… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
350
|
|
MR. WICKFIELD AND HIS PARTNER WAIT UPON MY AUNT… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
364
|
|
MR. MICAWBER DELIVERS SOME VALEDICTORY REMARKS… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
378
|
|
TRADDLES MAKES A FIGURE IN PARLIAMENT, AND I REPORT HIM… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
386
|
|
THE WANDERER… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
412
|
|
TRADDLES AND I, IN CONFERENCE WITH THE MISSES SPENLOW… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
420
|
|
I AM MARRIED… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
447
|
|
OUR HOUSEKEEPING… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
454
|
|
MR. DICK FULFILS MY AUNT'S PREDICTION… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
465
|
|
THE RIVER… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
482
|
|
MR. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
512
|
|
RESTORATION OF MUTUAL CONFIDENCE BETWEEN MR. AND MRS. MICAWBER… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
539
|
|
MY CHILD-WIFE'S OLD COMPANION… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
544
|
|
I AM THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
566
|
|
THE EMIGRANTS… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
575
|
|
I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
605
|
|
A STRANGER CALLS TO SEE ME… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
615
|
ERRATA.
Table of Contents
Page 74, line 7 from bottom of page, for "bo'" read "bor'." 74,"2 from bottom of page, make the same correction. 76,"14 from bottom of page, make the same correction. 102,"21 from top of page, make the same correction. 102, twenty lines in advance, make the same correction. 558, line 19 from bottom of page, for "Norwich" read "Ipswich."
Chapter I. I am born
Table of Contents
THE
PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE
OF
DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I.
Table of Contents
I AM BORN.
WHETHER I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
I need say nothing here, on the first head, because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it, he is heartily welcome to keep it.
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork-jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss—for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then—and ten years afterwards the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short—as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she
