To Have Loved and Lost

Spoiler Alert! If you haven't read "Great Expectations", but think you might, you may not want to read this post.

I finished reading "Great Expectations" recently and I loved it! The character Pip falls in love early on with a young girl named Estella and as they both grow, that love grows stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, Estella is under the tutelage of a woman, Miss Havisham, whose heart had been ripped apart years before by an unscrupulous man and this woman, over time, comes to see Estella as a tool by which she can exact revenge on the male sex. In training the young girl, her adopted daughter, she takes away her heart full of feeling and gives her a heart of stone. She comes to regret her actions bitterly, highlighted by a conversation between the two in which Miss Havisham reproaches Estella for her coldness toward herself.

Miss Havisham: "Would it be weakness to return my love?"

Estella: "If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once seen your face, - if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? ... Or, which is a nearer case, - if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her; - if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?"

In using daylight as a metaphor for love, Estella clearly demonstrates the state of her heart and soul and the outcome of Pip's love for her becomes easy to foretell. Unfortunately, Pip, not unaware of the dangers to himself intellectually, continues to pursue Estella, blinded in a way by his love for her, seemingly unable to help himself. Estella ultimately marries a base, cruel man out of spite for mankind and Pip loses her.

Later, Miss Havisham, seeing what she has done to Estella and to Pip, asks Pip to forgive her. Pip replies, "There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you." But he's not so easy on her when it comes to Estella. Shortly after this comment, the following dialogue takes place.

Miss Havisham, speaking of Estella: "I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place."

Pip:  "Better to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken."

Pip rightly recognizes that the worse evil was inflicted on Estella. Pip had loved and lost, but he had at least loved. He recognized that evil had been inflicted on him, but he bore no malice toward this woman and yet, he couldn't help pointing out that she had done a greater evil to Estella, who seemed unable to love. There is a beautiful truth in this that even with its attendant pains, a heart of flesh is much to be preferred to a heart of stone. It is far better to have loved and lost than to have never loved.

Years later, Pip was asked about Estella by a friend, Biddy.

Biddy: "Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?"

Pip: "My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy, - all gone by!"

Pip adds, by way of narrative ...

Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake. Yes, even so. For Estella's sake.

That bittersweet memory of a love that he had for her was not just a memory. He loved her still and his genuineness, his sincerity near the end of the book really touched my emotions. I know what it is like to have loved and lost and although I have found many loves since (foremost among them being my wife and children), like Pip, I have never forgotten those things in my life that ever had a foremost place in my heart. And I don't regret the pain of what was lost because I believe that in having loved so deeply, I became more real, more human, and came closer to what God wants for me, having experienced that love.