Sunday, February 21, 2016


I read the following quote by Dickens that just tickled me. His descriptions of people are so vivid you can nearly touch them.

  "In certain quarters of the city and its neighborhood, Mr. Jobling was a very popular character. He had a portentously sagacious chin, and a pompous voice, with a rich huskiness in some of its tones that went directly to the heart, like a ray of light shining through the ruddy medium of choice old burgundy.
His neckerchief and shirt frill were ever of the whitest, his clothes of the blackest and sleekest, his gold watch-chain of the heaviest, and his seal of the largest. His boots, which were always of he brightest, creaked as he walked. Perhaps he could shake his head, rub his hands, or warm himself before a fire better than any man alive; and he had a peculiar way of smacking his lips and saying, "Ah!" at intervals while patients detailed their symptoms, which inspired great confidence. It seemed to express, "I know what you're going to say better than you do; but go on, go on." As he talked on all occasions, whether he had anything to say or not, it was unanimously observed of him that he was "full of anecdote," and his experience and profit from it were considered for the same reason, to be something much too extensive for description. His female patients could never praise him too highly; and the coldest of his male admirers would always say this for him to their friends, "that whatever Jobling's professional skill might be (and it could not be denied that he had a very high reputation) he was one of the most comfortable fellows you ever saw in your life. Dickens.

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