Dickens : Charles (John Huffam) (1812-70); popular English novelist.
... but not the push yet. It seems now the need also has pushed back? For the moment. But if it is really the spiritual consciousness, how the dickens shall I get it by reading, say, Dickens, Lawrence or Nehru? Probably not! Especially Dickens. Is that why I think it a waste of time? Possibly yes. And yet I would like to read all the books. Have the attitude of nirbhar and do... said that it must be a waste of time—but "possibly" yes or "possibly" not. Reading Dickens merely cannot give you the spiritual consciousness—that is obvious. It would be a miracle if it did. Reading the Oxford Dictionary might be more helpful in that direction. Unless of course a miracle took place; then even Dickens—But otherwise it may evidently be a waste of time. D got helped by Lawrence's letters—even... if all patients were like him! Better finish injections first, then oil him. September 18, 1936 Sri Aurobindo, There you are, Sir, with your paradoxical, mysterious brevities! Dickens etc. won't give the spiritual consciousness and it is a waste of time; again, they can be done with nirbhar ! Then why should I do anything wasteful with nirbhar ? If you want to understand my ...
... feeling. 27 April 1937 Dickens and Balzac For literary creation and effective expression, who will deny that style has a great force? Of course; without style there is no literature—except in fiction, where a man with bad style like Dickens or Balzac can make up by vigour and the power of his substance. 29 October 1933 Page 550 Charles Dickens says, that is, makes a character... but its high tops are not so high, the drops not so low as in poetical literature. Then again there are great writers in prose and great prose writers and the two are by no means the same thing. Dickens and Balzac are great novelists, but their style or their frequent absence of style had better not be described; Scott attempts a style, but it is neither blameless nor has distinguishing merit. Other... character speak (seriously): "My eyes stood staring above his head"! Dickens is the most slipshod of all English writers—his English style is not worth a cuss. This sentence is the proof. The character's "eyes stood above somebody else's head staring" no doubt at their own position in astonishment at his English. His merit lies in his stories and characters (some of them) not in his language which ...
... the 'ocean' or to 'vision') and the humour will be apparent. The second example is still more interesting. Watching a fire raging, if someone exclaims: "Dickens! how it burns!", what does he seek to convey? The dictionary wryly notes: dickens (colloq., in imprecations etc.) devil, deuce. But is that all? Does the exclamatory sentence merely express the wonderment and irritation of the speaker and... and nothing more? Not so; as a matter of fact, it is packed with humour. To quote Leacock's words: "When some great forgotten genius first said 'Dickens! how it burns!' the terrific amusement lay in the fact that the name of Dickens could be used as an expletive, and 'Burns' meant either conflagration or a Scotsman." 6 Here is a third example - this time, an example of what is termed a 'humour ...
... an enduring influence; the newly created Russian literature has been, though more subtly, among the most intense of recent cultural forces. But if we leave aside Richardson and Scott and, recently, Dickens in fiction and in poetry the very considerable effects of the belated continental discovery of Shakespeare and the vehement and sudden wave of the Byronic influence, which did much to enforce the note ...
... if there are any are not so high, the drops not so low as in poetical literature. Then again there are great writers in prose and great prose writers and the two are by no means the same thing. Dickens and Balzac are great novelists, but their style or their frequent absence of style had better not be described; Scott has a style I suppose, but it is neither blameless nor has distinguishing merit ...
... The 18th century was indeed the age of satire. Voltaire was really a superb master in the field. Byron allied satire with sublimity in his work Vision of judgment. In the 19th century, Dickens, George Eliot and Balzac, although not satirists in the proper sense of the term, must be mentioned in this connection. Passing through Samuel Butler and G.B.Shaw, we come to Aldous Huxley and George ...
... stand and deliver the names of the ten or twelve best prose styles in the world's literature.... There are great writers in prose and great prose-writers and the two are by no means the same thing. Dickens and Balzac are great novelists, but their style or their frequent absence of style had better not be described; Scott attempts a style, but it is neither blameless nor is it his distinguishing merit ...
... you expected too much. Perhaps you wanted me to pour out all my treasures, which I refuse to do. If I empty it into your capacious basket, all at one go, what shall I live with? It seems that when Dickens finished writing his Oliver Twist, he began to weep, because that was his most favourite book, and he didn't know what to do after its completion. Similarly, if I empty all my stock, I may start ...
... homes and removed them in their clubs where they felt free to be themselves. It has always been so, right from the time of the Mermaid Tavern, then the Coffee Houses of the 18th century to the age of Dickens, who describes this in his works. The club is to the Englishman what the salon is to the French. So, it was in such a place of raucousness that we lived. As for me, before I finished my school studies ...
... was not enough to have brought to a halt all the important welfare works of the village, and sent "the village economy in Goa into bankruptcy," as remarked N. Sastri. "Missionaries," said Charles Dickens, "are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it." A band of monkeys in a banana grove could not have wrought more havoc. No, all that wasn't enough. The Portuguese let loose ...
... similes, metaphors and subtle implications, - proves a peerless asset in the hands of an accomplished humorist. As Prof. Leacock has observed in connection with Charles Dickens' writings: "Such comparisons were characteristic of Dickens and all his work. He was for ever comparing everything with everything else: and, above all, in this way endowing inanimate objects with life and movement; for him ...
... which is incomparable was manufactured partly by your enormous reading?" "I agree," he answered, "that without style there is no literature except in fiction where a man with a bad style like Dickens or Balzac can make up by vigour and power of his substance. But I cannot agree with you that I manufactured my style laboriously; style with any life in it cannot be manufactured. It is bom and grows ...
... Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published on 24 November 1859. 5 A.N. Wilson writes that it sold in quantities to rival the novels of Charles Dickens. On the day the book became available, all 1,250 copies were already subscribed to by the retail trade, so it went immediately into a second printing. “Almost overnight one book transformed the scientific ...
... poetic element like metre it achieves an objectionable hybrid. Leave aside spiritual truths, even non-spiritual communication in prose is spoiled by the intrusion of metre in a regular poetic way. Dickens is notoriously guilty of metricising his prose when aiming at pathos: sentence after sentence in the description of Little Nell's death is iambic blank verse not cut up in lines, and to the true artist ...
... external motive and method are native to the English mind and with many modifications have put their strong impress upon the literature. It is the ostensible method of English fiction from Richardson to Dickens; it got into the Elizabethan drama and prevented it, except in Shakespeare, from equalling the nobler work of other great periods of dramatic poetry. It throws its limiting shade over English narrative ...
... contributed would be inexcusable. Why is it inexcusable? I don't know what the Japanese or the Soviet Russian writers have contributed, but I feel quite happy and moral in my ignorance. As for reading Dickens in order to be Page 217 a literary man, that's a strange idea. He was the most unliterary bloke that ever succeeded in literature and his style is a howling desert. 19 September 1936 ...
... obligation to copy faithfully from life. The man of imagination carries a world in himself and a mere hint or suggestion from life is enough to start it going. It is recognised now that Balzac and Dickens created out of them selves their greatest characters which were not at all faithful to the life around them. Balzac's descriptions of society are hopelessly wrong, he knew nothing about it, but his ...
... who taught the law 3.BY WHICH ALL MEN MUST LIVE 4.THE POOL OF ENCHANTMENT—a tale of triumph of wisdom over death 5.THE WISDOM OF CHILDREN—Leo Tolstoy 6.DAVID COPPERFIELD—Charles Dickens 7.MY ELDER BROTHER—PremChand 8.COROMANDEL FISHERS—Sarojini Naidu 9.CASABLANCA—Felicia Hemans 10.SOCRATES 11.REMINISCENCES—Rabindra Nath Tagore 12.ALFRED NOBEL 13 ...
... For literary creation and effective expression, who will deny that style has a great force? Of course; without style there is no literature—except in fiction, where a man with bad style like Dickens or Balzac can make up by vigour and the power of his substance. Aren't all your letters so refreshing, stimulating to us because of your superb style? And to manufacture your style, you will hardly ...
... any sign of it! Many Americans at least, which was not expected! It is always the unexpected that happens, you see. February 25, 1936 You are fine, you are wonderful, Sir! How the dickens am I to make the exceptional circumstances reappear when I don't knoW what they are? I asked you what the "exceptional circumstances" were, and the only reply I extracted from you was "You are widening ...
... infantile Victorian sentiment -alism in this year of the Lord 1937? And who or what on earth you are writing about? Night sleeping? What's the idea? It sounds as if it were the sleep of Little Nell (Dickens). NB: "Between the crescent tender lips..." Sri Aurobindo: Woogh! Night's lips are tender? NB: Please try to restore it to its deserving beauty. Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid I can ...
... manner of another disciple. Dilip, well-known for his changing moods. × A light-hearted young man in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit whose ambition was to come out jolly" in the most unfavourable circumstances. × ...
... no obligation to copy faithfully from life. The man of imagination carries a world in himself and a mere hint or suggestion from life is enough to start it going. It is recognised now that Balzac & Dickens created on the contrary their greatest characters which were not at all faithful to life around them. Balzac's descriptions of society are hopelessly wrong, he knew nothing about it, but his world ...
... infantile Victorian sentimentalism in this year of the Lord 1937? And who or what on earth are you writing about? Night sleeping? What's the idea? It sounds as if it were the sleep of Little Nell (Dickens). "Between the crescent tender lips..." [Sri Aurobindo underlined "tender".] Woogh! Night's lips are tender? Please try to restore it to its deserving beauty. I am afraid I can do ...
... "Your Face", Sun-Blossoms , p. 2. × A character in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist . ...
... fiction. Some of the more well-known names in this field are: Cervantes's Don Quixote with Sancho Panza beside him, Shakespeare's Falstaff, Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain the 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme', Dickens's Mr. Picwick, Daudet's Tartarin of Tarascon, Wode-house's Jeeves, Harry Leon Wilson's Mr. Ruggles, etc. Here is a small piece illustrating humour of character: it concerns one Mr. Hallam who was ...
... Come out and have millions and millions of admirers heaped upon my promiscuity? Thank you for nothing! The letters can be thrown into the W.P.B. [Waste-paper * A light-hearted young man in Dickens's Martin Chuzxlewit. Page 311 basket] more easily than the admirers can be thrown out of the window. 69 (51)NB: Surely the soul instead of sleeping has to aspire etc. to call ...
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