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earnest
used in Jane Eyre

24 uses
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Definition
characterized by sincere belief

or:

intensely or excessively serious
  • I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God:
    Chapter 34 (85% in)
in earnest = serious
  • Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner — something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were — she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little...
    Chapter 1 (11% in)
  • And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood — the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos.
    Chapter 9 (55% in)
  • "I don't know — it is not easy to describe — nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him, in short — at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master."
    Chapter 11 (81% in)
  • I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.
    Chapter 17 (46% in)
  • Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity.
    Chapter 18 (96% in)
  • Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.
    Chapter 21 (96% in)
  • I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness — and especially in his incivility — to credit his sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the world but you — if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?"
    Chapter 23 (79% in)
  • Are you in earnest?
    Chapter 23 (84% in)
  • I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me.
    Chapter 25 (63% in)
  • By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold.
    Chapter 26 (14% in)
  • Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed.
    Chapter 27 (23% in)
  • No, sir, finish it now; I pity you — I do earnestly pity you.
    Chapter 27 (39% in)
  • It began calm — and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.
    Chapter 30 (30% in)
  • "Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping.
    Chapter 33 (59% in)
  • You are not in earnest?
    Chapter 34 (39% in)
  • In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.
    Chapter 34 (39% in)
  • While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.
    Chapter 35 (23% in)
  • "It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway.
    Chapter 35 (40% in)
  • And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
    Chapter 35 (51% in)
  • A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter.
    Chapter 35 (68% in)
  • In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered — all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest.
    Chapter 35 (70% in)
  • Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed.
    Chapter 35 (71% in)
  • He had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep — or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible.
    Chapter 35 (77% in)

There are no more uses of "earnest" in Jane Eyre.

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