Saturday, 10 January 2015

Descriptions of Miss Havisham

Charles Dickens. (2003). Chapter 8. In: Charlotte Mitchell 'Great Expectations'. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Classics. p89-99.
Charles Dickens. (2003). Chapter 11. In: Charlotte Mitchell 'Great Expectations'. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Classics. p129.
Charles Dickens. (2003). Chapter 49. In: Charlotte Mitchell 'Great Expectations'. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Classics. p586-593.

"She was dressed in rich materials- satins, and lace, and silks- all of white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table...She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on...her veil was but half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking glass..."
"I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes... Now, wax-work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me."
"It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago... I glanced at the dressing-table again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been trodden ragged."

"waxwork and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me."

"she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place."

"her profound unfitness for this earth."

"I saw a figure hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror was greatest of all, when I found no figure there."

"When the ruin is complete... and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table, which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him"

"'What have I done!' She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again."

"In shutting out the light of the day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment int he ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania."

"I stole her heart away and put ice in its place"

"I fancied I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy."

"I saw a great flaying light spring up. in the same moment I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high."

"Take the pencil and write under my name 'I forgive her'."

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