Editing David Copperfield (section)

==== The weight of the past ====
The past "speaks" especially to David, "a child of close observation" (chapter 2); the title of this chapter is: "I observe",<ref name=Dickens1999p14>{{harvnb|Dickens|1999|p=14}}</ref> and as an adult he is endowed with a remarkable memory.<ref>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=99}}</ref> So much so that the story of his childhood is realised so concretely that the narrator, like the reader, sometimes forgets that it is a lived past and not a present that is given to see. The [[Simple past|past tense verb]] is often the ''[[preterite]]'' for the [[Historical present|narrative]], and the sentences are often short independent propositions, each one stating a fact. Admittedly, the adult narrator intervenes to qualify or provide an explanation, without, however, taking precedence over the child's vision. And sometimes, the story is prolonged by a reflection on the functioning of the memory. So, again in chapter 2, the second and third paragraphs comment on the first memory of the two beings surrounding David, his mother, and Peggotty:

<blockquote>I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind, which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater.<br />
This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go further back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood.<ref name=Dickens1999p14 /></blockquote>

David thus succeeds, as [[George Orwell]] puts it, in standing "both inside and outside a child's mind",<ref name=Davis1999p90 /> a particularly important double vision effect in the first chapters. The perspective of the child is combined with that of the adult narrator who knows that innocence will be violated and the feeling of security broken. Thus, even before the intrusion of Mr Murdstone as step-father or Clara's death, the boy feels "intimations of mortality".<ref name=Davis1999p90 /> In the second chapter for example, when David spends a day with Mr Murdstone, during the first episode of "Brooks of Sheffield"<ref group="N">Word play containing the verb "brook", meaning "endure," and the town of "[[History of Sheffield|Sheffield]]," famous for the manufacture of cutlery. Hence Mr Murdstone's joke, "take care, if you please. Somebody's sharp".</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/feb/23/why-charles-dickenss-best-character-is-non-existent |title=Why Charles Dickens's best character is non-existent |last=Christie |first=Sally |newspaper=The Guardian|location=London |date=22 February 2016 |access-date=8 April 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/the-gift-that-led-dickens-to-give-up-his-treasured-copy-of-david-copperfield-7676012.html |title=The gift that led Dickens to give up his treasured copy of David Copperfield |newspaper=The Independent |date=25 April 2012 |last=Alberge |first=Dalya |access-date=8 April 2019}}</ref> in which, first blow to his confidence, he realises little by little that Mr Murdstone and his comrade Quinion are mocking him badly:

<blockquote>
'That's Davy,' returned Mr Murdstone.<br />
'Davy who?' said the gentleman. 'Jones?'<br />
'Copperfield' said Mr Murdstone.<br />
'What! Bewitching Mrs Copperfield's incumbrance?' cried the gentleman. 'The pretty little widow?'<br />
'Quinion,' said Mr Murdstone, 'take care, if you please. Somebody's sharp.'<br />
'Who is?' asked the gentleman laughing.<br />
I looked up quickly, being curious to know.<br />
'Only Brooks of Sheffield', said Mr Murdstone.<br />
I was quite relieved to find that it was only Brooks of Sheffield, for, at first, I really thought it was I.<br />
There seemed to be something very comical in the reputation of Mr Brooks of Sheffield, for both the gentlemen laughed heartily when he was mentioned, and Mr Murdstone was a good deal amused also.<ref>{{harvnb|Dickens|1999|p=22}}</ref></blockquote>

The final blow, brutal and irremediable this time, is the vision, in chapter 9, of his own reflection in his little dead brother lying on the breast of his mother: "The mother who lay in the grave was the mother of my infancy; the little creature in her arms was myself, as I had once been, hushed forever on her bosom".<ref>{{harvnb|Dickens|1999|p=110}}</ref>