DickensHarper, 1882 - 222 pages |
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actor admirable afterwards already altogether American artist become Bleak House chapter character Charles Dickens charm Christmas books Christmas Numbers close comic course David Copperfield declared delightful described Dombey Dombey and Son doubt earlier effect English excitement fancy favourite feeling fiction Forster Gad's Hill Gad's Hill Place genius grotesque hand heart Household Words humour illustrates imagination interest journal kind kindly labour later least Leigh less letters literary literature Little Dorrit London Lord Macready manner Martin Chuzzlewit master ment mind narrative nature never Nicholas Nickleby night novel novelist occasionally Old Curiosity Shop Oliver Twist paper passage pathos Pickwick Pickwick Papers picture play pleasant poor popular portrait readers readings satire scenes seems Sketches by Boz Smollett spirit story Street success taken Thackeray theatre theatrical thing thought tion true truth whole Wilkie Collins writing written wrote young
Popular passages
Page 158 - Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms in Covent-garden, London — now about the city streets: now, about the country by-roads — seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, I think may interest others.
Page 117 - This is the Court of Chancery ; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire ; which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse, and its dead in every churchyard...
Page 149 - I wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as I hurried to the hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands, Misther Dickens, and God bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house, sir (and God love your face), this many a year.
Page 102 - Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name is DAVID COPPERFIELD.
Page 181 - Chalet (where I write), and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. My room is up among the branches of the trees ; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in, at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles,...
Page 171 - I am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring ; but I am determined not to begin to publish with less than five numbers done. I see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn ; and if I don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, I shall drift off again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more.
Page 14 - I have been in my time belated on miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with neverforgotten compliments by the late Mr.
Page 108 - Too late to say, put the curb on, and don't rush at hills — the wrong man to say it to. I have now no relief but in action. I am become incapable of rest. I am quite confident I should rust, break, and die, if I spared myself. Much better to die, doing.
Page 216 - Fermor wants relief. It is a disagreeable character, as you mean it to be, and I should be afraid to do so much with him, if the case were mine, without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of the reader's mouth. It is remarkable that if you do not administer a disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to think that the story is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious person.
Page 147 - My worldly circumstances (such a large family considered) are very good. I don't want money. All my possessions are free and in the best order. Still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration.