[I AM THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS]566
[I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS]605
[A STRANGER CALLS TO SEE ME]615
ERRATA.
- Page 74, line 7 from bottom of page, for “bo’” read “bor’.”
- Page 74, “ 2 from bottom of page, make the same correction.
- Page 76, “ 14 from bottom of page, make the same correction.
- Page 102, “ 21 from top of page, make the same correction.
- Page 102, twenty lines in advance, make the same correction.
- Page 558, line 19 from bottom of page, for “Norwich” read “Ipswich.”
THE
PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE
OF
DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER.
CHAPTER I.
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.