I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.
Interpretation
The quote evokes imagery of sadness and despair, using a damp window as a metaphor for emotional turmoil.
In this quote, Charles Dickens illustrates the powerful connection between the external environment and internal emotions. The dampness on the window, likened to a goblin's tears, symbolizes sorrow and evokes a sense of melancholy, emphasizing how our surroundings can reflect or influence our emotional states.
In practice
In a literary analysis discussion about how nature reflects emotions in Dickens' work.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
When I was young, I struggled with authorship: with everything the word meant and failed to mean. Irish poetry was heavy with custom. Sometimes at night, when I tried to write, a ghost hand seemed to hold mine. Where could my life, my language fit in?
Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.
When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.
Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.
Espresso is to Italy, what champagne is to France.
I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.
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