Bionic Jean’s Reviews > Martin Chuzzlewit > Status Update

Mark Tapley - 'Why, I was a-thinking, sir, 'that if I was a painter and was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?' ... I should want to draw it like a Bat, for its short-sightedness; like a Bantam, for its bragging; like a Magpie, for its honesty; like a Peacock, for its vanity; like a ostrich for its putting its head in the mud, and thinking nobody sees it - '

Mr. Montague Tigg, now transformed into Mr. Tigg Montague, put a proposition to Jonas Chuzzlewit ...

"Why should I disguise what you know so well, but what the crowd never dream of? We companies are all birds of prey; mere birds of prey. The only question is, whether in serving our own turn, we can serve yours too; whether in double-lining our own nest, we can put a single lining into yours."

"He had fallen from his chair in a fit, and lay there, battling for each gasp of breath, with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting in its place, as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age, and sternly pleading with Nature against his recovery... frightful to see how the principle of life, shut up within his withered frame, fought like a strong devil, mad to be released, and rent its ancient prison-house

"Free from that cramped prison called the earth, and out upon the waste of waters... roaring, raging, shrieking, howling, all night long. Hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the coast of that small island, sleeping, a thousand miles away, so quietly in the midst of angry waves...until the sea, lashed into passion like their own, leaps up, in ravings mightier than theirs, and the whole scene is madness

Dickens describes London's alleys and byways ...
"Todgers's was in a labyrinth, whereof the mystery was known but to a chosen few... deep among the foundations of these buildings, the ground was undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday rattling their halters, as disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their chains."