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Charles Dickens

" Who is Mr. Jasper?"Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle, and my music-master.""You do not love him?""Ugh!" She put her hands up to her face, and shook with fear or horror."You know that he loves you?""O, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her knees, and clinging to her new resource. "Don't tell me of it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing in the shadow behind her."Try to tell me more about it, darling.""Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold me the while, and stay with me afterwards.""My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in some dark way.""He has never spoken to me about - that. Never.""What has he done?""He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me than ever.""What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What is threatened?""I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is.""And was this all, to-night?""This was all; except that to-night when he watched my lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me - who am so much afraid of him - courage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be left by myself. "

Charles Dickens

Love , Fear

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" We are thankful to come here for rest, sir," said Jenny. "You see, you don't know what the rest of this place is to us; does he, Lizzie? It's the quiet, and the air.""The quiet!" repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his head towards the City's roar. "And the air!" with a "Poof!" at the smoke."Ah!" said Jenny. "But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes, and you feel as if you were dead."The little creature looked above her, holding up her slight transparent hand."How do you feel when you are dead?" asked Fledgeby, much perplexed."Oh, so tranquil!" cried the little creature, smiling. "Oh, so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people who are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon you!"Her eyes fell on the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked on."Why it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him, "that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood upright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!‚ÄîTill he was called back to life," she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. "Why did you call him back?""He was long enough coming, anyhow," grumbled Fledgeby."But you are not dead, you know," said Jenny Wren. "Get down to life!"Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to attend him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, "Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!" And still as they went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half singing, "Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead! "

Charles Dickens

Death , Peace

" How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here? Said louisa as she touched her heart. "

Charles Dickens

Heart , Pain

" Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain. "

Charles Dickens

Pain , Grief

" Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain "

Charles Dickens

Children , Grief

" They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. "

Charles Dickens

Love , Pain

" It will be your duty, and it will be your pleasure too to estimate her (as you chose her) by the qualities that she has, and not by the qualities she may not have. "

Charles Dickens

Marriage , Contentment

" If an enthusiastic, ardent, and ambitous man marry a wife on whose name there is a stain, which, though it originate in no fault of hers, may be visited by cold and sordid people upon her, and upon his children also: and, in exact proportion to his success in the world, be cast in his teeth, and made the subject of sneers against him: he may-no matter how generous and good his nature- one day repent of the connection he formed in early life; and she may have the pain and torture of knowing that he does so. "

Charles Dickens

Marriage , Shame

" I assumed my first undivided responsibility. "

Charles Dickens

Marriage , discipleship

" It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed at home. "

Charles Dickens

Family , Forgiveness

" [Credit is a system whereby] a person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. "

Charles Dickens

Money , Debt , Credit

" Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal. "

Charles Dickens

Money , Gold , Greed

" We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one. "

Charles Dickens

Money , Misery

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