dickensyousay.bsky.social
If these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it must be because I have really something to do with them and can't be kept out. - Charles Dickens, Bleak House
5,263 posts
978 followers
918 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his side—perhaps taking his arm—it was a pursuer to shun.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
There was a screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father’s.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
—it was a large churchyard that they were in—looking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a little—listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall—there, risen to some eight or ten feet high—formed one side.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Another fisherman was picked up here—and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar all night.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Disposing these articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o’clock.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Look at your boy: he is your’n, ain’t he? He’s as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy out?”
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
“With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct.
comment in response to
post
When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don’t. I’m your Rome, you know.”
Then he began grumbling again:
comment in response to
post
The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections.
comment in response to
post
“If I don’t, you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,” returned that gentleman, shaking his head; “that’s questions enough for you; I ain’t a going out, till you’ve been long abed.”
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
“Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?”
“Never you mind.”
“Shall you bring any fish home, father?”
comment in response to
post
“You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when he took another bite.
“Yes, I am.”
“May I go with you, father?” asked his son, briskly.
“No, you mayn’t. I’m a going—as your mother knows—a fishing. That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.”
comment in response to
post
“You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. “Ah! I think so. I believe you.”
comment in response to
post
“Yes, Jerry.”
“Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. “Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, Jerry.”
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
“Now, I tell you where it is!” said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. “If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.”
comment in response to
post
is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical adviser—a distinguished surgeon—on his way back.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities
comment in response to
post
Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson’s.
#CharlesDickens
#ATaleOfTwoCities