Classics Retold

The horse was lazy, and shuffled along with his head down.  Like his horse, the carrier had a way of keeping his head down, and drooping  forward, with one of his arm on each of his knees.  The cart would have gone to Yarmouth without the carrier; no talk by him, only whistling.  Peggotty had enough food and drink in her basket.  We ate a lot and slept a lot.  Peggotty went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which was never relaxed even in her snore.  Up and down the lanes we went, stopped at a public house, and at other places, that I was quite tired, and when we reached Yarmouth I was very glad.  It looked rather damp and muddy, the great dull waste lay accross the coast.  I coud not help wondering, if the world was really round as my geography book said, how many part of it came to be flat.  But I reflected Yarmouth might be at one of the poles; so it was flat. As we drew near,  the landscape was cl...

 I OBSERVE Into the blank of my infancy came the first impressions - my mother and Peggotty.  My mother with her beautiful hair and youthful shape.  Peggotty with no shape at all, but her dark eyes red and hard arms and cheeks.   I remember them at a little distance stooping or kneeling down, and I walking unsteadily from one to the other.  I can feel the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it towards me.  A forefinger roughened by needlework.  I think most of us inherit this faculty to observe, but later loose it.  First and foremost, my mother and Peggotty stand out clear in my infant memory.  What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes our house, quite familiar.   On the ground floor is Peggotty's kitchen opening to a backyard; with a pigeon house on a pole, in the centre, without any pigeon in it; a great dog kennel in a corner without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walki...