"Life appears to me too short to be spent in
nursing animosity, or registering wrongs…. No; I cannot believe that: I hold
another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in
which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes
Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this
creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can
so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge
never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice
never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end." — English
novelist Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855),
Jane Eyre (1847)
These words are spoken in the novel by Jane Eyre’s
doomed but serene childhood friend, Helen Burns—played, in the 1943 screen
adaptation, by 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor (on the right in the attached
image, with Peggy Ann Garner as the young Jane Eyre).
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