Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch nothing there. I don’t care for what you say at all. I have tried to warn you of this; now, have I not?”

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,— on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.

I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.”

It was the only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, since I was first apprised of my great expectations.

few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the hopelessness of aid.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.