writing skills: David Copperfield

I usually title these posts “words I liked” which I am reluctant to use in this case because what I liked about the words I have picked out of David Copperfield was how they invoked a feeling towards a character - feelings of dislike.

The skill or the sentiment was actually captured very well by Owen King, speaking about his father Stephen King and his ability to add “… a touch of sneer to an abrasive character.”

With that in mind I give you these gems, crafted to inspire your disdain for Uriah:

…replied Uriah, with a writhe

…his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine…

…and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots…

He sat, with that carved grin on his face…

…he gasped rather than smiled at me, he writhed and undulated about, in his deferential servility…

…that crawling impersonation of meanness…

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw.

…he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishey fingers…

…with a writhe of his ungainly person…

His eyes, as he looked at me, seemed to take every shade of color that could make eyes ugly.

…he reminded me of an ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit.

I now saw him with his mask off. The suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done…

He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It’s his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts upon himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect every body that comes in, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any moment, for the last reason, or for none.