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Park sang joon Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
The analyses of a text #4
The narrator recalls his adolescence.
He encountered his old nurse Peggoty's elder brother Mr. Peggotty, who was searching for his niece who fled away with the narrator's best friend leaving her fiance behind, on they way home after work.
They came in a pub, and Mr. Peggoty took out a letter which her niece sent to Mrs. Gummidge, who is Mr. Peggoty's best friend's widow, lives off Mr. Peggoty.
The following is the full content; "he" refers to her fiance.
....................
'Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my wicked hand! But try, try - not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves - and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as I deserve - as I well, well, know I deserve - but to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again!
'Dear, if your heart is hard towards me - justly hard, I know - but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most - him whose wife I was to have been - before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read - I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving - tell him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!'
[David Copperfield by Charles Dickens]
1. I'd like to know what "justly hard, I know" means "I know it is justly hard."
2. I'd like to know if "might" indicates "permission/ acquiescence."
3. I'd like to know if "from" means "after."
4. And I'd like to know what "if I was fit" means.
Thank you in advance for your help.
He encountered his old nurse Peggoty's elder brother Mr. Peggotty, who was searching for his niece who fled away with the narrator's best friend leaving her fiance behind, on they way home after work.
They came in a pub, and Mr. Peggoty took out a letter which her niece sent to Mrs. Gummidge, who is Mr. Peggoty's best friend's widow, lives off Mr. Peggoty.
The following is the full content; "he" refers to her fiance.
....................
'Oh what will you feel when you see this writing, and know it comes from my wicked hand! But try, try - not for my sake, but for uncle's goodness, try to let your heart soften to me, only for a little little time! Try, pray do, to relent towards a miserable girl, and write down on a bit of paper whether he is well, and what he said about me before you left off ever naming me among yourselves - and whether, of a night, when it is my old time of coming home, you ever see him look as if he thought of one he used to love so dear. Oh, my heart is breaking when I think about it! I am kneeling down to you, begging and praying you not to be as hard with me as I deserve - as I well, well, know I deserve - but to be so gentle and so good, as to write down something of him, and to send it to me. You need not call me Little, you need not call me by the name I have disgraced; but oh, listen to my agony, and have mercy on me so far as to write me some word of uncle, never, never to be seen in this world by my eyes again!
'Dear, if your heart is hard towards me - justly hard, I know - but, listen, if it is hard, dear, ask him I have wronged the most - him whose wife I was to have been - before you quite decide against my poor poor prayer! If he should be so compassionate as to say that you might write something for me to read - I think he would, oh, I think he would, if you would only ask him, for he always was so brave and so forgiving - tell him then (but not else), that when I hear the wind blowing at night, I feel as if it was passing angrily from seeing him and uncle, and was going up to God against me. Tell him that if I was to die tomorrow (and oh, if I was fit, I would be so glad to die!) I would bless him and uncle with my last words, and pray for his happy home with my last breath!'
[David Copperfield by Charles Dickens]
1. I'd like to know what "justly hard, I know" means "I know it is justly hard."
2. I'd like to know if "might" indicates "permission/ acquiescence."
3. I'd like to know if "from" means "after."
4. And I'd like to know what "if I was fit" means.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Top answer
1. Yes. 2.
- 1.
- Yes.
- 2.
- Yes, permission.
- 3.
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1 Answers
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1. Yes.
2. Yes, permission.
3. More or less, yes, in the sense that wind first passes him and his uncle, then passes her, then goes "up to ***".
4. "if I was suitable", i.e. (literally) suggesting that she might not even be worthy of death. This is, of course, highly melodramatic and exaggerated language.
2. Yes, permission.
3. More or less, yes, in the sense that wind first passes him and his uncle, then passes her, then goes "up to ***".
4. "if I was suitable", i.e. (literally) suggesting that she might not even be worthy of death. This is, of course, highly melodramatic and exaggerated language.
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