Charles Dickens

“ It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any one, that I saw the tears in Ada’s eyes, while she echoed his laugh, and felt them in my own.
“Why, what a cod’s head and shoulders I am,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “to require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from beginning to end. ”

“ The stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he did not express to me.
“Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard,” said Mr. Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his drawing with his head on one side, “here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!” ”

“ Age or change should never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed near it!”
Mr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been really a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment, glanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again, which has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by the fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending down. ”

“ Jarndyce, brightening. “Your woman’s wit hits the mark. He is a child—an absolute child. I told you he was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him.”
Certainly! Certainly! we said.
“And he is a child. Now, isn’t he?” asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening more and more.
He was indeed, we said.
“When you come to think of it, it’s the height of childishness in you—I mean me—” said Mr. Jarndyce, “to regard him for a moment as a man. You can’t make him responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!” ”

“ There’s no one here but the finest creature upon earth—a child.”
“More children, Esther!” said Ada.
“I don’t mean literally a child,” pursued Mr. Jarndyce; “not a child in years. He is grown up—he is at least as old as I am—but in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child.”
We felt that he must be very interesting.
“He knows Mrs. Jellyby,” said Mr. Jarndyce. “He is a musical man, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an amateur, but might have been a professional. ”

“ But if instead of going out at Ada’s door you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an unexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, with mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in every form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, and had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. ”

“ The furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as pleasantly irregular. Ada’s sleeping-room was all flowers—in chintz and paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with gravy ”

“ Then, for heaven’s sake, having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse! ”

“ Jarndyce. “What did Esther do?”
“Why, cousin John,” said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and shaking her head at me across him—for I wanted her to be quiet— “Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them quiet, bought them keepsakes”—My dear girl! I had only gone out with Peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!— “and, cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won’t be contradicted, Esther dear! ”

“ A word in earnest is as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home. Warm yourself!”
Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce’s suddenly disappearing) , “You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to you!” laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire.
“And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my dear?” said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada. ”

“ Jarndyce. “However, Rick, Esther, and you too, Ada, for I don’t know that even your little purse is safe from his inexperience—I must have a promise all round that nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not even sixpences.”
We all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of our transgressing.
“As to Skimpole,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “a habitable doll’s house with good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow money of would set the boy up in life. ”

“ Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. “I envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel in myself. I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if you ought to be grateful to me for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting me in my little perplexities. ”

“ I can lie down on the grass—in fine weather—and float along an African river, embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I were there. ”

“ Skimpole.
“Know’d it yes’day aft’noon at tea-time,” said Coavinses.
“It didn’t affect your appetite? Didn’t make you at all uneasy?”
“Not a bit,” said Coavinses. “I know’d if you wos missed to-day, you wouldn’t be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds.”
“But when you came down here,” proceeded Mr. Skimpole, “it was a fine day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.”
“Nobody said they warn’t, in my hearing,” returned Coavinses. ”

“ My steward’s name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can’t cheat me. We have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself into objects with surprising ardour! I don’t regret that I have not a strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself into objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. ”

“ The gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable voice had one of his arms round Ada’s waist and the other round mine, and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. Here he kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been at all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment.
“Now, Rick!” said he. “I have a hand at liberty. ”

“ You will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole—don’t be alarmed!—is arrested for debt.”
“And really, my dear Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Skimpole with his agreeable candour, “I never was in a situation in which that excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter of an hour in your society, was more needed.”
The person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave such a very loud snort that he startled me. ”

“ He had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so whimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with him than we could possibly have expressed in any words. ”

“ We can separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious. ”

“ Oh, Lord, yes, it’s due east—must be!”
“Really, sir,” said Richard, “I don’t think it would be honourable in me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us—”
“Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!” said Mr. Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short.
“Indeed, sir?”
“Everybody! And he’ll be in the same scrape again next week!” said Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his hand that had gone out. “He’s always in the same scrape. He was born in the same scrape. ”