GREAT EXPECTATIONS,
a story about a blacksmith and composer Georg Friedrich Handel :
"...We are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith - would you mind it ?
I shouldn't mind anything that you propose,
I answered, but I don't understand you.
Would you mind Handel for a familiar name ?
There's a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.
I should like it very much.
Then, my dear Handel, said he, turning roud as the door opend, here is the dinner..." (p.164).
"We believe that Quintin Matsys was the Blacksmith of Antwerp. Verb.Sap." (p.212)
"Far into the night,
Miss Havisham's words,
Love her, love her, love her, sounded in my ears.
I adapted them for my own repitition,
and said to my pillow :
I love her, I love her, I love her, hundreds of times.
Then, a burst of gratitude came upon me,
that she should be destined for me,
once the blacksmith's boy..." (p.224).
"I have never left of adoring her.
And she has come back,
a most beautiful and most elegant creature.
And I saw her yesterday (...)
Patience, my dear Handel : time enough, time enough.
But you have something more to say ?
You call me a lucky fellow.
Of course, I am. I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday;
I am- what shall I say I am- to-day ?" (p.228)
"When I woke up in the night,
I used to think, that I should have been happier and better
if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face,
and had risen to manhood
content to be partners with Joe
in the honest old forge.
Many a time of an evening,
when I sat alone looking at the fire,
I thought, after all,
there was no fire like
the forge fire and the kitchen fire at home..." (p.250)