Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/31

6 of the organ above all, aroused whatever sentiment was in my nature. I began imagining the end of all created things, more particularly of the birds, and try as I would, I could not contain myself, and began to cry audibly. The good woman led me out, and on the way to her home endeavoured to console me by the assurance that the sparrows in the road and all other birds and beasts were but “ images” and without sense. I did not believe her, but dried my eyes, and, childlike, soon forgot all about the subject.

My father was a good all-round man, fairly well read ; he had a distinct literary bias, was a sound Shakespearian, and had great veneration for Dr. Johnson. He would sometimes read to us of an evening, when we would sit open-mouthed as we listened to the trial-scene in the “ Merchant of Venice” or the murder in “Macbeth.” “Pick- wick ” was then appearing in its green covers ; I don’t remember ever hearing any passages from that wonderful work, but do most distinctly recol- lect that scene at Dotheboys Hall, and the intense excitement we felt when Nicholas Nickleby shouts “Stop!” to Squeers as he caned poor Smike, and afterwards gives the brutal, ignorant school- master a most satisfactory flogging ! Though no linguist, my father knew his own tongue well, and enjoined accuracy and distinctness on his children