David Copperfield

Classic from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature language: English abstract: I AM BORNWhether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike and I began to cry simultaneously.In consideration of the day and hour of my birth it was declared by the nurse and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted first that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching as they believed to all unlucky infants of either gender born towards the small hours on a Friday night.I need say nothing here on the first head because nothing can show better than my history whether that prediction was verified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of the question I will only remark that unless I ran through that part of my inheritance while I was still a baby I have not come into it yet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of this property; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment of it he is heartily welcome to keep it.I was born with a caul which was advertised for sale in the newspapers at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets I don't know; all I know is that there was but one solitary bidding and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business who offered two pounds in cash and the balance in sherry but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher