David Copperfield: Chapter 60

Summary

Storytime for Grownups

Host: Faith Moore
Episode: David Copperfield: Chapter 60
Date: August 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Storytime for Grownups, Faith Moore guides listeners through the penultimate emotional arc of David Copperfield, focusing on Chapter 60 of Charles Dickens’s classic novel. As the book nears its conclusion, Faith explores themes of homecoming, longing, and unresolved emotional attachments in David’s life, especially his relationship with Agnes. The episode weaves together literary analysis, reflections, and a heartfelt reading—making classic literature accessible, engaging, and deeply personal.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Approaching the End of the Book

• Faith and co-host reflect on the journey of reading David Copperfield together since January, and the sense of bittersweetness as they near the finish line.
  • "It's starting to get very real, you guys. And I don't know, I don't know if I'm ready to let this story go. Are you?" (01:06, Faith Moore)

2. Recap of Chapter 59

• Faith recaps David’s return to England after years abroad:
  • His secretive homecoming and initial loneliness.
  • Moving reunion with Traddles, now married to Sophie, and surrounded by her sisters.
  • News of Mr. and Mrs. Murdstone via Dr. Chillip, learning their grim dynamic continues.
  • David’s arrival at Miss Betsy’s home, reuniting with parental figures.

3. Listener Comments and Community Reflections (06:01–07:57)

• Faith reads several community letters, highlighting:
  • The joy in Traddles and Sophie’s modest but warm married life.
  • The sweetness and authenticity of friendships in the novel.
  • Lingering frustration with the fate of the Murdstones.

4. Literary Analysis: Homecoming, Longing, and Melancholy

• Faith notes David’s separation and distance upon returning, emphasizing Dickens’s choices:
  • "He's kind of an observer of all of these people and relationships that he was once totally a part of." (08:28, Co-host)
• The importance of romantic love in Dickens’ worldview and David’s personal narrative.
  • "So I really do think that for David's story to end properly, we need some kind of resolution to this question of how he's going to spend the rest of his life." (10:02, Co-host)
• The emotional complexity of David’s return:
  • Thrill in surprising loved ones versus the reality of coming back to “no welcome”.
  • "There are no arms to rush into, no lips to kiss, no wonderful warm home... So he's all alone." (11:01, Faith Moore)
  • Traddles’s chaotic, love-filled domesticity as a sharp contrast to David’s solitary state.

5. Dickensian Domestic Bliss vs. Personal Emptiness (14:32–18:01)

• Vivid scene of Traddles’s bustling household:
  • Faith quotes the passage where David falls into the middle of familial laughter, serving as both joy and a painful reminder of what he lacks.
  • "My dearest Copperfield, my long lost and most welcome friend. How glad I am to see you. How brown you are..." (15:15, Traddles, quoted by Faith Moore)
  • Traddles’s contentment contrasts with David’s longing, and despite happiness for his friend, David’s loneliness is palpable.
  • The possibility—and David's fear—of never attaining that form of happiness.

6. Agnes and Unresolved Affection (18:05–19:39)

• David’s internal struggle and the sense that the ending he craves is union with Agnes.
• Faith reads and paraphrases David’s inner thoughts:
  • "She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love I had taught to be my sister..." (18:14, David, quoted by Faith)
  • The audience is meant to yearn—alongside David—for romantic resolution with Agnes.

7. The Murdstones and Narrative Closure (19:39–20:45)

• The meeting with Mr. Chillip: closure for secondary characters, chiefly the Murdstones, whose villainy persists but whose punishment is mainly their own misery.
  • "They undergo a continual punishment, for they are turned inward to feed upon their own hearts and their own are very bad feeding." (20:56, Mr. Chillip, quoted by Faith)

8. Thematic Full Circle and Signs of New Beginning (21:15–22:27)

• Faith identifies Dickens’s gesture toward narrative circularity:
  • David meets the doctor who delivered him, hinting at potential rebirth or transformation.
  • "There’s just sort of the slightest hint, the slightest whisper here of a new beginning..." (21:46, Faith Moore)

9. Parental Homes as the Past, not Future (22:27–23:18)

• Discussion of David’s return to Miss Betsy, Mr. Dick, and Peggotty—a loving but backward-looking home.

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Chapter 60 Read-Aloud and Commentary

The Aunt’s Wisdom and Agnes’s Situation (24:57–29:09)

• Faith reads the conversation between David and his aunt about Agnes:
  • His aunt is proud of Agnes, hints at a possible attachment, but is ambiguous about Agnes's feelings.
  • "If she trains the young girls whom she has about her to be like herself... heaven knows her life will be well employed." (27:14, Aunt Betsy, quoted by Faith)
  • David’s internal regret and self-reproach for missing his chance are palpable.

David’s Visit to Agnes (29:30–44:33)

• Faith narrates David’s return to his childhood home and his emotionally charged reunion with Agnes.
  • Past memories and feelings well up as he enters the unchanged rooms.
  • Their exchange is layered with affection, restraint, and unspoken longing.
  • David’s struggle to remain in the role of “brother” to Agnes, despite his deeper feelings.
  • "It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care…" (35:53, David, quoted by Faith)
  • Mr. Wickfield recounts Agnes’s mother’s story, linking past sorrows to present character.
    • "She had an affectionate and gentle heart, he said, and it was broken." (39:36, Mr. Wickfield, quoted by Faith)
  • Agnes and David’s emotional but self-controlled farewell is full of undercurrents:
    • "Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to you and love you as I do now and have always done." (43:00, David to Agnes)
    • Agnes’s smile through tears, her unvoiced pain, and David’s uncertain hopes close the chapter.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Faith Moore (reflecting on the podcast’s journey):
  "It's just such a joy...something about reading a longer book and sticking with it for such a long time...it has made it feel like home. Like these are our friends." (01:27)

• On Traddles’s domestic happiness:
  "The Society of Girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful." (17:01, Traddles, quoted by Faith)

• On the Murdstones’ fate:
  "They undergo a continual punishment, for they are turned inward to feed upon their own hearts, and their own are very bad feeding." (20:56, Mr. Chillip)

• On David’s longing for Agnes:
  "She in whom I might have inspired a dearer love I had taught to be my sister..." (18:14, David)

• David’s commitment to Agnes, despite uncertainty:
  "You will always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister." (43:05, David)

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Important Timestamps

• [01:06] – Reflections on nearing the book's end
• [04:24] – Recap of Chapter 59 events
• [06:01] – Listener comments and letters
• [08:29] – Faith’s analysis: David’s outsider perspective on returning home
• [14:02] – David’s “fall” into Traddles's domestic bliss
• [15:15] – The emotional reunion scene with Traddles
• [18:14] – David’s confession of feelings for Agnes
• [20:56] – Mr. Chillip’s judgment on the Murdstones
• [24:57–29:09] – Aunt Betsy and David discuss Agnes’s prospects and David’s regrets
• [29:30] – David’s visit to Agnes and old home, culminating in an emotionally fraught reunion
• [39:36] – Mr. Wickfield’s revelation about Agnes’s mother
• [43:00] – David’s moving commitment to Agnes as “sister”
• [46:25] – End-of-episode reminders and outro

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Final Thoughts

Faith Moore’s warm, inviting tone guides listeners through Dickens’s world with empathy and deep insight, making classic literature accessible, alive, and emotionally resonant. As the novel draws to its close, the questions of love, home, and identity are foregrounded, leaving listeners eager to see if David will find the resolution he seeks—and reminding everyone why these stories endure.

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Transcript

[Faith Moore]

Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time.

[Co-host or Guest]

Hi there.

[Faith Moore]

Happy August.

[Co-host or Guest]

It's really starting to feel real that this book is ending, isn't it? We're in the month that I have been telling you the book will end. I mean, can you believe back in January when we started this book and I was saying this is going to take us all the way through almost the end of August. Can you believe that this is it, we're in August. It's happening. I cannot believe it. We are going to read chapter 60. Today. There are only 64 chapters, so that means including today, there are five chapters left. It's starting to get very real, you guys. And I don't know, I don't know if I'm ready to let this story go. Are you? I mean, I'm really, really excited about our next book. So that is actually making it a lot easier for me. And on August 8, when the trailer drops, you will then also know what the next book is. And so hopefully that will make this transition and this ending a little bit easier. But it is hard. This has been a wonderful, wonderful experience. I am so glad that we read this book together. And I don't know, I. I have fallen in love with these characters that I was already in love with all over again. And I know from your emails that many of you have fallen in love for the first time time with these characters. Some of you have fallen in love, like me, again with these characters. So it's just, it's just such a joy. I mean, I always say that it's always a joy, but I think something about reading a longer book and sticking with it for such a long time, it has made it feel like home. Like these are our friends, like these places are places that we know and love. And it's almost time to say goodbye. I mean, thank goodness it's not time for us to say goodbye to each other.

[Faith Moore]

I mean, that would be dead devastating, right?

[Co-host or Guest]

We get to stay together, we get to keep reading.

[Faith Moore]

But it is about time, almost time to say goodbye to David and all

[Co-host or Guest]

of his friends and all of these people that we've come to love. And so that is sad. And so I, I don't know, I don't think you need my permission, but I give you permission if you need it, to be sad about that. I am.

[Faith Moore]

But you know, it's, it's a beautiful

[Co-host or Guest]

kind of sad because it means that something wonderful has happened and it has happened in here with you and it

[Faith Moore]

couldn't have happened without you.

[Co-host or Guest]

So thank you. Thank you for being here with me, listening to Storytime for Grown Ups. And more is coming, more exciting things are coming, more books are coming. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that you will come to discover as we go along. So I'm excited. I'm sad, but I'm excited too and I hope that you are as well. So let's get into this. We read chapter 59 last time. As I say, we're going to do chapter 60 today. I don't have any announcements, announcements or reminders right now. Some are coming but I haven't got anything to say about that today. There's a little foreshadowing for you. Dickens would be proud. But for now just all the usual things. Right? Please subscribe.

[Faith Moore]

Please tap the five stars.

[Co-host or Guest]

If you've been enjoying this show and this book, please tell your friends. Please spread the word about the show in whatever way. You can sign up for the drawing room online community if you'd like. There's a tip jar in the show notes. If you'd like to contribute financially to the work that I do.

[Faith Moore]

There's merch you can buy.

[Co-host or Guest]

So check all of that out and really do subscribe so that you don't miss the trailer which is going to come out this coming Saturday for our next book. So I'm excited for that to happen and you don't want to miss it. I don't think so. Subscribe. All right, let's get into this episode. Let's begin by reminding ourselves of what happened in chapter 59 and then we'll

[Faith Moore]

chat for a bit and then we'll read chapter 60.

[Co-host or Guest]

So here is the the recap.

[Faith Moore]

Alright, so where we left off. David arrives back in England and takes a room at an inn and inquires after Traddles. He learns Traddles address but is disappointed

[Co-host or Guest]

to hear that the waiters at his

[Faith Moore]

inn haven't heard of him. David has come back without telling anyone

[Co-host or Guest]

so as to surprise people. And so he makes his way to Traddles office and on the stairs he

[Faith Moore]

hears the sound of a commotion and women's voices. But when he knocks and a servant

[Co-host or Guest]

answers, Traddles is just there. At his desk, he's overjoyed to see

[Faith Moore]

David, and David is overjoyed to see him.

[Co-host or Guest]

And it soon comes out that he's finally married Sophie, and actually she's hiding behind the curtain because they thought that David was a client and he was coming up the stairs. And then they reveal that most of

[Reader or Character Voice]

her sisters are actually in the next room.

[Faith Moore]

And David meets all of them and

[Co-host or Guest]

is charmed by them and feels that Sophie is an excellent wife to Traddles. They are all living in Traddles's office for now, but they are very happy and hope to one day make enough

[Faith Moore]

money to set up a proper home.

[Co-host or Guest]

David leaves and goes back to the inn.

[Faith Moore]

He knows that tomorrow he will go

[Co-host or Guest]

to Dover to see his aunt and

[Faith Moore]

that eventually he'll see Agnes, but.

[Co-host or Guest]

But he still feels that while he's

[Faith Moore]

now in love with her, she won't ever want to be more than brother and sister.

[Co-host or Guest]

Now, while he's in the coffee room of the inn, he sees Mr. Chillip,

[Faith Moore]

the doctor who delivered him, and he speaks to him for a while and learns that Mr. And Ms. Murdstone are living near Mr. Chillip with Mr. Murdstone's

[Co-host or Guest]

new wife, whom they've subdued into a very melancholy, silent sort of person, even though she used to be very animated and personable. They agree that Mr. Murdstone is a

[Faith Moore]

bad man, and David feels angry on

[Co-host or Guest]

behalf of the new wife.

[Faith Moore]

The next day, David goes down to

[Co-host or Guest]

Dover, where he bursts in on Miss Betsy, Mr. Dick and Peggy, who is now Miss Betsy's housekeeper, and they are

[Faith Moore]

all thrilled to be back together again.

[Co-host or Guest]

Okay, I'm going to read 5 comments today. The first one comes from Corinthia. She says chapter 59 was absolutely beautiful. I loved reading about Traddles and Sophie and the happiness of their marriage.

[Faith Moore]

Traddles care for David. His generosity towards Sophie's sisters and the

[Co-host or Guest]

joy he brings into their home were especially touching.

[Faith Moore]

Sophie's ability to make do with so little, yet fill it with warmth and contentment was truly insp.

[Co-host or Guest]

It was exactly what I needed to read. The next one comes from our online community, which is called the Drawing Room. And this person goes by the handle Patty. She says the reunion between Traddles and David was so sweet, I couldn't stop smiling. This next one also comes from our online community. This person goes by the handle it. She says the Traddles reunion was the sweetest. Glad to see Traddles finally get married and that he has such a good attitude about his extremely extended family. This next one comes from Anne. She says, ugh, the Murdstones again. Still ruining young wives, I see. And the last one comes from Debbie Rudin. She says, as I was listening to your remarks before this chapter and you were saying that everything's wrapped up except for what happened to David. I was screaming into the phone, what about the Murdstones? So I'm really glad that that was covered. But such an unsatisfying end. I hope that there's more. Okay, so it's, it's interesting, I think, that here, as we near the end of the book, Dickens has David kind of go away, like get out of the picture for three years and then come home again. Because there's a way in which it really solidifies this idea that we've been talking about for a while now of everyone's storylines being squared away and it being only David, who doesn't really have an end to his story story yet, because this idea of, of homecoming that is going on in chapter 59, it

[Faith Moore]

really sort of sets David apart from

[Co-host or Guest]

everyone else, I think. You know, he's been so intertwined with all of the other narratives for such a long time, but now he's kind of viewing everyone from a bit of a distance. Their lives have all gone on without him. He chose to absent himself from everything that he used to be a part of and everything that he's told us about for so long as, and to make a kind of different life for himself for a while. And now he's trying to reenter that life.

[Reader or Character Voice]

But it's.

[Faith Moore]

It's been a long time.

[Co-host or Guest]

I mean, three years, that's a long time. It's not like a lifetime or anything, but it's a while. So it's been a long time. And now he's kind of an observer of all of these people and relationships that he was once totally a part of. And I think it's interesting because all along we've been talking about all of these endings and new beginnings, right? The book has been sort of broken off into these sections that have been punctuated by the stages of David's growing up. And this time we're catching David at a kind of in between stage. Something has definitely ended. His marriage to Dora is over. His period of mourning and grieving is over, this kind of self imposed hiatus of living abroad. That's over. So a time in his life has ended, but we don't really know what's beginning for him now. Like, has he come home so that he can be a kind of bachelor, famous writer guy who Goes over to visit Traddles family whenever he wants. A dose of home cooking or something. I mean, Traddles family is definitively a wonderful place to visit. And I'm going to talk more about that in a moment. But it's Traddles family. I mean, it's not David's, It's Traddles. So I feel like the bachelor writer

[Reader or Character Voice]

option would be good.

[Co-host or Guest]

Kind of unsatisfying as an ending for David, but it is possible. Like I said last time, the thing that seems to be lacking now for David is romantic love. Everything else is going pretty well, especially now that he's home and everyone's so glad to see him and he's got

[Faith Moore]

his career all sorted out and he

[Co-host or Guest]

loves what he's doing. So I really do think that for David's story to end properly, we need some kind of resolution to this question of how he's going to spend the rest of his life. And it could be as a bachelor. It could be that the book has a kind of melancholy ending that's certainly on the table, but it also could be that he's going to find someone to settle down with. He says it can't be Agnes, even though he's in love with her. We want it to be Agnes, but we also don't know whether that's really on the table or not. Maybe there's someone else who's going to show up here at the last minute for him to fall, like, madly in love with. I don't know. I mean, I do know, but I'm not telling. But I think because of this, because David doesn't have a romantic partner to share his life with, this homecoming which he presents as joyful. I think it actually has kind of a lot of melancholy in it. I mean, it begins with this really relatable thing where he has purposefully not told anyone that he's coming back because he wants to surprise them all. But then when he gets there, it's really depressing. It feels really depressing not to have anyone to welcome him. Here's what he says. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome and rattling alone and silent through the misty streets. I mean, I don't know about you, but I can totally relate to that. So he shows up and there's no one there to welcome him. There are no arms to rush into, no lips to kiss, no wonderful warm home to go back to, where he can be taken care of by a sort of bustling, competent, housewifely person, the sort of person that Dickens, and therefore David clearly feels, is the epitome of womanhood, the epitome of partnership. So he's all alone, and all he can do is go and take a bed at the inn and order his dinner from the sort of cold and standoffish waiters or whoever. There is no home for him. None of the places that he once called home are really his home anymore. His home with Dora is gone because she's dead. Agnes home, where he lived as a boy, hasn't been his home for years, and it couldn't really be his home now unless he married her. Aunt Betsy's home is his home in the sense that it's where he grew

[Faith Moore]

up, but he is a man now,

[Co-host or Guest]

so he can't go and live with his parents again, basically. So all the homes that he's had in his life are essentially closed to him. And they're closed to him because he doesn't have a wife, he doesn't have a person to share his life with, to make a home with, to have children with, and, you know, continue his line into the future. It's like the trajectory that he's been on all of this time that we've been following him on since. Since the book began, it's kind of

[Faith Moore]

like it stalled out, right?

[Co-host or Guest]

The next step was marriage, children, family and everything. And it got totally derailed. And now, I mean, what. That's the question here. And I think it's brilliant that. What happens next? The first thing that David does after his sort of sad, lonely dinner at the inn or whatever, the first thing he does is to kind of stumble, actually. To literally stumble, right? He falls on the stairs, so to literally stumble into a scene of pure Dickensian bliss. This absolutely heartbreakingly wonderful domestic scene in Traddles Law Chambers, which he's also turned into his home with Sophie, whom he's married in David's absence and where he's got his sisters in law over to visit. And it's one of these wonderful Dickensian family scenes, like Corinthia is saying in her letter. It makes you just ache to be a part of it, doesn't it? And David, who has been alone for three years, who has absented himself from the natural flow of the lives of everyone he loves, who has really been living kind of in his own head and in his own experiences, he really kind of like bursts out of his solitude and into this totally beautiful chaos. I think it's wonderful that Dickens has him literally falling down on the way. Right, here's what he says. I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of laughter, and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister or attorney's clerk

[Faith Moore]

or barrister's clerk, but of two or

[Co-host or Guest]

three merry girls happening. However, as I stopped to listen to put my foot in a hole where the honorable society of Gray's Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise and when I recovered my footing, all was silent. So this is how David re enters his life. This is how he appears back in his own narrative, right? The narrative that he's been telling us since the very beginning. He literally falls back into it. And the scene that he walks into is this scene of family bliss.

[Faith Moore]

But even before he realizes that Traddles

[Co-host or Guest]

is married and that he's surrounded by

[Faith Moore]

all these girls before any of that,

[Co-host or Guest]

Traddles is just so completely, completely gratifyingly happy to see him. I totally agree with Patty and with Whit. The reunion between David and Trles is so lovely. I mean, David has been gone, but the people that he loves, these people that he's worked so hard to accumulate around him after his really rough beginning, at the beginning of the story, these people are still here. They're still loving him. They're waiting for him to be ready to come back. And David Traddles is absolutely giddy with happiness to see him. Here's what he says. My dearest Copperfield, my long lost and most welcome friend. How glad I am to see you. How brown you are. How glad I am upon my life and honor. I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield.

[Faith Moore]

Never.

[Co-host or Guest]

I mean, it's so lovely. It makes you want to cry almost, doesn't it? I want to cry right now. He's. He's been away, he's been so sad. He's felt like his life is over. And then suddenly he is like smack dab in the middle of life. And life in the form of Traddles is so happy to see him. And then we get this absolute outpouring of girls, right? We get Sophie, who is Dickens's perfect wife, right? She's matronly, she's loving, she's made a beautiful home out of basically nothing. She idolizes Traddles. Here's what David says. Tom was the authority for everything.

[Faith Moore]

Tom was evidently the idol of her life.

[Co-host or Guest]

Never to be shaken on his pedestal by any commotion, always to be believed in and done homage to with the whole faith in her heart. Come what might? Okay, so she's clearly gonna make a wonderful mother. Also, since she's so good at caring for all her sisters, here's what David says about that. How many children Sophie could have taken care of in her time, I can't imagine. But she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue. And she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world. One after another, every sister issuing directions for a different tune. And the beauty generally striking in last with so that I was quite fascinated. Okay, so we've got Sophie as the perfect wife. And then we've got all these children essentially tumbling all over the place, swarming all over Traddles, giggling in corners, dropping their combs and ribbons and everything. And Traddles is absolutely in heaven, right? Here's what he says to an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life. You know, it's positively delicious.

[Faith Moore]

It's charming.

[Co-host or Guest]

Poor things. They have had a great loss in

[Faith Moore]

Sophie, who, I do assure you, Copperfield

[Co-host or Guest]

is and ever was the dearest girl. And it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The Society of Girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful. Okay, so Traddles has exactly the thing

[Faith Moore]

that David is missing.

[Co-host or Guest]

I mean, he's got it in a very Traddles way, but he's got it. He's got the perfect Dickensian wife. The millions of children, the absolute chaos of love and life.

[Faith Moore]

Traddles has it, but David doesn't.

[Co-host or Guest]

And there is this moment where Traddles worries that all of this and Traddles happiness with it, that it's hard for David to witness. And David assures him that it's not that he's nothing but happy for Traddles. And I think he is happy for him. But again, I think there's a melancholy there as well. He says, altogether it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure for a long time after I got back and had wished Traddles good night. So he's dwelling on it with pleasure,

[Faith Moore]

but he's dwelling on it. It made a huge impression on him.

[Co-host or Guest]

And then not long after that, he makes this comment about Agnes. He says she in whom I might have inspired a dearer love I had

[Faith Moore]

taught to be my sister. She would marry and would have new claimants on her tenderness. And in doing it, would never know the love for her that had grown up in my heart. It was right that I should pay the forfeit of my headlong passion. What I reaped, I had sown. So essentially, he's saying that what Traddles

[Co-host or Guest]

has with Sofie is exactly what he wishes he could have had with Agnes. But since he can't have that with Agnes, he's gonna just have to deal with that and just, like, not have it. Which, again, it does sort of sound like someone who's trying to talk himself out of something because it's too important and it would be so awful if it went wrong. But I think Dickens is giving us this wonderful family scene as David's first encounter with his old life, because I think he's. Show us and showing David what is missing here. This is the thing that would give David's story a happy ending. So how is he going to get there? Will he get there? And if you're feeling like, you know,

[Reader or Character Voice]

for the love of God, David, get

[Co-host or Guest]

your gallant gray and ride as fast as you can to Agnes's house and tell her how you feel about her. If you are feeling like that, well, then I think Dickens has got you exactly where he wants you, which is really, really cool. But the chapter ends, and I actually think this is really interesting, too. It end with this kind of blast from the past, this chance encounter with Mr. Chillip, the doctor who delivered David into the world.

[Faith Moore]

And I think two things are happening in this scene.

[Co-host or Guest]

One of them is, as Debbie says, it's just to kind of wrap up the Murdstone storyline. You know, the last we'd heard of the Murdstones, Mr. Murdstone was getting married to a young girl. And so now at the end of the book, if we're sort of counting off all of the people who've been important to the story and seeing how they all ended up, we do kind of wonder about the Murdstone. So I think narratively, this scene is there to let us know that, as Anne says, the Murdstones are still the Murdstones. They've done it again with another young and impressionable girl. Mr. Chillip says. Here's a quote. Would it be considered forward if I was to say to you, sir, in confidence, that since the sister came to help, the brother and sister between them

[Faith Moore]

have nearly reduced her, her being the

[Co-host or Guest]

wife, to a state of imbecility. And I see what Debbie means about this being unsatisfying. You know, we want them to get their comeuppance. They were one of the villains of the story, for sure. They were kind of the first villains But I think that not everything can be tied up with like a very perfect bow. It makes sense that the murdstones are still murdstoning. That is who they are.

[Faith Moore]

They are horrible people.

[Co-host or Guest]

But also, as Mr. Chillip says, their punishment is kind of just being themselves. Right? Here's what he says. He says they undergo a continual punishment,

[Faith Moore]

for they are turned inward to feed

[Co-host or Guest]

upon their own hearts and their own are very bad feeding. So that is their punishment, their comeuppance, in a way, although I can see that we might want more justice done when it comes to the murdstones. But that's one thing that's going on here, I think this update on these characters as we get kind of near the end of the book.

[Faith Moore]

But the other thing that's happening, I

[Co-host or Guest]

think, is that Dickens is at least gesturing here to the idea of coming full circle. I mean, here as David returns to his life, as he tries to figure out what to make of that life now that it's been kind of totally derailed from what he thought it was going to be, at exactly this moment he meets the man who way back at the beginning of the story and the beginning of his life brought him into the world. I mean, it's not like he's being born again or anything like that. But I think there's just sort of

[Faith Moore]

the slightest hint, the slightest whisper here

[Co-host or Guest]

of a new beginning, but a new beginning that is much, much larger than any of the other new beginnings that

[Faith Moore]

we have had so far.

[Co-host or Guest]

Because it's a new beginning that is, is almost as important as that first beginning when he was actually born. Now, that may not be what's happening. Nothing momentous might be on the horizon, but I think that we are meant to feel when Mr. Chillip shows up again, that that is possible. That it's possible that something almost as important as being born could happen if David has the courage and the clear headedness to go after it. And so then at the very, very

[Reader or Character Voice]

end of the chapter, we get David

[Co-host or Guest]

bursting in on Miss Betsy and we realize that Peggy is there too. She's become Miss Betsy's housekeeper. And so there is a happy home for David to come back to. But it's a home of the past, right? It's a home full of parental figures. Miss Betsy, Mr. Dick, Peggy. They have all been parents to him in a way. And so it's a home of the past, not a home of the future. So the question is, will David stay here in this loving home, or is there another loving home for him on the horizon that will move his life forward instead of keeping it standing still. Well, there is only one way to find out that. And that, of course, is to keep reading. So we're going to do that. But please do write to me. I love getting your emails. It's so wonderful to keep hearing from you here as we get to the

[Reader or Character Voice]

end of the book.

[Co-host or Guest]

So it's faithkmore.com and then you click on Contact. Or you can scroll into the show notes and find that same link. There's a Please do get in touch. I would love to hear your thoughts.

[Faith Moore]

All right, let's get started with chapter 60 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 60 Agnes My aunt and I, when we were left alone, talked far into the night how the emigrants never wrote home otherwise than cheerfully and hopefully how Mr. Micawber had actually remitted divers small sums of money on account of those pecuniary liabilities in reference to which

[Co-host or Guest]

he had been so businesslike as between

[Faith Moore]

man and man how Janet, returning into my aunt's service when she came back to Dover, had finally carried out her renunciation of mankind by entering into wedlock with a thriving tavern keeper, and how my aunt had finally set her seal

[Co-host or Guest]

on the same great principle by aiding

[Faith Moore]

and abetting the bride and crowning the marriage ceremony with her presence, were among our topics already more or less familiar to me. Through the letters I had had, Mr. Dick, as usual, was not forgotten. My aunt informed me how he incessantly occupied himself in copying everything he could lay his hands on, and kept King Charles I at a respectful distance by that semblance of employment how it was one of the main joys and rewards of her life that he was free and happy instead of pining in monotonous restraint, and how, as a novel general conclusion, nobody but she could ever fully

[Reader or Character Voice]

know what he was.

[Faith Moore]

And when Trot, said my aunt, patting the back of my hand as we

[Reader or Character Voice]

sat in our old way before the

[Faith Moore]

fire, when are you going over to Canterbury?

[Reader or Character Voice]

I shall get a horse and ride over to morrow.

[Faith Moore]

Morning, Aunt, unless you will go with me. No, said my aunt in her short, abrupt way, I mean to stay where I am. Then I should ride, I said. I could not have come through Canterbury to day without stopping if I had been coming to any one but her. She was pleased, but answered, tut tut,

[Reader or Character Voice]

my old bones would have kept till

[Faith Moore]

to morrow, and softly patted my hand again as I sat looking thoughtfully at the fire, thoughtfully, for I could not be here once more, and so near Agnes without the revival of those regrets with which I had so long been occupied. Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less. Regrets. Oh, Trot, I seemed to hear my aunt say once more, and I understood her better now. Blind, blind, blind. We both kept silence for some minutes. When I raised my eyes, I found that she was steadily observant of me.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Me.

[Faith Moore]

Perhaps she had followed the current of my mind, for it seemed to me an easy one to track now, wilful as it had once been. You will find her father a white haired old man, said my aunt, though a better man in all other respects, a reclaimed man. Neither will you find him measuring all human interests and joys and sorrows with his one poor little inch rule. Now, trust me, child, such things must shrink very much before they can be measured off in that way.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Indeed they must, said I.

[Faith Moore]

You will find her pursued, my aunt, as good, as beautiful, as earnest, as disinterested as she has always been.

[Co-host or Guest]

If I knew higher praise, Trot, I

[Faith Moore]

would bestow it on her. There was no higher praise for her, no higher reproach for me. Oh, how had I strayed so far away? If she trains the young girls whom

[Reader or Character Voice]

she has about her to be like

[Faith Moore]

herself, said my aunt, earnest even to the filling of her eyes with tears,

[Reader or Character Voice]

heaven knows her life will be well employed.

[Faith Moore]

Meaning, if the girls who attend the school that Agnes runs can be like Agnes, then she'll be doing a good deed. Because Agnes is so wonderful, useful and happy, as she said that day. How could she be otherwise than useful and happy?

[Reader or Character Voice]

Has Agnes any?

[Faith Moore]

I was thinking aloud rather than speaking.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Well, hey, Any what?

[Faith Moore]

Said my aunt sharply.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Any lover, Said I.

[Faith Moore]

A score.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Cried my aunt with a kind of indignant pride.

[Faith Moore]

She might have married 20 times, my

[Reader or Character Voice]

dear, since you have been gone. No doubt, said I, no doubt. But has she any lover who is worthy of her? Agnes could care for no other.

[Faith Moore]

My aunt sat musing for a little while with her chin upon her hand. Slowly raising her eyes to mine, she said, I suspect she has an attachment, Trot.

[Reader or Character Voice]

A prosperous one, said I.

[Faith Moore]

Trot, returned my aunt gravely. I can't say I have no right

[Co-host or Guest]

to tell you even so much.

[Faith Moore]

She has never confided it to me, but I suspect it. She looked so attentively and anxiously at me, I even saw her tremble, that I felt now more than ever that she had followed my late thought thoughts. I summoned all the resolutions I had made in all those many days and nights and all those many conflicts of my heart. If it should be so, I began,

[Reader or Character Voice]

and I hope it is.

[Faith Moore]

I don't know that it is, said my aunt curtly. You must not be ruled by my suspicions. You must keep them secret. They are very slight. Perhaps I have no right to speak.

[Reader or Character Voice]

If it should be so, I repeated, agnes will tell me at her own good time. A sister to whom I have confided so much. Aunt will not be reluctant to confide in me.

[Faith Moore]

My aunt withdrew her eyes from mine as slowly as she had turned them upon me, and covered them thoughtfully with her hand. By and by she put her other hand on my shoulder, and so we both sat looking into the past without saying another word, until we parted for the night. I rode away early in the morning for the scene of my old school days.

[Co-host or Guest]

I cannot say that I was yet

[Faith Moore]

quite happy, in the hope that I was gaining a victory over myself, even in the prospect of so soon looking on her face again. Meaning he's not sure that he'll be able to meet Agnes again and view her as the sister and friend that he used to view her as. The well remembered ground was soon traversed, and I came into the quiet streets where every stone was a boy's book to me.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Me.

[Faith Moore]

I went on foot to the old house, and went away with a heart too full to enter. I returned, and looking as I passed through the low window of the turret room, where first Uriah heep and afterwards Mr. Micawber had been wont to sit, saw that it was a little parlour now, and that there was no office otherwise. The staid old house was as to its cleanliness and order still just as it had been when I first saw it. I requested the new maid, who admitted me, to tell Miss Wickfield that a gentleman who waited on her from a friend abroad was there, and I was shown up the grave old staircase, cautioned of the steps I knew so well into the unchanged drawing room. The books that Agnes and I had read together were on their shelves, and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons many a night stood yet at the same old corner of the table. All the little changes that had crept in when the heaps were there were changed again. Everything was as it used to be in the happy time. I stood in a window and looked across the ancient street at the opposite houses, recalling how I had watched them on wet afternoons when I first came here, and how I had used to speculate about the people who appeared at any of the windows, and had followed them with my Eyes up and down stairs while women went clicking along the pavement in pattens. And the dull rain fell in slanting lines and poured out of the waterspout yonder and flowed into the road. The feeling with which I used to watch the tramps as they came into the town on those wet evenings at dusk and limped past with their bundles drooping over their shoulders at the ends of sticks, came freshly back to me, fraught as then with the smell of damp earth. Earth and wet leaves and briar, and the sensation of the very airs that blew upon me in my own toilsome journey. The opening of the little door in the panelled wall made me start and turn. Her beautiful, serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Agnes, my dear girl, I have come

[Faith Moore]

too suddenly upon you. No, no. I am so rejoiced to see you, Trotwood. Dear Agnes, the happiness it is to

[Reader or Character Voice]

me to see you once again.

[Faith Moore]

I folded her to my heart, and for a little while we were both silent. Presently we sat down side by side and her angel face was turned upon me with the welcome I had dreamed of waking and sleeping for whole years. She was so true, she was so beautiful, she was so good. I owed her so much gratitude. She was so dear to me that I could find no utterance for what I felt. I tried to bless her, tried to thank her, tried to tell her, as I had often done in letters, what an influence she had upon me. But all my efforts were in vain. My love and joy were dumb. With her own sweet tranquillity me she calmed. My agitation, led me back to the time of our parting, spoke to me of Emily, whom she had visited in secret many times, spoke to me tenderly of Dora's grave. With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously that not one jarred within me. I could listen to the sorrowful distant music and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke. How could I, when blended with it all was her dear self, the better angel of my life? And you, Agnes, I said, by and by. Tell me of yourself.

[Reader or Character Voice]

You have hardly ever told me of

[Faith Moore]

your own life in all this lapse of time. What should I tell? She answered with her radiant smile. Papa is well. You see us here quiet in our own home, our anxieties set at rest, our home restored to us.

[Co-host or Guest]

And knowing that, dear Trotwood, you know all.

[Faith Moore]

All, Agnes, said I. She looked at me with some Fluttering wonder in her face.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Is there nothing else, sister?

[Faith Moore]

I said. Her colour, which had just now faded, returned and faded again. She smiled with a quiet sadness, I thought, and shook her head. I had sought to lead her to what my aunt had hinted at, for sharply painful to me as it must be to receive that confidence, I was to discipline my heart and do my duty to her. I saw, however, that she was uneasy,

[Reader or Character Voice]

and I let it pass. You have much to do, dear Agnes,

[Faith Moore]

with my school, said she, looking up

[Reader or Character Voice]

again in all her bright composure. Yes, it is laborious, is it not?

[Faith Moore]

The labour is so pleasant, she returned, that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Nothing good is difficult to you, said I.

[Faith Moore]

Her colour came and went once more, and once more, as she bent her head, I saw the same sad smile. You will wait and see, Papa, said Agnes cheerfully, and pass the day with us.

[Co-host or Guest]

Perhaps you will sleep in your own room.

[Faith Moore]

We always call it yours. I could not do that, having promised to ride back to my aunt's at night, but I would pass the day there joyfully. I must be a prisoner for a

[Reader or Character Voice]

little while, said Agnes.

[Faith Moore]

But here are the old books, Trotwood,

[Co-host or Guest]

and the old music.

[Faith Moore]

Even the old flowers are here, said

[Reader or Character Voice]

I, looking round, or the old kinds,

[Faith Moore]

I have found a pleasure, returned Agnes, smiling, while you have been absent in keeping everything as it used to be when we were children, for we were very happy then, I think.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Heaven knows we were, said I.

[Faith Moore]

And every little thing that has reminded me of my brother, said Agnes with her cordial eyes turned cheerfully upon me, has been a welcome companion. Even this, showing me the basket trifle full of keys still hanging at her side, seems to jingle a kind of old tune. She smiled again and went out at the door by which she had come. It was for me to guard this sisterly affection with religious care. It was all that I had left myself, and it was a treasure if I once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage in virtue of which it was given to me. It was lost and could never be recovered. I set this steadily before myself. The better I loved her, the more it behoved me never to forget it. I walked through the streets, and once more, seeing my old adversary, the butcher, now a constable with his staff hanging up in the shop, went down to

[Co-host or Guest]

look at the place where I had

[Faith Moore]

fought him, and there meditated on Miss shepherd and the eldest Miss Larkins, and all the idle loves and likings and dislikings of that time. Nothing seemed to have survived that time but Agnes and she, ever a star above me, was brighter and brighter. When I returned, Mr. Wickfield had come home from a garden he had a couple of miles or so out of town, where he now employed himself. Almost every day I found him as my aunt had described him. We sat down to dinner with some half dozen little girls, meaning the girls from Agnes's school, and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall. The tranquillity and peace belonging of old to that quiet ground in my memory pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield, taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went upstairs, where Agnes and her little charges sang and played and worked. After tea, the children left us, us, and we three sat together, talking of the bygone days.

[Reader or Character Voice]

My pardon them, said Mr. Wickfield, shaking his white head, has much matter for regret, for deep regret and deep contrition. Trotwood you well know. But I would not cancel it if it were in my power.

[Faith Moore]

I could readily believe that, looking at

[Reader or Character Voice]

the face beside him, I should cancel with it. He pursued such a patience and devotion, such fidelity, such a child's love, as I must not forget, no even to forget myself. I understand you, sir, I softly said.

[Faith Moore]

I hold it.

[Reader or Character Voice]

I have always held it in veneration. But no one knows, not even you. He returned. How much she has done, how much she has undergone, how hard she has striven. Dear Agnes.

[Faith Moore]

She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm to stop him, and was very, very pale.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Well, well, he said with a sigh,

[Faith Moore]

dismissing, as I then saw, some trial she had borne, or was yet to bear, in connection with what my aunt had told me.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Well, I have never told you, Trotwood, of her mother. Has anyone? Never, sir. Her. It's not much, though it was much to suffer. She married me in opposition to her father's wish, and he renounced her. She prayed him to forgive her. Before my Agnes came into this world, he was a very hard man, and her mother had long been dead. He repulsed her. He broke her heart.

[Faith Moore]

Agnes leaned upon his shoulder and stole her arm about his neck.

[Reader or Character Voice]

She had an affectionate and gentle heart, he said, and it was broken. I knew its tender nature very well. No one could if I did not. She loved me dearly, but was never happy. She was always labouring in secret under this distress and being delicate and downcast

[Faith Moore]

at the time of his last repulse,

[Reader or Character Voice]

for it was not the first by many pined away and died. She left me, Agnes, two weeks old, and the grey Hair that you recollect me with when you first came.

[Faith Moore]

He kissed Agnes on her cheek.

[Reader or Character Voice]

My love for my dear child was a diseased love, but my mind was all unhealthy then. I say no more of that. I am not speaking of myself, Trotwood, but of her mother and of her. If I give you any clue to what I am or to what I have been, you will unravel it. I know what Agnes is. I need not say. I have always read something of her poor mother's story in her character. And so I tell it you to night, when we three are again together after such great changes, I have told it all.

[Faith Moore]

His bowed head and her angel face and filial duty derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had had before. If I had wanted anything by which to mark this night of our reunion, I should have found it in this. Agnes rose up from her father's side before long, and, going softly to her piano, played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place. Have you any intention of going away again? Agnes asked me as I was standing by.

[Reader or Character Voice]

What does my sister say to that?

[Faith Moore]

I hope not.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Then I have no such intention, Agnes.

[Faith Moore]

I think you ought not, Trotwood, since you ask me, she said mildly, Your growing reputation and success enlarge your power of doing good. And if I could spare my brother with her eyes upon me, perhaps the time could not.

[Reader or Character Voice]

What I am, you have made me, Agnes, you should know best.

[Faith Moore]

I made you, Trotwood.

[Co-host or Guest]

Yes.

[Faith Moore]

Agnes, My dear girl, I said, bending over her. I tried to tell you when we

[Reader or Character Voice]

met today, something that has been in my thoughts since Dora died. You remember when you came down to me in our little room, pointing upward.

[Faith Moore]

Agnes. Oh, Trotwood, she returned, her eyes filled with tears. So loving, so confiding, and so young. Can I ever forget?

[Reader or Character Voice]

As you were then, my sister, I have often thought since. You have ever been to me, ever

[Faith Moore]

pointing upwards, Agnes, ever leading me to

[Reader or Character Voice]

something better, ever directing me to higher things.

[Faith Moore]

She only shook her head. Through her tears I saw the same sad, quiet smile.

[Reader or Character Voice]

And I am so grateful to you

[Faith Moore]

for it, Agnes, so bound to you that there is no name for the affection of my heart.

[Reader or Character Voice]

I want you to know, yet don't know how to tell you that all

[Faith Moore]

my life long I shall look up

[Reader or Character Voice]

to you and be guided by you

[Faith Moore]

as I have been through the darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may

[Reader or Character Voice]

form, whatever changes may come between us,

[Co-host or Guest]

I shall always look to you and

[Faith Moore]

love you as I Do now and have always done. You will always be my solace and

[Co-host or Guest]

resource, as you have always been.

[Faith Moore]

Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me. Pointing upward, she put her hand in mine and told me she was proud of me and of what I said, although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. Do you know what I have heard to night, Agnes said? I strangely seems to be part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first, with which

[Reader or Character Voice]

I sat beside you in my rough school days.

[Faith Moore]

You knew I had no mother, she replied with a smile, and felt kindly towards me.

[Reader or Character Voice]

More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost

[Faith Moore]

as if I had known this story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and

[Reader or Character Voice]

softened surrounding you, something that might have

[Faith Moore]

been sorrowful in some one else, as

[Reader or Character Voice]

I can now understand, it was, but was not so in you.

[Faith Moore]

She softly played on, looking at me still.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?

[Faith Moore]

No.

[Reader or Character Voice]

Or at my saying that I really

[Faith Moore]

believe I felt even then that you could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement,

[Co-host or Guest]

and never cease to be so until you cease to live.

[Faith Moore]

Will you laugh at such a dream? Oh no. Oh no. For an instant a distressful shadow crossed her face, but even in the start it gave me, it was gone, and she was playing on and looking at me with her own calm smile. As I rode back in the lonely night, the wind going by me like a restless memory, I thought of this and feared she was not happy. I was not happy. But thus far I had faithfully set the seal upon the past, and thinking of her pointing upward, thought of her as pointing to that sky above me, where, in the mystery to come, I might yet love her with a love unknown on earth and tell her what the strife had been within me when I loved her here. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com, click on Contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the show notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the

[Co-host or Guest]

show notes to make a donation.

[Faith Moore]

I would really really appreciate it. Alright everyone, story time is over to be continue.