opinion, good or bad, did not covet their approval, and did not write for their amusement.
It has been observed of Nancy that her devotion to the brutal housebreaker does not seem natural. And it has been objected to Sikes in the same breath—with some inconsistency, as I venture to think—that he is surely overdrawn, because in him there would appear to be none of those redeeming traits which are objected to as unnatural in his mistress. Of the latter objection I will merely remark that I fear there are in the world some insensible and callous natures that do become utterly and incurably bad. Whether this be so or not, of one thing I am certain: that there are such men as Sikes, who, being closely followed through the same space of time and through the same current of circumstances, would not give, by the action of a moment, the faintest indication of a better nature. Whether every gentler human feeling is dead within such bosoms, or the proper chord to strike has rusted and is hard to find, I do not pretend to know; but that the fact is as I state it, I am sure.
It is useless to discuss whether the conduct and character of the girl seems natural or unnatural, probable or improbable, right or wrong. IT IS TRUE. Every man who has watched these melancholy shades of life must know it to be so. From the first introduction of that poor wretch to her laying her blood-stained head upon the robber’s breast, there is not a word exaggerated or overwrought. It is emphatically God’s truth, for it is the truth He leaves in such depraved and miserable breasts, the hope yet lingering there, the last fair drop of water at the bottom of the weed-choked well. It involves the best and worst shades of our nature, much of its ugliest hues and something of its most beautiful; it is a contradiction, an anomaly, an apparent impossibility; but it is a truth. I am glad to have had it doubted, for in that circumstance I should find a sufficient assurance (if I wanted any) that it needed to be told.
In the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty it was publicly declared in London by an amazing Alderman that Jacob’s Island did not exist and never had existed. Jacob’s Island continues to exist (like an ill-bred place as it is) in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, though improved and much changed.
CHAPTER I
Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born.
and of the circumstances attending his birth.
AMONG OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN A CERTAIN TOWN, WHICH for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one an ciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born—on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events—the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all, in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared, or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography extant in the literature of any age or country.
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy
It has been observed of Nancy that her devotion to the brutal housebreaker does not seem natural. And it has been objected to Sikes in the same breath—with some inconsistency, as I venture to think—that he is surely overdrawn, because in him there would appear to be none of those redeeming traits which are objected to as unnatural in his mistress. Of the latter objection I will merely remark that I fear there are in the world some insensible and callous natures that do become utterly and incurably bad. Whether this be so or not, of one thing I am certain: that there are such men as Sikes, who, being closely followed through the same space of time and through the same current of circumstances, would not give, by the action of a moment, the faintest indication of a better nature. Whether every gentler human feeling is dead within such bosoms, or the proper chord to strike has rusted and is hard to find, I do not pretend to know; but that the fact is as I state it, I am sure.
It is useless to discuss whether the conduct and character of the girl seems natural or unnatural, probable or improbable, right or wrong. IT IS TRUE. Every man who has watched these melancholy shades of life must know it to be so. From the first introduction of that poor wretch to her laying her blood-stained head upon the robber’s breast, there is not a word exaggerated or overwrought. It is emphatically God’s truth, for it is the truth He leaves in such depraved and miserable breasts, the hope yet lingering there, the last fair drop of water at the bottom of the weed-choked well. It involves the best and worst shades of our nature, much of its ugliest hues and something of its most beautiful; it is a contradiction, an anomaly, an apparent impossibility; but it is a truth. I am glad to have had it doubted, for in that circumstance I should find a sufficient assurance (if I wanted any) that it needed to be told.
In the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty it was publicly declared in London by an amazing Alderman that Jacob’s Island did not exist and never had existed. Jacob’s Island continues to exist (like an ill-bred place as it is) in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, though improved and much changed.
CHAPTER I
Treats of the place where Oliver Twist was born.
and of the circumstances attending his birth.
AMONG OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN A CERTAIN TOWN, WHICH for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one an ciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born—on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events—the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all, in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared, or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography extant in the literature of any age or country.
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy
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