Sheer Lyrical Beauty

“As I think of them going up and down before those schoolroom windows – the Doctor reading with his complacent smile, an occasional flourish of the manuscript, or grave motion of his head; and Mr. Dick listening, enchained by interest, with his poor wits calmly wandering, God knows where, upon the wings of hard words – I think of it as one of the pleasantest things, in a quiet way, that I have ever seen. I feel as if they might go walking to and fro for ever, and the world might somehow be the better for it – as if a thousand things it makes a noise about were not one-half so good for it, or me.”

- David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, chapter 17

My third-favorite bit of writing in Dickens’s magnum opus, just finished today, thirty-seven days spent in mid-19th century London with a cast of unforgettable characters.

My second-most-touching scene, too long to reproduce here, occurs two chapters previous, when David realizes what Mr. Wickfield’s one motive in life is.

And the best scene, for me, in the book, the best written, and though only a page it wouldn’t make sense out of context, occurs in chapter 30, when Mr. Barkis goes “out with the tide.”

Those in the know will know the sheer lyrical beauty of these little instances of literary emotion, in a book populated with them.