Aug 07, 2006 12:14
I found this quote from Dickens this morning:
"All this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good his trying to keep awake, for he won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thing, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid - it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet!" Bleak House, Chapter 25.
Did Dickens believe in that simple history of Jesus?