He kissed her on the lips, and lifting up his eyes, said, “Oh, my God, forgive me, for I need it very much!”

* * * * *

Great Expectations

      “Great Expectations,” first published as a serial in “All the
     Year Round,” in 1861, is one of Dickens’s finest works.  It is
     rounded off so completely and the characters are so admirably
     drawn that, as a finished work of art, it is hard to say where
     the genius of its author has surpassed it.  If there is less of
     the exuberance of “Pickwick,” there is also less of the
     characteristic exaggeration of Dickens; and the pathos of the
     ex-convict’s return is far deeper than the pathos of
     children’s death-beds, so frequently exhibited by the author. 
     “Great Expectations,” for all its rare qualities, has never
     achieved the wide popularity of the novels of Charles Dickens
     that preceded it.  We are not generally familiar with any name
     in the story, as we are with at least one name in all the
     other novels.  Yet, Pip, as a study of child-life, youth, and
     early manhood, is as excellent as anything in the whole range
     of English fiction.

I.—­In the Marshes

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, I called myself with my infant tongue Pip, and came to be called Pip.

My first most vivid impression of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon, one Christmas Eve.  Ours was the marsh country, down the river, within twenty miles of the sea; and I had wandered into a bleak place overgrown with nettles called a churchyard.

“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 who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and cut by stones; who limped and shivered, and glared and growled.

“Oh! don’t cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror.  “Pray don’t do it, sir.”

“Tell us your name! quick!”

“Pip, sir.”

“Show us where you live,” said the man.  “P’int out the place.  Who d’ye live with?”

I pointed to where our village was, and said, “With my sister, sir—­Mrs. Joe Gargery—­wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.”

“Blacksmith, eh?” said he, and looked down at his leg.  Then he took me by the arms.  “Now lookee here.  You know what a file is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know what wittles is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You get me a file, and you get me wittles.  You bring ’em both to me, or I’ll have your heart and liver out.  You bring the lot to me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles you bring the lot to me at that old battery over yonder.  You do it, and you never dare to say a word concerning your having seen me, and you shall be let to live.  You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, and ate.  Now what do you say?”