My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my

infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit

than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his

tombstone and my sister,--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith.

As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness

of either of them (for their days were long before the days of

photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were

unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on

my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man,

with curly black hair.

From the character and turn of the inscription,

"Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that

my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each

about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside

their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of

mine,--who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in

that universal struggle,--I am indebted for a belief I religiously

entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands

in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of

existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river

wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression

of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable

raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain

that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and

that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the

above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham,

Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead

and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard,

intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle

feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond

was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was

rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid

of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from

among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you

little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"




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