O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I see you again, with your muscular blacksmith’s arm before your eyes, and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel’s wing!
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 18. Pip the narrator remembers the time he left Joe’s forge to train as a gentlemen and expresses remorse over the way he treated and forsook his friend. He describes Joe’s love and fidelity, using angelic imagery to emphasize Joe’s moral goodness. The older Pip recalls the tremble of Joe’s loving hand on his arm, comparing it in a simile to the “rustle of an angel’s wing.”