Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
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Great Expectations: Chapter LIX
Chapter LIX. For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily eyes,—though they had both been often before my fancy in the East,—when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it so
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Great Expectations: Chapter LVIII
Chapter LVIII. The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down to my native place and its neighbourhood before I got there. I found the Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a great change in the Boar’s demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated
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Great Expectations: Chapter LVII
Chapter LVII. Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely
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Great Expectations: Chapter LVI
Chapter LVI. He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt that
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Great Expectations: Chapter LV
Chapter LV. He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant to depose
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Great Expectations: Chapter LIV
Chapter LIV. 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. We had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries
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Great Expectations: Chapter LIII
Chapter LIII. It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear
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Great Expectations: Chapter LII
Chapter LII. From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins’s brother, the accountant, going straight to Clarriker’s and bringing Clarriker to me, I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the only good thing I had done, and the only
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Great Expectations: Chapter LI
Chapter LI. What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving Estella’s parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before me by a wiser head than my own. But when Herbert and
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Great Expectations: Chapter L
Chapter L. My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLIX
Chapter XLIX. Putting Miss Havisham’s note in my pocket, that it might serve as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and breakfasted
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLVIII
Chapter XLVIII. The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was strolling
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLVII
Chapter XLVII. Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVI. Eight o’clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLV
Chapter XLV. Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was always to be got there at any hour of
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLIV. In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised their eyes as
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIII. Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison before meeting her at the coach-office, with the
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLII
Chapter XLII. “Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail
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Great Expectations: Chapter XLI
Chapter XLI. In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings reflected in Herbert’s face, and not least among them, my repugnance towards the man
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Great Expectations: Chapter XL
Chapter XL. It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a distance. The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XXXIX. I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard’s Inn more than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the river. Mr.
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXVIII. If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVII. Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick’s Walworth sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate,
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVI. Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing; and I came of age,—in fulfilment of Herbert’s prediction, that I should
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXV. It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That the place could possibly be, without her, was something
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXIV. As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIII. In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I saw Miss Havisham’s influence in the change. We stood in the Inn Yard while
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXII. One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, I divined whose hand it was. It had no set
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXI. On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXX
Chapter XXX. After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick’s being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. “Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,”
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXIX. Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham’s, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham’s side of town,—which was not Joe’s side; I could go there to-morrow,—thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me. She
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXVIII. It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe’s. But, when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow’s coach, and had been down to Mr. Pocket’s and back, I was not by
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVII. “MY DEAR MR PIP:— “I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard’s Hotel Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, when if not agreeable please
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVI. It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early opportunity of comparing my guardian’s establishment with that of his cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he called me
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXV
Chapter XXV. Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,—in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXIV. After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIII. Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to see him. “For, I really am not,” he added, with his son’s smile, “an alarming personage.” He was a young-looking man, in spite of his perplexities and his very grey hair, and his manner seemed quite
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXII
Chapter XXII. The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The idea of its being you!” said he. “The idea of its being you!” said I. And then we contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. “Well!” said the pale young gentleman, reaching out his
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Great Expectations: Chapter XXI
Chapter XXI. Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were
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Great Expectations: Chapter XX
Chapter XX. The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five hours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London. We Britons had at that time
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Great Expectations: Chapter XIX
Chapter XIX. Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened between me and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of a misgiving that something
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Great Expectations: Chapter XVIII
Chapter XVIII. It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. Of that group I was one. A highly popular murder had been committed,
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Great Expectations: Chapter XVII
Chapter XVII. I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate; I
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Great Expectations: Chapter XVI
Chapter XVI. With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than any one
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Great Expectations: Chapter XV
Chapter XV. As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s room, my education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny. Although the only coherent part of the
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Great Expectations: Chapter XIV
Chapter XIV. It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper.
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Great Expectations: Chapter XIII
Chapter XIII. It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss Havisham’s. However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his
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Great Expectations: Chapter XII
Chapter XII. My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that the
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Great Expectations: Chapter XI
Chapter XI. At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham’s, and my hesitating ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the candle
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Great Expectations: Chapter X
Chapter X. The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle’s great-aunt’s at night,
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Great Expectations: Chapter IX
Chapter IX. When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall,
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Great Expectations: Chapter VIII
Chapter VIII. Mr. Pumblechook’s premises in the High Street of the market town, were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; and I wondered
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Great Expectations: Chapter VII
Chapter VII. At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read “wife of the Above” as a complimentary reference to my father’s exaltation to a
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Great Expectations: Chapter VI
Chapter VI. My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it. I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference to Mrs. Joe, when
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Great Expectations: Chapter V
Chapter V. The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of “Gracious goodness gracious me, what’s gone—with the—pie!” The
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Great Expectations: Chapter IV
Chapter IV. I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been
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Great Expectations: Chapter III
Chapter III. It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a
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Great Expectations: Chapter II
Chapter II. My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and
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Great Expectations: Chapter I
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens [1867 Edition] Chapter I. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on