Dickens wrote many great sentences by my reckoning, but that one has always annoyed me. It is a workaday piece of prose that long overstays its welcome, finally

Dickens wrote many great sentences by my reckoning, but that one has always annoyed me. It is a workaday piece of prose that long overstays its welcome, finally admitting its own irrelevance to this or any other book. That punch line witticism is an insufficient excuse for its pride of place as a starting sentence.