Great Expectations

The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke,

that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to

get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous

conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's

at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life,

and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart

all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls,

immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise

within five minutes.

The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt

may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples

and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt

collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with

a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the

pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to

hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and

a little spelling,--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this

volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of

coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then

entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject

of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon

whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at

them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been

unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed

at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with,

speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the

insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was

usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory

students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a

page, and then we all read aloud what we could,--or what we couldn't--in

a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice,

and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we

were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time,

it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy

fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate

the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of

intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition

against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the

ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch

of study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop

in which the classes were holden--and which was also Mr. Wopsle's

great-aunt's sitting-room and bedchamber--being but faintly illuminated

through the agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.