Part 29 (1/2)

His character lacked seriousness He had the fatal levity that led him to discuss the most sacred subjects in a flippant manner

His mother knew that Creakle's school was not a proper place for him, but she wished to make him conscious of his superiority even over his teacher, and she knew that Creakle, tyrannical bully though he ould yield to Steerforth, because his enerally for my son,” said she; ”far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the tih spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there”

What a perversion of the ideal of freedom in the development of character, to suppose that it could only reach perfection by a consciousness of superiority; by having some one who should control him bon before him! No man in the world is truly free who has a desire to dominate some one else--another man, a woman, or a child Yet Mrs Steerforth sacrificed her son's education in order that his ht be cultivated by the subordination of thethat a coercive tyrant like Creakle would reat capacity was te of voluntary emulation and conscious pride,” the fond lady went on to say ”He would have risen against all constraint; but he found hihtily determined to be worthy of his station It was like hian consciously to feel his better nature surrendering to his sensuality, he experienced the pangs that all strong natures feel at the loss ofMr

Peggotty at Yarmouth he seemed to be moody and disposed to sadness He said suddenly to David when they were alone one day:

”David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!”

”My dear Steerforth, what is the uided!” he exclaiuide myself better!”

There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me

He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible

”It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,” he said, getting up and leaning ainst the chimney piece, with his face toward the fire, ”than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser and be the torment to myself that I have been, in this Devil's bark of a boat, within the last half hour!”

He had already begun to poison the fountains of little E aith Eht hoed his mother with his ruin She had a scar on her lip, made by a hammer thrown by Steerforth when he was a boy

”Do you remember when he did this?” she proceeded ”Do you remember when in his inheritance of your nature, and in your paured h displeasure, and roan for what you made him!”

”Miss Dartle,” I entreated her, ”for Heaven's sake----”

”I _will_ speak,” she said, turning oneyes ”Be silent you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud false son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for h her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches

”YOU resent his self-will!” she exclaihty teray, the qualities which ave him birth! YOU, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you rewarded, _now_, for your years of trouble?”

”Miss Dartle,” said I, ”if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother----”

”Who feels for me?” she sharply retorted ”She has sown this Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!”

To show that the seed for the harvest had been sown by his mother was dickens's aim in the delineation of his character Yet she loved hiotty, when he came to plead with her for Emily:

”My son, who has been the object of ht has been devoted, whoratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth”

There was a double sadness in David's soliloquy about Steerforth, who had been his friend:

In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in hiood in hiht have reat naht of reat deal of attention is paid to child training