David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy’s birthday, are the three married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband’s brothers, and another husband’s cousin, and another husband’s sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a patriarch; and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not glittering with Britannia metal.

And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains.

I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.

My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.

O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!

Colophon

David Copperfield
was published in 1850 by
Charles Dickens.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2009 by
Jo Churcher and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
The Writer,
a painting completed around 1850 by
Carl Spitzweg.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
May 19, 2015, 4:55 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
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