Dickens as an Educator (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...of happy childhood. But Jemmy's make believe was not ruthlessly cut short with his early childhood. He continued his imaginative operations, or it might make it clearer to say his operative imaginations, after he went to school; and those beautiful old people, Mrs. Lirriper and Major Jackman, continued their interest, their real, perfectly sympathetic interest in his plans. Neither should I tell you any news, my dear, in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest, and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother, Mrs. Edson, being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan; though what with engineering since he took a taste for it, and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols, broken iron pots, and cotton reels, and them absolutely a-getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals, it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, "Major, can't you by any means give us a communication with the guard?" the Major says, quite huffy, "No, madam, it's not to be done"; and when I says, "Why not?" the Major says, "That is between us who are in the Railway Interest, madam, and our friend, the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade"; and if you'll believe me, my dear, the Major wrote to Jemmy at School to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real), and when I says, laughing, "What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking, gentlemen?" Jemmy hugs me round the...