--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart
with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its
merit, except that I thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul
somewhat in excess of the poetry. In my hunger for information, I
made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to bestow some intellectual crumbs
upon me; with which he kindly complied. As it turned out, how-
ever, that he only wanted me for a dramatic lay-figure, to be con-
tradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied and clutched
and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon de-
clined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in
his poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement
sounds so well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unex-
plained. I wanted to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he
might be worthier of my society and less open to Estella's reproach.

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and
a broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil were our educa-
tional implements: to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I
never knew Joe to remember anything from one Sunday to an-
other, or to acquire, under my tuition, any piece of information
whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe at the Battery with a far
more sagacious air than anywhere else--even with a learned air--
as if he considered himself to be advancing immensely. Dear fel-
low, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river
passing beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was
low, looking as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still
sailing on at the bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the
vessels standing out to sea with their white sails spread, I some-
how thought of Miss Havisham and Estella; and whenever the
light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hill-side
or water-line, it was just the same.--Miss Havisham and Estella
and the strange house and the strange life appeared to have some-
thing to do with everything that was picturesque.

One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed
himself on being 'most awful dull,' that I had given him up for the
day, I lay on the earthwork for some time with my chin on my
hand, descrying traces of Miss Havisham and Estella all over the

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