Jane Eyre [30] -- chapter 29: MARSH END

1. "Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there firm as weeds among stones."
2. "Paste" for the pies sounds rather nasty to our modern, American ears, and I have never heard it used as such before.  Before I check the etymology, however, let me go over this: paste is awfully close to pastry, which indeed is word commonly used to describe the stuff for pie crust, among other things, and both paste and pastry are similar to pasta, which is more than just noodles, but the dough from which they're made.  Makes sense, I think.  The etymologies: pasta, pastry, paste (which has a rather humorous later usage).
3. The casual, classic good looks of Mr. St. John are an interesting contrast to the forceful, oft brutal, "manliness" of Rochester.
4. Issue of grammar: "Now you may eat, though still not immoderately."  
5. Is it a philanthropist who helps one find gainful employment?
6. "My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you, as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through their casement" (emphasis added).