A Sense of Belonging

Passage:
   On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
    Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour. 
   Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.

    Jane Eyre often ruminates on nature, be it the nature that surrounds her or images that she finds in a book. The images she enjoys most tend to be tempestuous: turbulent waters or, in this case, a blizzard. In these images she finds a sense of self, and she connects nature to her emotional state. In this passage, Jane comments on the weather at Lowood and her emotional reaction to it. Here, the snowstorm represents her past, and that past is overpowered by the present: the rowdy students and the opportunity for new experiences turn her indifferent to the state of the surrounding storm.
    Jane describes the snowstorm outside in an unflattering way, yet she enjoys it because she feels as if she impervious to it, it can't disturb her peace. Describing the sound of the wind as a "disconsolate moan" would usually bear a negative image, and to the reader it does. Jane has a different reaction to this, however, it stimulates excitement in her. She even wants it to grow louder, to rise to a howl. She wants the noise of the students to grow with it, and this evokes an image of nature's losing battle against the humanity of Lowood, something that Jane feels a part of.
    Because Jane feels at home at Lowood, the storm doesn't dampen her spirits, it raises them. She says that if she had left a good home and good parents, left somewhere she had liked, the wind would sadden her. Earlier in the novel, at Gateshead, she connects emotionally with images of stormy seas. This is because she was unhappy at Gateshead, and she has shifted in this passage from connecting with nature to connecting with the humans around her. She walks alone, but she doesn't feel lonely. This contrast puts her in a spirited mood, she moves with boldness around the hall, "jumping" and "creeping" as opposed to her more controlled and cautious movements at Gateshead.
    Jane's attitude towards nature's more violent moods changes significantly at Lowood. No longer does she connect with nature's intense productions, she connects instead with the people around her. This newfound world and its inhabitants excite her, and her emotions can settle on the feeling of community instead of the feelings of isolation that made her connect so strongly with nature in the past.