A Dickens of a Feud

At first, quite in the callow time,
you were, I thought, my Orlick;
a louring, brute of a foe,
hulking like a prison ship,
blighting my horizons.

And, later, I came into myself,
while your unctuous guile
made of you Uriah;
your attention discommoding:
a shirt with pins left in.

And then, a man potential,
I became, at once, your Steerforth
and bettered you at last.
The price? A cruel self-knowledge,
cheap discount for injuries past.