I've progressed in Bleak House to the episode in which Allan Woodcourt, back in England after his trip with the navy to India, ministers to Jo, the homeless steet-sweeper.
"It surely is a strange fact," [Allan] considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of than an unowned dog."
You would not call Dickens a master of realism. Most of the leading characters in Bleak House are either perfectly good (John Jarndyce, Esther, Allan) or perfectly wicked (Tulkinghorn, Vholes, the Smallweeds). Lady Dedlock and Richard Carstone are exceptions but they do not seem to me particularly memorable. The novel is memorable despite seeming finally remote from the experience of most of us. The scene with Allan and Jo is memorable in a way that may put you in mind of Edgar's ministrations to his father in the fourth act of King Lear--touching, tender, pitiable, and unlike anything I've come across in my life.
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