CHARLOTTE BRONTE , "Jane Eyre"

"JANE EYRE" (1847) tells us a lot about :

English history,  of English law of sucession, religion, islamic world and the difference between the

cottage and the manor house.

"This afternoon, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly und unwisely as Charles the first sometimes did. And I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and his concientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the Crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance. Still, I like Charles, I respect him, I pity him, poor murdered king. Yers, his ennemies were the worst. They shed blood  they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him..." (p;89).

"I see, he said, the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go the mountain. I must beg of you to come here..."(p.146)

"The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division..." (p.159)

"I keep it and rear it on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work..." (p.171)

"I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle. A nunnery, you would call it. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas and to a careful study of the workings of their system..." (p.269)

"I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. It began calm, it was calm to the end. Stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines, election, predestination, reprobation, were frequent...(p.378)

"There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers. I believe, and I believe the Gospel. I am not a pagan, but a Chritian philosopher, a follower of the sect of Jesus. As his disciple I adopt his pure , his merciful, his benignant doctrines...(p.401)

"But perhaps, your accomodations, your cottage, your furniture, have disappointed your expectations ? My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient...But you feel solitude ? The little house there behind you is dark and empty..."

"The manor-house of Ferndean  was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate seize and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. Entering  a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground...The house presented two pointed gables in its front, the windows were latticed and narrow..." (p.454)

MARY SHELLEY "Frankenstein"1818

FRANKENSTEIN, by Mary Shelley, a book full of history :

 

"...The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England..." (p.58)

 

"...Through te work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires present existing in the world. It gave me an insight into the manners, governments and religions of the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans - of their subsequent degenerating - of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its Original inhabitants" (p.118).

 

"...She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an  independence of spirit forbidden to the female followers of Mahomet. (...) The prospect of marrying a Christian and remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in society was enchanting to her..." (.123).