membered that Dickens was fond of interiors as
such; he was like a romantic tramp who should go from window to window
looking in at the parlours. He had that solid, indescribable delight in
the mere solidity and neatness of funny little humanity in its funny
little houses, like doll's houses. To him every house was a box, a
Christmas box, in which a dancing human doll was tied up in bricks and
slates instead of string and brown paper. He went from one gleaming
window to another, looking in at the lamp-lit parlours. Thus he stood
for a little while looking in at this cosy if commonplace interior of
the carrier and his wife; but he did not stand there very long. He was
on his way to quainter towns and villages. Already the plants were
sprouting upon the balcony of Miss Tox; and the great wind was rising
that flung Mr. Pecksniff against his own front door.

TALE OF TWO CITIES

It was well for him, at any rate, that the people rose in France. It was
well for him, at any rate, that the guillotine was set up in the Place
de la Concorde. Unconsciously, but not accidentally, Dickens was here
working out the whole true comparison between swift revolutionism in
Paris and slow evolutionism in London. Sidney Carton is one of those
sublime ascetics whose head offends them, and who cut it off. For him at
least it was better that the blood should flow in Paris than that the
wine should flow any longer in London. And if I say that even now the
guillotine might be the best cure for many a London lawyer, I ask you to
believe that I am not merely flippant. But you will not believe it.

BARNABY RUDGE

It may be said that there is no comparison between that explosive
opening of the intellect in Paris and an antiquated madman leading a
knot of provincial Protestants. The Man of the Hill, says Victor Hugo
somewhere, fights for an idea; the Man of the Forest for a prejudice.
Nevertheless it remains true that the enemies of the red cap long
attempted to represent it as a sham decoration in the style of Sim
Tappertit. Long after the revolutionists had shown more than the
qualities of men, it was common among lords and lacqueys to attribute to
them the stagey and piratical pretentiousness of urchins. The kings
called Napoleon's pistol a toy pistol even while it was holding up their
coach and mastering their money or their lives; they called his sword a
stage sword even while they ran away from it. Something of the same
senile inconsistenc