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Dirt-VI’ ‘<60’ S)H!dG7:+V!.Dv-‘III IIlUAl'Fil""V"‘
O 7 C-02
63-; I-15" DEG 6:253-<6...-.‘
DA VID ' UOPPERFIELD.
do say. ‘ My dear Dora, unlesswe learn to ‘do our duty‘
to tliosewhom we employ, they will never learn to do
their duty to us. I am afraid,we present opportunities
to people todowrong, that never ought to be presented.
Evenlif we were as lax as we are, in,al1. onr,arrange- V
- ments, by choice,-which we are not-H-evenif we liked it
and found it agreeable to be so-which we don’t-,I am
persuaded we should have no right, to go on,in this way.
,VVe are positively corrupting people. VVe are bound. to
think of that. I can’t help thinking of it, Dora. It is a
reflection I am unable to dismiss, and it sometimes makes
me fiery uneasy. , There, dear, that's all. ;Come now.
Donft,be,foolishl’.' , , . .e . , . , . V
, ,IDora‘ would not allow me, for a’ long time, to remove
thehundkerchief. She sat sobbing and murmuring be-
hind it, that, if I wasuneasy, why had I ever been mar-
ried ?,; XVhy l1adn’t I said, eventhe day, before we went
to church, that I knew I should be uneasy, and I would
rath'er,not‘(, .If I couldn’t bear her, wliy‘didn’t I .send ,
her away to her aunt’s at Putney, or,to J nlia ,Mills in
India ‘Z, Julia would be gladto see her, and won (1 not
call,lier a transported page ; Julia never had calledher
anything of the sort. In short,-Dora was so atllicted,
andso atllicted me by being in that condition, that I felt
itwas of .no use repeating this kind of effort, though
never so mildly, and I must take some other course”
. JVhat other course was left to take! , To ‘.‘ form her
mind I” , This ‘was a. common , phrase of words which
had a fair and promising sound, and I resolved to form
Dora’s mind. ' .1 , . It
; Irbegan immediately. When Dora. was very.childish,
and’I would infinitely have preferred to humour.hcr,II
tried to be grave-and disconcertedher and myself too.
I talked to her’ ‘on the subjects which occupied >my
thoughts ; and I read Shakespeare to her-and fatigued
her to the last degree. I accustomed myself. to giving
her, as it were quite casually, little ‘scraps of useful in-
formation, or sound opinion-and she started from them
when I let them off, as if they had been crackers. I No
matter how incidentally or naturally I endeavoured to
form my little wife’s mind, I could not help seeing, that
she always had an instinctive perception of what I was
' about, and became a prey to the keenest apprehensions.
lnf particular, it was clear to,me,, that she, thought
Shakespeare a terrible follow. The formation went on .
slowly. .I I I I . ;:,: .,. I
I pressed Traddles into the service without his knowl-
edge; and whenever he came to see us, exploded my . I
mines upon him for the edification of IDora at second
hand. ,The amount;of practical wisdom I bestowed
upon Traddles in this manner was immense, and pf-the
bestquality ; but it had no other eliect ,upon Dora than
to depress-her spirits, and make, her always nervous
with the dread thatit would be her turn next. I found
myself in the condition of a schoolmaster, a ,trap,.a pit-
fall ;,,of‘always playing spiderto Dora's fly, and always
pouncing out of my hole to her infinite disturbance. I .
Still, looking forward through this intermediate stage,
to the time when there should be a perfect sympathy be-
tween Dora and me, and when,I1 should have “ formed
her mind” to my entire satisfaction,-I persevered, even
for months. ‘Finding at last,‘ however, that, although I
had been all this time a very;porcupine or hedgehog,
bristling all over with determination. I had effected
nothing, it began to occur to me that perhaps Dora’s mind
Was alreadyfornied. . ' ., ., I , ; ' wi ,.
O farther consideration this appearedso likely, that
I abandoned my scheme, whichhad had a more promis- ,
"lg appearance in words than in action ; resolving hence-
forth to be satisfied with my; child-wife, and..t0 try :30
change her into nothing else by any process. ‘.I,was
heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself,
an of seeing my darling under restraint; so, I bought
:1 pretty, pair of,car-rings for her, and a collarfor Jip,
and went home one day to make myself: 0g1'ee”-b1e- I‘
Dom was delighted with the little presents, and kissed
1118 joyfully; but, there was ,a shadow, between us,
owever slight, and I had made up 111!’ mimi that-it
should notbe there. If there must be such 0- Shadow
‘“;eYW:1el‘e, I would keep it for the future inxny own
as . I . I ..
305
.rings,in her. ears ; and then Itold herthat I feared -we
had not been uite as good company lately as we used to
be, and that the fault was mine. Which .1 since-re]y
felt, andwhich indeed it was.- I . .. . ’ I I , ,, ;
v.“ The truth is, Dora, my 1ife,”I I said; “I have been
tryingto be wise.", , , . ,
.f.‘And .to make. me wise too,” said Dora, timidly.
“Haven't you, Doady?” .I , , , . , ,
I nodded assent to the prettyinquiry of the raised
eyebrows,Iand kissed the parted lips. ‘ I . ;
I “ It's of not a bit of use,”Isa.id Dora, shaking her head,
until the ear-rings rang again. “ You know what a lit-
tlething I am, and what I wanted you to call me from
the first. .I , If you can’t do so, I uni afraid you’ll never
like me. Are you sure , on don’t think, sometimes, it
would have been better to ave-” II I , I‘
“Done what, my dear? ”I For she made no effort to
proceed. I. , , I ,
,“ Nothing I” , said Dora. I 1
“ Notliin ?” I repeated. , I ,
- She ut er arms round my neck, and laughed, and
called erself by her favourite name of a goose, and
hid her face on my shoulder in such a ‘profusion of
curls that it was quite a task to clear them away and
see it. . 1
. ,“ Don’t I think it would have been better to have done
nothing, than to have Itried to form my little wife’s
mind ?’.‘ said I, laughing at myself. “Is that the ques-
tion?‘ Yes, indeed, Ido.” 1 .- 17
‘‘Is that what you have beentrying?" cried Dora. '
.“ Oh what a shocking boy I " ,
“ But I shall never try any more,” said I. “ For I love
her dearly as she is.”
“‘Vithout a story-really?” inquired Dora, creeping
closer to me. I - ‘ , -
. f‘.Why should I seek to change," said I, “what has
been so precious to me forso long! I You never can show
better turn as your own natural self,’ my sweet Dora;
and we’ll,try no conceited experiments, but. go back to
our old way, and be happy.”
“ And be happy I” returned Dora. “ Yes I All day I
And you won’t mind things going a tiny morsel wrong,
sometimes ? ” -
“ No, 110,” said I. “ “'0 must do the best we can." I
“ And you won’t tell me, any more, that we make other
people bad,’,’ coaxed Dora ; “ will you? Because you
know it’s so dreadfully cross." ‘ '
“ No, no,f’ said I.
‘,‘It’s better for movie be stupid than uncomfortable,
isn’t it?” said Dora. I - I ‘
, ‘.‘ Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the
world.’.’ .
“ In the world I Ah Doady, it's a large place I "
She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes
up‘ to mine; kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and
sprang away. to put on Jip’s new collar. . '
So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora.
I had been unhappy in trying it ; I could not endure my
own solitary wisdom ; I could not reconcile it with her
former appeal to me as my child-wife. I resolved to do
what I could, in a quiet way, to improve our proceedings
myself ;. but I foresaw that my utmost would be very lit-
tle, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be
for ever lying in wait. . 1
And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be
between us any more, but was to rest wholly on my OWI;
heart? How did that fall? . .
The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life: It “'95
deepened, if it were changed at all ; but it W35 =15 111159‘
fined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of.sorrowful
music faintly heard in the nirrlit.-‘ lloved mi’ mfe dear”?
and I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely an-
ticipated, once, was not -the lmppmcss I 01110)" Cd: Fnfl
there was always something wanting. ‘ . ‘ V
I. In fultilmentof the compact I have made with myself,
to .reflect. my mind on this paper. 1 “S33” exam?“ iii
closely,- and bring its secrets to the lrI[,iQ‘llt. W Int
missed, I still .reg2i.rded--I always Tell“ ‘‘‘‘‘‘a5 f0’f‘e‘
tliinrr that had been a dream of my routhf 111 fancy . km
was incapable of realisation ; that I was now discovering
to be so, with some natural pain, as ali men did. But.
that it would have been better for me if my wife could
I s:it'down ‘by wifelony the Vsofa,‘and put‘ the ear-
(