2 quotations linked to Villette by or associated with Charlotte Brontë, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Independence, self-respect, work, grief, hope, faith, identity, isolation and the inward life of Lucy Snowe.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“I should make some advance in life, take another step towards an independent position.”
Lucy frames progress in terms of greater independence, making self-directed position and livelihood part of how she imagines moving forward.
Source note: Villette; excerpt from Lucy Snowe’s reflection on how to advance toward a more independent position. This is fictional first-person narration, and the excerpt is not presented as Brontë speaking autobiographically.
“I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.”
Lucy Snowe holds hope and fear at the same time; endurance here does not require the disappearance of trembling or grief before trust becomes possible.
Source note: Villette, late in the novel; spoken in the first-person narrative voice of the fictional Lucy Snowe. The religious hope belongs to Lucy’s character and scene, not a direct autobiographical declaration by Charlotte Brontë.