Esther Summerson Quotes & Sayings

Every encounter with human truth - Jane Austen deftly showing how little we know our own motives; Dickens revealing the meaning of "economy" in the cheerful and charitable housekeeping of Esther Summerson, his finest heroine; or Shakespeare offering us the foolish Lear, mad and childish and yet "every inch a king" - can expand the soul; it helps to set us free from the common delusions of our time, the lies we believe and the lies we tell. But — Anthony M. Esolen

You do not know what all around you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins.
Mr. Woodcourt — Charles Dickens

I was glad to be tenderly remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten. — Charles Dickens

I found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight for me. — Charles Dickens

I was married then. I was the happiest of the happy. - Esther Summerson — Charles Dickens

Woodcourt: "Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so."
Esther: "You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's."
Woodcourt: "I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as I can fully respect it."
Esther: "I trust implicitly to you," I said, "I know and deeply feel how sacredly you keep your promise." - pg.807 — Charles Dickens