Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre (Inspiration and Similarities)

I have recently commenced re-reading one of my favorite novels of all time: Jane Eyre. :)

I forget, every time there is a pause between reading the novel or watching one of the many film adaptions how much I adore this story. And then I pick it up to read once more, or sit down to watch a movie....and I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of my admiration and affection for this story. I LOVE it! I love the story itself, and the characters and all that. I cannot deny that Mr. Rochester rates about ten thousand times higher than Mr. Darcy to me (Although I do love Darcy too).

But it's more than just enjoying the story.

I love Charlotte Bronte and her work. It's brilliant. It also reaches deeper into human emotions than most novels I read and I am so drawn by that. She inspires me. If I could write a story that would evoke half the emotions in readers that she does with this masterpiece I should be very well pleased. :)

Seriously though, every time I read Jane Eyre, besides being wrapped up in the story I love so well, I feel a longing to write like that. It is a deeply rooted desire that I often forget about and it smolders quietly unnoticed until I come across something like Jane Eyre for the upteenth time and it awakens and bursts into full flame.

On another note....I have no idea why I never noticed this before, but Jane Eyre's imagination works like mine and her spirit mirrors my own (or perhaps mine mirrors hers). She's so similar! I was astonished and took great pleasure in discovering this fact this morning. :) I read a passage and thought...that's totally me. And then I went into some silly emotions that I like to dub "fan-girl reactions." But on a slightly more serious note, I really did feel it, deep inside me, that this particular passage spoke directly to me. I related, in more ways than one.

This was the passage that made me immediately think of myself:

"Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and the solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it-and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended-a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence."