How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Volume.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple’s—a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed [...]. (1.8.51)
Helen’s beauty comes not from fancy curls or makeup, but from animation, activity, and intellectual stimulation. It’s not just that "real beauty comes from the inside," although that does seem to be true in this novel—it’s that Helen is at her most beautiful when she’s excited about a subject that she knows a lot about and when she's talking about it to someone she really respects.
Notice that her beauty comes out most in movement and talking—it’s an active rather than a passive beauty. What that means is that she’s beautiful because of what she’s doing and because she’s so intensely alive: not because she’s a passive, static object, something to be looked at, like a beautiful painting.
Quote #5
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance, or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer: I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. (1.11.47)
In this passage Jane considers appearance in several different ways. She begins by thinking about being dressed neatly and carefully—basically, not looking like a slob. But this pride in her appearance quickly turns into a lament that she isn’t more of a classic beauty. She can’t even admit why she wants her clothes to look nice, or to be prettier, although she claims there is a specific reason… can you guess what it might be? Yep, walks on two legs, has a deep voice, rhymes with Bochester—you got it.
Quote #6
I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much case in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference; and even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. (1.14.33)
Jane is able to separate Rochester’s actual appearance from how Rochester is perceived by the people around him and from what she herself thinks of his character. Distinguishing appearance from personality is something she learned to do at Lowood.