Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Chapter 14 Page 23

(for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you — wiser — almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure — an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?”

“How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?”

“All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle.

I was your equal at eighteen — quite