Chapter: My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence--the unseen,
unfelt progress of my life--from childhood up to youth! Let me think,
as I look back upon that flowing water, now a dry channel overgrown with
leaves, whether there are any marks along its course, by which I can
remember how it ran.

A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went
together, every Sunday morning, assembling first at school for that
purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world
being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white
arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back, and hold me
hovering above those days, in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream.

I am not the last boy in the school. I have risen in a few months, over
several heads. But the first boy seems to me a mighty creature, dwelling
afar off, whose giddy height is unattainable. Agnes says 'No,' but I say
'Yes,' and tell her that she little thinks what stores of knowledge have
been mastered by the wonderful Being, at whose place she thinks I, even
I, weak aspirant, may arrive in time. He is not my private friend
and public patron, as Steerforth was, but I hold him in a reverential
respect. I chiefly wonder what he'll be, when he leaves Doctor Strong's,
and what mankind will do to maintain any place against him.

But who is this that breaks upon me? This is Miss Shepherd, whom I love.

Miss Shepherd is a boarder at the Misses Nettingalls' establishment. I
adore Miss Shepherd. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round
face and curly flaxen hair. The Misses Nettingalls' young ladies come to
the Cathedral too. I cannot look upon my book, for I must look upon
Miss Shepherd. When the choristers chaunt, I hear Miss Shepherd. In the
service I mentally insert Miss Shepherd's name--I put her in among the
Royal Family. At home, in my own room, I am sometimes moved to cry out,
'Oh, Miss Shepherd!' in a transport of love.

For some time, I am doubtful of Miss Shepherd's feelings, but, at
length, Fate being propitious, we meet at the dancing-school. I have
Miss Shepherd for my partner. I touch Miss Shepherd's glove, and feel a
thrill go up the right arm of my jacket, and come out at my hair. I say
nothing to Miss Shepherd, but we understand each other. Miss Shepherd
and myself live but to be united.

Why do I secretly give Miss Shepherd twelve Brazil nuts for a present, I
wonder? They are not expressive of affection, they are difficult to pack
into a parcel of any regular shape, they are hard to crack, even in
room doors, and they are oily when cracked; yet I feel that they are
appropriate to Miss Shepherd. Soft, seedy biscuits, also, I bestow upon
Miss Shepherd; and oranges innumerable. Once, I kiss Miss Shepherd in
the cloak-room. Ecstasy! What are my agony and indignation next day,
when I hear a flying rumour that the Misses Nettingall have stood Miss
Shepherd in the stocks for turning in her toes!

Miss Shepherd being the one pervading theme and vision of my life, how
do I ever come to break with her? I can't conceive. And yet a coolness
grows between Miss Shepherd and myself. Whispers reach me of Miss
Shepherd having said she wished I wouldn't stare so, and having avowed a
preference for Master Jones--for Jones! a boy of no merit whatever! The
gulf between me and Miss Shepherd widens. At last, one day, I meet the
Misses Nettingalls' establishment out walking. Miss Shepherd makes
a face as she goes by, and laughs to her companion. All is over. The
devotion of a life--it seems a life, it is all the same--is at an end;
Miss Shepherd comes out of the morning service, and the Royal Family
know her no more.

I am higher in the school, and no one breaks my peace. I am not at all
polite, now, to the Misses Nettingalls' young ladies, and shouldn't
dote on any of them, if they were twice as many and twenty times as
beautiful. I think the dancing-school a tiresome affair, and wonder why
the girls can't dance by themselves and leave us alone. I am growing
great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots. Doctor Strong
refers to me in public as a promising young scholar. Mr. Dick is wild
with joy, and my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post.

The shade of a young butcher rises, like the apparition of an armed head
in Macbeth. Who is this young butcher? He is the terror of the youth
of Canterbury. There is a vague belief abroad, that the beef suet with
which he anoints his hair gives him unnatural strength, and that he is
a match for a man. He is a broad-faced, bull-necked, young butcher, with
rough red cheeks, an ill-conditioned mind, and an injurious tongue.
His main use of this tongue, is, to disparage Doctor Strong's young
gentlemen. He says, publicly, that if they want anything he'll give it
'em. He names individuals among them (myself included), whom he could
undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. He
waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls
challenges after me in the open streets. For these sufficient reasons I
resolve to fight the butcher.

It is a summer evening, down in a green hollow, at the corner of a wall.
I meet the butcher by appointment. I am attended by a select body of our
boys; the butcher, by two other butchers, a young publican, and a sweep.
The preliminaries are adjusted, and the butcher and myself stand face to
face. In a moment the butcher lights ten thousand candles out of my left
eyebrow. In another moment, I don't know where the wall is, or where
I am, or where anybody is. I hardly know which is myself and which the
butcher, we are always in such a tangle and tussle, knocking about upon
the trodden grass. Sometimes I see the butcher, bloody but confident;
sometimes I see nothing, and sit gasping on my second's knee; sometimes
I go in at the butcher madly, and cut my knuckles open against his face,
without appearing to discompose him at all. At last I awake, very queer
about the head, as from a giddy sleep, and see the butcher walking off,
congratulated by the two other butchers and the sweep and publican, and
putting on his coat as he goes; from which I augur, justly, that the
victory is his.

I am taken home in a sad plight, and I have beef-steaks put to my eyes,
and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great puffy place
bursting out on my upper lip, which swells immoderately. For three or
four days I remain at home, a very ill-looking subject, with a green
shade over my eyes; and I should be very dull, but that Agnes is a
sister to me, and condoles with me, and reads to me, and makes the time
light and happy. Agnes has my confidence completely, always; I tell her
all about the butcher, and the wrongs he has heaped upon me; she thinks
I couldn't have done otherwise than fight the butcher, while she shrinks
and trembles at my having fought him.

Time has stolen on unobserved, for Adams is not the head-boy in the days
that are come now, nor has he been this many and many a day. Adams has
left the school so long, that when he comes back, on a visit to Doctor
Strong, there are not many there, besides myself, who know him. Adams is
going to be called to the bar almost directly, and is to be an advocate,
and to wear a wig. I am surprised to find him a meeker man than I had
thought, and less imposing in appearance. He has not staggered the world
yet, either; for it goes on (as well as I can make out) pretty much the
same as if he had never joined it.

A blank, through which the warriors of poetry and history march on in
stately hosts that seem to have no end--and what comes next! I am
the head-boy, now! I look down on the line of boys below me, with a
condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy I was
myself, when I first came there. That little fellow seems to be no part
of me; I remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--as
something I have passed, rather than have actually been--and almost
think of him as of someone else.

And the little girl I saw on that first day at Mr. Wickfield's, where
is she? Gone also. In her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture,
a child likeness no more, moves about the house; and Agnes--my sweet
sister, as I call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the
better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good,
self-denying influence--is quite a woman.

What other changes have come upon me, besides the changes in my growth
and looks, and in the knowledge I have garnered all this while? I wear
a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed
coat; and I use a great deal of bear's grease--which, taken in
conjunction with the ring, looks bad. Am I in love again? I am. I
worship the eldest Miss Larkins.

The eldest Miss Larkins is not a little girl. She is a tall, dark,
black-eyed, fine figure of a woman. The eldest Miss Larkins is not a
chicken; for the youngest Miss Larkins is not that, and the eldest must
be three or four years older. Perhaps the eldest Miss Larkins may be
about thirty. My passion for her is beyond all bounds.

The eldest Miss Larkins knows officers. It is an awful thing to bear. I
see them speaking to her in the street. I see them cross the way to meet
her, when her bonnet (she has a bright taste in bonnets) is seen coming
down the pavement, accompanied by her sister's bonnet. She laughs and
talks, and seems to like it. I spend a good deal of my own spare time in
walking up and down to meet her. If I can bow to her once in the day (I
know her to bow to, knowing Mr. Larkins), I am happier. I deserve a bow
now and then. The raging agonies I suffer on the night of the Race Ball,
where I know the eldest Miss Larkins will be dancing with the military,
ought to have some compensation, if there be even-handed justice in the
world.

My passion takes away my appetite, and makes me wear my newest silk
neckerchief continually. I have no relief but in putting on my best
clothes, and having my boots cleaned over and over again. I seem, then,
to be worthier of the eldest Miss Larkins. Everything that belongs to
her, or is connected with her, is precious to me. Mr. Larkins (a gruff
old gentleman with a double chin, and one of his eyes immovable in his
head) is fraught with interest to me. When I can't meet his daughter,
I go where I am likely to meet him. To say 'How do you do, Mr. Larkins?
Are the young ladies and all the family quite well?' seems so pointed,
that I blush.

I think continually about my age. Say I am seventeen, and say that
seventeen is young for the eldest Miss Larkins, what of that? Besides,
I shall be one-and-twenty in no time almost. I regularly take walks
outside Mr. Larkins's house in the evening, though it cuts me to the
heart to see the officers go in, or to hear them up in the drawing-room,
where the eldest Miss Larkins plays the harp. I even walk, on two or
three occasions, in a sickly, spoony manner, round and round the house
after the family are gone to bed, wondering which is the eldest Miss
Larkins's chamber (and pitching, I dare say now, on Mr. Larkins's
instead); wishing that a fire would burst out; that the assembled crowd
would stand appalled; that I, dashing through them with a ladder, might
rear it against her window, save her in my arms, go back for something
she had left behind, and perish in the flames. For I am generally
disinterested in my love, and think I could be content to make a figure
before Miss Larkins, and expire.

Generally, but not always. Sometimes brighter visions rise before me.
When I dress (the occupation of two hours), for a great ball given at
the Larkins's (the anticipation of three weeks), I indulge my fancy with
pleasing images. I picture myself taking courage to make a declaration
to Miss Larkins. I picture Miss Larkins sinking her head upon my
shoulder, and saying, 'Oh, Mr. Copperfield, can I believe my ears!' I
picture Mr. Larkins waiting on me next morning, and saying, 'My dear
Copperfield, my daughter has told me all. Youth is no objection. Here
are twenty thousand pounds. Be happy!' I picture my aunt relenting,
and blessing us; and Mr. Dick and Doctor Strong being present at the
marriage ceremony. I am a sensible fellow, I believe--I believe,
on looking back, I mean--and modest I am sure; but all this goes on
notwithstanding. I repair to the enchanted house, where there are
lights, chattering, music, flowers, officers (I am sorry to see), and
the eldest Miss Larkins, a blaze of beauty. She is dressed in blue, with
blue flowers in her hair--forget-me-nots--as if SHE had any need to wear
forget-me-nots. It is the first really grown-up party that I have ever
been invited to, and I am a little uncomfortable; for I appear not to
belong to anybody, and nobody appears to have anything to say to me,
except Mr. Larkins, who asks me how my schoolfellows are, which he
needn't do, as I have not come there to be insulted.

But after I have stood in the doorway for some time, and feasted my eyes
upon the goddess of my heart, she approaches me--she, the eldest Miss
Larkins!--and asks me pleasantly, if I dance?

I stammer, with a bow, 'With you, Miss Larkins.'

'With no one else?' inquires Miss Larkins.

'I should have no pleasure in dancing with anyone else.'

Miss Larkins laughs and blushes (or I think she blushes), and says,
'Next time but one, I shall be very glad.'

The time arrives. 'It is a waltz, I think,' Miss Larkins doubtfully
observes, when I present myself. 'Do you waltz? If not, Captain
Bailey--'

But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss
Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He
is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been
wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don't know where,
among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a
blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone
with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink
camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my button-hole. I give it
her, and say:

'I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.'

'Indeed! What is that?' returns Miss Larkins.

'A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.'

'You're a bold boy,' says Miss Larkins. 'There.'

She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into
my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and
says, 'Now take me back to Captain Bailey.'

I am lost in the recollection of this delicious interview, and the
waltz, when she comes to me again, with a plain elderly gentleman who
has been playing whist all night, upon her arm, and says:

'Oh! here is my bold friend! Mr. Chestle wants to know you, Mr.
Copperfield.'

I feel at once that he is a friend of the family, and am much gratified.

'I admire your taste, sir,' says Mr. Chestle. 'It does you credit. I
suppose you don't take much interest in hops; but I am a pretty
large grower myself; and if you ever like to come over to our
neighbourhood--neighbourhood of Ashford--and take a run about our
place,--we shall be glad for you to stop as long as you like.'

I thank Mr. Chestle warmly, and shake hands. I think I am in a happy
dream. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins once again. She says I
waltz so well! I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in
imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear
divinity. For some days afterwards, I am lost in rapturous reflections;
but I neither see her in the street, nor when I call. I am imperfectly
consoled for this disappointment by the sacred pledge, the perished
flower.

'Trotwood,' says Agnes, one day after dinner. 'Who do you think is going
to be married tomorrow? Someone you admire.'

'Not you, I suppose, Agnes?'

'Not me!' raising her cheerful face from the music she is copying. 'Do
you hear him, Papa?--The eldest Miss Larkins.'

'To--to Captain Bailey?' I have just enough power to ask.

'No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.'

I am terribly dejected for about a week or two. I take off my ring, I
wear my worst clothes, I use no bear's grease, and I frequently lament
over the late Miss Larkins's faded flower. Being, by that time, rather
tired of this kind of life, and having received new provocation from
the butcher, I throw the flower away, go out with the butcher, and
gloriously defeat him.

This, and the resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease
in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in my progress to
seventeen.

 A Retrospect In retrospect, the adult David recounts several years in Doctor Strong's school and his two love interests during his time there--a young girl named Miss Shepherd and an older woman named Miss Larkins. David also recalls a fistfight he had with a young arrogant butcher. Eventually, to his surprise, David rose to be the top boy at the school. When he was seventeen, he graduated.

