"Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so well that I cannot in my conscience let it pass un-explained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my society [...].
The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study and a broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil were our educational implements: to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else - even with a learned air - as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did."
Charles Dickens
sábado, 22 de marzo de 2008
GREAT EXPECTATIONS - Narrow existence
"It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but, that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.
Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister´s temper.[...].I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common [...].
How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham´s, how much my sister´s, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.
There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interests and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more.[...]
What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?[...].
After that, when I went in to supper, the place and the meal would have a more homely look than ever and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast".
Charles Dickens
Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister´s temper.[...].I had believed in the best parlour as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common [...].
How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, how much Miss Havisham´s, how much my sister´s, is now of no moment to me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.
There have been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interests and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more.[...]
What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?[...].
After that, when I went in to supper, the place and the meal would have a more homely look than ever and I would feel more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast".
Charles Dickens
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