As I mentioned earlier, I’m reading Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Villette. I am reluctant to acknowledge any affinity for the main character who is practically the inverse of every hero/heroine I’ve ever read about. Ok, there have been plenty of MC’s who display little enthusiasm for adventure–Bilbo Baggins, for instance; however, this Lucy Snowe suffers from more inhibitions than anyone I’ve ever met. Yet, I have to admit, I have felt like she does in the following passage:

I smiled; but I also hushed a groan. Oh!–I wished he would just let me alone–cease allusion to me. These epithets–these attributes I put from me. His “quiet Lucy Snow,” his “inoffensive shadow,” I gave him back; not with scorn, but with extreme weariness; theirs was the coldness and the pressure of lead; let him whelm me with no such weight. Happily, he was soon on another theme.

Reading this nearly made me cry…