Leaving Home

From time to time I pick up Charles Dickens' David Copperfield before going to bed. At the rate I am going, I will finish it by the age of 35. I am committed to reading some classics so I do hope I speed up the process in order to read more than one before my time on earth is up. I have read Dickens before back in high school, but seeing that David Copperfield is, in Dickens' own words, his "favourite child," I was intrigued to continue reading him with this book.

Near the beginning of the book as the older Copperfield looks back on his life he retells the time when he left home. I have no commentary on it, but when I read it I cried. Maybe somewhere deep inside of you is a child like David Copperfield:

The day soon came for our going. It was such an early day that it came soon, even to me, who was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid that an earthquake or a fiery mountain, or some other great convulsion of nature, might interpose to stop the expedition. We were to go in a carrier's cart, which departed in the morning after breakfast. I would have given any money to have been allowed to wrap myself up overnight, and sleep in my hat and boots.

It touches me nearly now, although I tell it lightly, to recollect how eager I was to leave my happy home; to think how little I suspected what I did leave for ever. I am glad to recollect that when the carrier's car was at the gate, and my mother stood there kissing me, a grateful fondness for her and for the old place I had never turned my back upon before, made me cry. I am glad to know that my mother cried too, and that I felt her heart beat against mine.

I am glad to recollect that when the carrier began to move, my mother ran out at the gate, and called to him to stop, that she might kiss me once more. I am glad to dwell upon the earnestness and love with which she lifted up her face to mine, and did so.

By His Grace.