laying in the sun by a pool, reading a copy of Villette from the Dallas public library. I must admit that when I discovered Villette I was a little dubious about all the reviews claiming it to surpass Jane Eyre and declaring it to be Bronte's pièce de résistance. Nothing can ever come anywhere near replacing Jane and Mr. Rochester or the sardonic humor that characterizes them, but Villette has most definitely earned a place by its side.

Lucy Snowe is a fascinating, introspective, realistic introvert with a strong sense of self and a deep hidden desire for companionship and intimacy. I'm not even going to go into the complex and delightfully (and rather maliciously) revolting M. Paul Emanuel. But without a doubt Villette has the most psychological depth and insight that I have ever read in a book.

I'll spare you the gushing and simply paste a few quotes from the book that I think really illustrate Lucy's Character.

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the
world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in
mine.

...

Certain accidents of the weather, for instance, were almost dreaded by me,
because they woke the being I was always lulling, and stirred up a craving cry I
could not satisfy.

...

'But,' I again broke in, 'where the bodily presence is weak and the speech
contemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written language the medium
of better utterance than faltering lips can achieve?'

Reason only answered, 'At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer its influence to animate any writing of yours!'

'But if I feel, may I never express?'

'Never!' declared Reason.

I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken in and broken down.

...

I was no bright lady's shadow - not Miss de Bassompierre's. Overcast enough it
was my nature often to be; of a subdued habit I was: but the dimness and
depression must both be voluntary - such as kept me docile at my desk, in the
midst of my now well-accustomed pupils in Madame Beck's first classe; or alone,
at my own bedside, in her dormitory, or in the alley and seat which were called
mine, in her garden: my qualifications were not convertible, nor adaptable; they
could not be made the foil of any gem, the adjunct of any beauty, the appendage
of any greatness in Christendom.

...

As Miss Fanshawe and I were dressing in the dormitory of the RueFossette, she
(Miss F.) suddenly burst into a laugh.

"What now?" I asked; for she had suspended the operation of arranging her attire, and was gazing at me.

"It seems so odd," she replied, with her usual half-honest half-insolent unreserve, "that you and I should now be so much on a level, visiting in the same sphere; having
the same connections."

"Why, yes," said I; "I had not much respect for the connections you chiefly frequented awhile ago: Mrs. Cholmondeley and Co. would never have suited me at all."

"Who are you, Miss Snowe?" she inquired, in a tone
of such undisguised and unsophisticated curiosity, as made me laugh in my turn.

...