Quote by Charles Dickens

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid and very sensitive.

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little

Summary

The quote highlights the impact of the narrator's upbringing on their sensitivity to injustice. Growing up with a sister who treated them unfairly and erratically, the narrator was constantly aware of the injustices they experienced within their small world. This constant exposure to small injustices heightened the narrator's sensitivity, amplifying their perception and feelings towards any form of unfairness. The repeated clashes with their sister's unjust behavior since childhood ingrained a deep conviction in the narrator that being raised with discipline did not give their sister the right to mistreat them in inconsistent ways. As a result, this upbringing led the narrator to develop a fear of moral consequences and a heightened sensitivity towards injustice.

Topics

Upbringing Childhood Fairness

By Charles Dickens

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