Jane Eyre

"On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when i left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four: 'day its fervid fires had wasted', and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state - pure of the pomp of clouds - spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm of fine, deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon."

I'm half way through my second reading of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It was during the first reading of the novel (and almost especially reading the chapter that the passage above is from) that I decided I should propose the Weather Project back in 2008. 

Published in 1847 under Charlotte's pseudonym Currer Bell it was an instant success. I have to say that when i first read it i wasn't that keen - it's a bit prim and deeply loaded with morality for me. But now i'm reading it again i'm really enjoying it. Maybe reading lots of Charlotte's personal letters at the same time has helped me get a more rounded view of her personality which in turn has helped me see more in the novel.