The Uncommercial Traveller

“can see back to very early days indeed, when my bad dreams”

— Charles Dickens

“Therefore I took refuge in the caves of ignorance, wherein I have resided ever since, and which are still my private address.””

— Charles Dickens

“For precious secrets in reference to beer, am I likewise beholden to him, involving warning against the beer of a certain establishment, by reason of its having turned sour through failure in point of demand: though my young sage is not of opinion that similar deterioration has befallen the ale. ””

— Charles Dickens

“The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented by circumstances over which they had no control from drinking peaceably.  We, the boat, become violently agitated”

— Charles Dickens

“wonder that the great master who knew everything, when he called Sleep the death of each day’s life, did not call Dreams the insanity of each day’s sanity.””

— Charles Dickens

“And this reminds me of my own village church where, during sermon-time on bright Sundays when the birds are very musical indeed, farmers’ boys patter out over the stone pavement, and the clerk steps out from his desk after them, and is distinctly heard in the summer repose to pursue and punch them in the churchyard, and is seen to return with a meditative countenance, making believe that nothing of the sort has happened. ””

— Charles Dickens

“Lord, how the time and Life steal on! It was but yesterday that Katie always had a scratched knee”

— Charles Dickens

“My old acquaintances the begging-letter writers came out on the fly-leaf, very piously indeed.  They were glad, at such a serious crisis, to afford me another opportunity of sending that Post-office order.  I needn’t make it a pound, as previously insisted on; ten shillings might ease my mind.  And Heaven forbid that they should refuse, at such an insignificant figure, to take a weight off the memory of an erring fellow-creature! ””

— Charles Dickens

“Down by the Docks, scraping fiddles go in the public-houses all day long, and, shrill above their din and all the din, rises the screeching of innumerable parrots brought from foreign parts, who appear to be very much astonished by what they find on these native shores of ours.  Possibly the parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that Down by the Docks is the road to the Pacific Ocean, with its lovely islands, where the savage girls plait flowers, and the savage boys carve cocoa-nut shells, and the grim blind idols muse in their shady groves to exactly the same purpose as the priests and chiefs.  And possibly the parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that the noble savage is a wearisome impostor wherever he is, and has five hundred thousand volumes of indifferent rhyme, and no reason, to answer for.””

— Charles Dickens