In Great Expectations, Estella says to Pip,"suffering has been stronger than all other teaching." How does suffering teach Estella and Pip?

"I little
thought," said Estella, "that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I
am very glad to do so."

"Glad to part again, Estella? To
me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever
mournful and painful."

"But you said to me," returned
Estella, very earnestly, "'God bless you, God forgive you!' And if you could say that to
me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when
suffering has been stronger than all other
teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used
to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape. Be as considerate
and good to me as you were, and tell me we are
friends."

"We are friends," said I, rising and bending over
her, as she rose from the
bench.

The context of
Estella's quote is her surprise meeting with Pip in the rising "evening mist" at Satis
House. They have both come to bid farewell to the ruinous remains of Miss Havisham's
home. Estella proves to Pip by her touch, no longer "insensible," by her tear in "the
first rays of the moonlight," and by her admission of "remembrance of what I had thrown
away when I was quite ignorant of its worth," that suffering has taught her compassion,
humility and humanity.

Estella is no longer the proud
beauty. Her broken physical beauty is a symbol for her broken inner beauty. Suffering
has left its traces upon her. Still Pip says “the freshness of her beauty was indeed
gone, … [but] its indescribable majesty and ... charm remained." This is similarly true
for her inner character: while the haughty pride and disdain for human tenderness is
gone, the true character of Estella remains and has surfaced to reveal its
humanity.

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Those attractions in it, I had seen before; what
I had never seen before, was the saddened, softened light of the once proud eyes; what I
had never felt before was the friendly touch of the once insensible
hand.

Pip had learned a
similar and parallel lesson when he learned to accept and appreciate Magwitch as his
benefactor and a reformed man; when Pip himself learned a humility that did not come as
a lesson at Miss Havisham's knee.