It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn，but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me，but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide，and that a varied field of hopes and fears，of sensations and excitements，awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse，to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.

I went to my window，opened it，and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote，the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground，exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain，and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood，and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had no munication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules，school-duties，school-habits and notions，and voices，and faces，and phrases，and costumes，and preferences，and antipathies- such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change，stimulus: that petition，too，seemed swept off into vague space:

"Then," I cried，half desperate，"grant me at least a new servitude!" Here a bell，ringing the hour of supper，called me downstairs.