It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four…Where the sun had gone down in simple state – pure of the pomp of clouds – spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 23. Right through this chapter nature symbolically mimics the feelings aroused within Jane by Rochester. The passions ignited between them are reflected in the imagery used to describe the skies on this midsummer’s evening. They are “burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame.”