Polly Jean Dickens

Goddamn Europeans!
Take me back to beautiful England
And the grey damp filthiness of ages
And battered books
And fog rolling down behind the mountains
On the graveyards and dead sea-captains.

Let me walk through the stinking alleys
To the music of drunken beatings
Past the Thames river glistening
Like gold hastily sold - for nothing.
For nothing!

Let me watch night fall on the river
The moon rise up and turn to silver
The sky move
The ocean shimmer
The hedge shake
The last living rose quiver.

(Para ouvir duzentos anos depois de ter nascido Charles, tetratribisavô de Polly Jean.)

Estragos cometidos

"'Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,' said Steerforth, 'you shall tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, and I generally wake rather early in the morning. We'll go over 'em one after another. We'll make some regular Arabian Nights of it.'

...I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying it into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed on my favourite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate; and these qualities went a long way."

"'Faremos assim, puto Copperfield,' disse o Steerforth, 'contas-mos a mim. Não consigo adormecer logo de noite e normalmente acordo muito cedo de manhã. Correremos neles, um a seguir ao outro. Faremos uma espécie de Mil e Uma Noites.'
...Senti-me bastante lisonjeado com esta combinação, e demos em executá-la logo nessa noite. Os estragos que cometi sobre os meus autores favoritos, enquanto os ia interpretando, não estou em condições de o dizer, e nem mesmo o quereria saber; mas tinha neles uma fé profunda, e tinha, tanto quanto creio, uma maneira simples e sincera de os narrar; e estas qualidades serviam na perfeição."

(David Copperfield, cap. 7.)

Secar as lágrimas

"Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think it was of no use crying any more, especially as neither Roderick Random, nor that Captain in the Royal British Navy, had ever cried, that I could remember, in trying situations. The carrier, seeing me in this resolution, proposed that my pocket-handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry. I thanked him, and assented; and particularly small it looked, under those circumstances."

"Por esta altura já chorara tudo o que era possível chorar; então, pensei que não valia a pena chorar mais, mormente porque nem Roderick Random nem o tal Capitão da Marinha Real Britânica alguma vez tinham chorado, que me lembrasse, nos momentos de provação. O homem da carroça, ao ver-me assim resolvido, propôs que se estendesse o meu lenço sobre o lombo do cavalo, para o secar. Agradeci-lhe e consenti; e parecia tão minúsculo, naquelas circunstâncias."

(David Copperfield, cap. 5.)