Year: 1872

! 4" companion to Mick Walker and


Mealy Potatoes" and his tears min


gled with the water in which he and


they rinsed and washed out bottles.


1t had all been as fact, before he


thought of any other use for it; and


1t was not untifseveral months later,


when the fancy of david Copper


field," itself suggested by what he


had so written Of his early troubles,


began to take shape in his mind, that


he abandoned his first intention of


writing his own life. Those warehouse


experiences fell then so aptly into the


subject he had chosen that he could


not resist the temptation of immedi-


ately using them; and the manuscript
recording them, which was but the
first portion of what he had designed


to write, was embodied in the sub


stance of the eleventh and earlier
chapters of his novel. What already


had been sent to me, however, and
proof-sheets Of the novel interlined at
the time, enable me now to separate


the fact from the fiction, and to supply


to the story of the authors childhood
those passages omitted from the book,


which, apart from their illustration
OF the growth of his character, present
to US n picture of tragieal suffering,
and Of tender as well as humorous
fancy, unsurpassed in even the Won
ders of his published writings.


THE SPECTRE OF HIS LIFE.


Writing in his own proper person,
in the fragment to which ailusion has
been made, Dickens said Of this period
of his life:


1.-The deep remembrance ofthe sense
l had Of being utterly neglected and
hopeless Of the misery It was to my
young heart to believe that, day by
day, what / had learned, and thought
and delighted in, and raised my fancy
and my emulation up by, was passing
away from me, never to be brought
back any more, cannot be written.
My whole nature was so penetrated
with the grief and humiliation ofsuch
considerations, thateven now, famous
and caressed and happy, often forget
in my dreams that / have a dear wife
and children; even that I am a man,
and wander desolately back to that
time of my life. My mother and my
brothers and sisters excepting fanny,
in the Royal Academy of Music)
were still encamped with a young
servant girl from Chatham work
house, in the two parlOrs in the
emptied house in Cover street North.
1t was long, way to go and return
within the dinner hour, aud usually
l either carried my dinner with me,
or went and bought it at some neigh
boring shop. In the latter case it
was commonly a savelOy and a penny
loaf; sometimes a fourpenny plate of
beef from cooks shop; sometimes
a plate of bread and cheese and a glass
of beer, from a miserable old public
house over the way-the Swan, if re-
member right, or the Swan and some
thing else that I have forgotten. |
Once 1 remember tucking my own
bread (Which / had brought from
home in the morning) under my arm,
wrapped up in a piece of paper like a |
book, and going into the best dining,
room in Johnson's alamode-beef |
house in Charles court, Drury lane, !
and magnifcently ordering a small |
plate Of alamOde beef to eat with it. |
What the waiter thought of such a |
strange, little appaTitiOn, coming in |
all alone, don't know; but can see !
him now, staring at me as ate my /
dinner, and bringing up the other |
waiter to look. l gave him a half /
penny, and 1 wish, now, he hadn't
taken il"


A GLIB1IER OF LIGHT.


In these and other passages the
readers will recognize some of the /
earliest parts of "Copperfeld." Mr..
John Dickens being unable to make
any arrangement with his creditors,
Mrs. Dickens was obliged to break up
her poor household in Cover street
North, and 90 into the Marshalsea.
The autobiography then proceeds:


The key of the house was sent back
10 the landlord, who was very glad to
get it: and I (small Cain that was,
except that ] had never done harm to
my one) was handed over Is ledger
1ur family, in Little College street,
% board, and had once done so at
Brighten, and who, with few altera-
ions and embellishments, uneon-
IciousIy began to sit for Mrs. Pipehin
n "DOmbey'' when she took me in.


She had a little brother and sister
lnder care then, somebody's natural
who were very irregularly
paid for, and a widows little son.
The two boys and slept in the same
'oom. My own exclusive breakfast
II. penny cottage loaf and penny
worth of milk I provided for myself.
kept another small loaf and a 1uar-
er OF q pound of cheese on a particu-
ar shelfOf apartieular cupboard, to
make my supper on when came back
It night. They made hole in the
tx or seven shillings knew well
md 1 was out at the blacking ware
louse all day, and had to support
myself upon that money all the week.
suppose my lodging was paid for by
ny father. I certainly did not pay it
myself, and 1 certainly had no other
assistance whatever (the making Of
ny clothes, 1 think, exeepted) from
Monday morning until Saturday
light. No advice, no counsel, no en-
no consolation, no sup
,ort, from any one that can call to
mind.


50 HELP NE GOD.


Sundays Fanny and I passed in the