By way of fancifully odd interlude, interstitial conning of cold moon [a verily artificial sop would invoke Diana], Diana's waxed wane over the rough business of men:
"Can I say of her face — altered as I have reason to remember it, perished as I know it is — that it is gone, when here it comes before me at this instant, as distinct as any face that I may choose to look on in a crowded street? Can I say of her innocent and girlish beauty, that it faded, and was no more, when its breath falls on my cheek now, as it fell that night? Can I say she ever changed, when my remembrance brings her back to life, thus only; and, truer to its loving youth than I have been, or man ever is, still holds fast what it cherished then?"
Dickens at his sentimental worst or sentimental best? Both, I'd say, as it no doubt should be with such things.
