"He had his literary weaknesses, Charles Dickens, but they were all dear, big, attractive ones, virtues grown a bit wild and rank. Somehow when you put him -- with his elemental humor, his inexhaustible vitality, his humanity, sympathy, and pity -- beside the Impeccables, he always looms large. Just for the moment, when the heart overpowers reason, he even makes the flawless ones look a little faded and colorless."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kate_Douglas_Wiggin