The Week in Words

 

I did it!  I finished A Tale of Two Cities!  I’ll save my thoughts, such as they are, for another post, but I can’t resist sharing a few quotes from this fabulous story one last time. 

I like all the descriptions of Jerry Cruncher because I like Dickens’ brand of comic relief.  Here’s one more:

. . . Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust.  The honest tradesman’s manner of receiving the look did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry’s eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character.  (301)

Can’t you just picture this?

My favorite scene in the whole book, though, is when Miss Pross and Madame Defarge face off.  I positively laughed out loud at this, even though I know Madame Defarge to be a seriously evil character.  I love Miss Pross in this episode!

‘You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,’ said Miss Pross, in her breathing.  ‘Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me.  I am an Englishwoman.’  (358)

Will you indulge me for just one more from Miss Pross?

‘If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,’ returned Miss Pross, ‘and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me.  No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.’ (358)

One more time:  I love Miss Pross.  🙂

To read more quotations collected by bloggers  for The Week in Words, visit Breath of Life.  Oh, and stay tuned for my thoughts on A Tale of Two Cities!