“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?”
“I do indeed, sir.”
“Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still…you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness.”
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. After the discovery of his mad wife, Rochester is desperate to hold onto Jane and her love. She wonders out loud would she suffer the same fate if she went mad like Bertha. Rochester assures her of his love, promising that she would as dear to him in sickness and in pain. He makes passionate and romantic declarations of his deep affection, metaphorically describing Jane as his treasure. After these words he pleads with her to move to him to a villa in the south of France, where she will be Mrs. Rochester “both virtually and nominally.”