Quotes | Charles Dickens Info

You Could Draw Me to Fire

“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good–every good–with equal force. ~ Our Mutual Friend

More About this Quote

This quote is from Our Mutual Friend, the last novel that Dickens completed before his death.

In the novel, Bradley Headstone says the above to Lizzie Hexam.

Headstone is a schoolmaster. Lizzie is the daughter of a waterman who makes his living by finding and retrieving dead bodies from the Thames.

The gap between Headstone’s and Lizzie’s social stations is huge. However, there is another issue that torments Bradley Headstone.

Lizzie loves someone else!

The Ship’s A Good Ship

“I am not afeard, my Heart’s-delight,” resumed the Captain. “There’s been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there’s no denyin’, and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be t’other side the world. But the ship’s a good ship, and the lad’s a good lad; and it ain’t easy, thank the Lord,” the Captain made a little bow, “to break up hearts of oak, whether they’re in brigs or buzzums.” ~ Dombey and Son

“There can be no disparity

“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.” ~ David Copperfield

But what was a girl

But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested–a bad Boy–nothing more. ~ Dombey and Son

When she took her opposite

When she took her opposite place in the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, “What beautiful stars and what a glorious night!” the Secretary said “Yes,” but seemed to prefer to see the night and the stars in the light of her lovely little countenance, to looking out of window. ~ Our Mutual Friend

She rowed hard–rowed desperately, but

She rowed hard–rowed desperately, but never wildly–and seldom removed her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat. She had so laid him there, as that she might see his disfigured face; it was so much disfigured that his mother might have covered it, but it was above and beyond disfigurement in her eyes. ~ Our Mutual Friend

Dumb as a drum vith

“Dumb as a drum vith a hole in it, sir.” ~ The Pickwick Papers

Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the

Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows. ~ Bleak House

Conscience Is an Elastic and Very Flexible Article

In the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article. ~ The Old Curiosity Shop

There is not a manufacturer

There is not a manufacturer or tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man who takes a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself and those about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works doggedly on, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife and children, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing. ~ Sunday Under Three Heads