双城记 Book1-1a The Period
CHAPTER I The Period
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it wasthe age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was theepoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was theseason of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was thespring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we hadeverything before us, we had nothing before us, we were allgoing direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the otherway--in short, the period was so. far like the present period,that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its beingreceived, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree ofcomparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plainface, on the throne of England; there were a king with a largejaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. Inboth countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of theState preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in generalwere settled for ever.
It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred andseventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to Englandat that favoured period, a sat this. Mrs. Southcott hadrecently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, ofwhom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded thesublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were madefor the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even theCock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years,after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this veryyear last past (supernaturally deficient in originality)rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order ofevents had lately come to the English Crown and People, from acongress of British subjects in America: which, strange torelate, have proved more important to the human race than anycommunications yet received through any of the chickens of theCock-lane brood.
France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritualthan her sister of the shield and trident, rolled withexceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money andspending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, sheentertained herself besides, with such humane achievements assentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue tornout with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he hadnot kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirtyprocession of monks which passed within his view, at adistance of some fifty or sixty yards.
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