Choice A is the best answer. The last paragraph makes clear the narrator's enthusiasm for Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, and it can be inferred from the last sentence of this paragraph that this enthusiasm motivated the narrator to aspire to a career as a writer: "Soon I was convinced that I didn’t want to do anything else in life but learn to do what Mr. Dickens had done."
Choice B is incorrect because the passage doesn't discuss gifts the narrator has received in the past; although the father sometimes gave the narrator money to buy sweets and snacks, these weren't gifts since the narrator made the purchases himself. Choice C is incorrect because although it is clear from the passage that Sempere was kind and even indulgent to the narrator, there is no suggestion that this treatment was inspired by respect for the narrator. Choice D is incorrect because there is no suggestion that the narrator took Sempere's figurative designation of Dickens as a "lifelong friend" in the ninth paragraph to be a literal statement.