This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 29. Jane attempts to read St. John’s personality, noticing that he has a hardness and restlessness to his nature. While there may be a gentleness about his physical appearance, she doesn’t believe that his nature is gentle, yielding or placid.