dickens.txt

Book the First -- Recalled to Life

Chapter I

The Period

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,  it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of  incredulity, it was the season of  Light, it was the
season of Darkness,  it was the spring  of hope, it was  the winter of
despair, we  had everything before  us, we  had nothing before  us, we
were all  going direct to Heaven,  we were all going  direct the other
way--in short,  the period was  so far  like the present  period, that
some of its  noisiest authorities insisted on its  being received, for
good  or   for  evil,   in  the   superlative  degree   of  comparison
only.-P-There were a  king with a large  jaw and a queen  with a plain
face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and
a queen with a  fair face, on the throne of  France. In both countries
it was  clearer than crystal  to the lords  of the State  preserves of
loaves and fishes, that things  in general were settled for ever.-P-It
was   the  year   of  Our   Lord  one   thousand  seven   hundred  and
seventy-five. Spiritual  revelations were conceded to  England at that
favoured period, as at this.  Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her
five-and-twentieth blessed  birthday, of  whom a prophetic  private in
the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that
arrangements  were   made  for  the   swallowing  up  of   London  and
Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen
of years, after rapping out its  messages, as the spirits of this very
year last  past (supernaturally  deficient in originality)  rapped out
theirs. Mere messages  in the earthly order of events  had lately come
to the English  Crown and People, from a congress  of British subjects
in America:  which, strange to  relate, have proved more  important to
the human race than any communications yet received through any of the
chickens of the Cock-lane brood.-P-France,  less favoured on the whole
as to  matters spiritual than  her sister  of the shield  and trident,
rolled with  exceeding smoothness  down hill,  making paper  money and
spending  it.  Under  the  guidance  of  her  Christian  pastors,  she
entertained  herself,  besides,  with   such  humane  achievements  as
sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with
pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in
the rain  to do  honour to  a dirty procession  of monks  which passed
within his  view, at a  distance of some fifty  or sixty yards.  It is
likely enough  that, rooted in the  woods of France and  Norway, there
were  growing trees,  when that  sufferer  was put  to death,  already
marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come  down and be sawn into boards, to
make  a certain  movable framework  with  a sack  and a  knife in  it,
terrible in history.  It is likely enough that in  the rough outhouses
of  some tillers  of the  heavy lands  adjacent to  Paris, there  were
sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with
rustic mire, snuffed  about by pigs, and roosted in  by poultry, which
the Farmer,  Death, had already  set apart to  be his tumbrils  of the
Revolution.  But  that  Woodman  and that  Farmer,  though  they  work
unceasingly, work silently,  and no one heard them as  they went about
with  muffled  tread:  the  rather,  forasmuch  as  to  entertain  any
suspicion  that   they  were   awake,  was   to  be   atheistical  and
traitorous.-P-In England,  there was scarcely  an amount of  order and
protection  to justify  much national  boasting. Daring  burglaries by
armed men,  and highway  robberies, took place  in the  capital itself
every night;  families were publicly cautioned  not to go out  of town
without  removing  their  furniture to  upholsterers'  warehouses  for
security;  the highwayman  in the  dark was  a City  tradesman in  the
light, and, being  recognised and challenged by  his fellow- tradesman
whom he stopped in his character  of "the Captain," gallantly shot him
through the head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers,
and the guard shot  three dead, and then got shot  dead himself by the
other four, "in  consequence of the failure of  his ammunition:" after
which the  mall was robbed  in peace; that magnificent  potentate, the
Lord Mayor of London, was made  to stand and deliver on Turnham Green,
by one highwayman, who despoiled  the illustrious creature in sight of
all his retinue;  prisoners in London gaols fought  battles with their
turnkeys,  and the  majesty of  the law  fired blunderbusses  in among
them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond
crosses  from  the  necks  of  noble  lords  at  Court  drawing-rooms;
musketeers went into St. Giles's,  to search for contraband goods, and
the mob fired on the musketeers,  and the musketeers fired on the mob,
and nobody  thought any of  these occurrences  much out of  the common
way. In the midst of them, the  hangman, ever busy and ever worse than
useless, was in  constant requisition; now, stringing up  long rows of
miscellaneous criminals;  now, hanging a housebreaker  on Saturday who
had been taken on Tuesday; now,  burning people in the hand at Newgate
by the  dozen, and now  burning pamphlets  at the door  of Westminster
Hall; to-day, taking the life  of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow
of   a  wretched   pilferer  who   had  robbed   a  farmer's   boy  of
sixpence.-P-All these things,  and a thousand like them,  came to pass
in and  close upon the  dear old year  one thousand seven  hundred and
seventy-five.  Environed by  them, while  the Woodman  and the  Farmer
worked unheeded, those  two of the large jaws, and  those other two of
the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their
divine rights with  a high hand. Thus did the  year one thousand seven
hundred  and seventy-five  conduct their  Greatnesses, and  myriads of
small creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along
the roads that lay before them.-P-