In Jane Eyre, a teacher of history and grammar, Miss Scatcherd, whips Jane's best friend, Helen Burns. She also sentences Helen "to a dinner of bread and water . . . because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out." When Jane advises Helen to resist Miss Scatcherd's treatment, Helen tells her that "it is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil." Sometime later, Helen dies of consumption.
