struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained
that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in
their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state
of existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river
wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad
impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been
gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time
I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with
nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this
parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried;
and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant
children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the
dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes
and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the
marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and
that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was
the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it
all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from
among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you
little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A
man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied
round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered
in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by
nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared