Book Thirty-Three - Great Expectations - Part Three

Dickens loves to portray emotional martyrs, those self-sacrificing people who work tirelessly for others and tirelessly remind them of this fact. Pip is our protagonist in this book and when he is young he lives with the martyr. On Christmas day, after Pip said he’d been to hear the carols, our martyr proclaims, "I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the best of reasons for my never hearing any."

Remind you of Lady Catherine de Bourgh? “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”

I’m right there with you, Cathy. For me it's the guitar– if I had ever learnt I should have rocked it. Same with drawing, the violin, gardening, etc. Ooh, piloting a hot air balloon! Synchronized swimming! No, scratch the swimming. I’d have to shave my legs every single day. Besides, the chlorine would positively wreck my hair. But fencing, now I could truly excel at that. My swordplay would rival that of both Inigo Montoya and The Man In Black!