Inscrutable hearts

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?

---from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Comments

[Shakespeare's Sister]

it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end.

One of my most favorite lines ever written.

[res publica]

My blog totally wants to be your blog when it grows up. Which seems highly unlikely, but still....your last several posts have been even more fantastic than usual. Thanks!

[denisdekat]

Great quote.

I also sometimes like to envision things like this and in varying ways. Sometimes I look at San Francisco at night from Bernal Hill and wonder about all those little car lights driving to and fro. I think about the number of births and deaths happening that day. Some days are boring for some, exciting for others...

So many stories out there...

[Jennifer]

If I am out very early in the morning while it is still dark, I look at the windows that are lit and wonder what the people are thinking during that silent time. I

I also remember going to a funeral for a person who had died too young and by their own choice. The church was filled with plenty of older people, I was 25 at the time. I couldn't help, but wonder how many of these people had used every ounce of energy to work at something they didn't like or for a life they didn't expect. I wondered what their dreams had been and what trade-offs they had made. I remember thinking life was too short to waste energy on something you didn't care for and how if you had put that same energy into what you had dreamed of it probably would have happened, but as I have gotten older I can see how those choices happen in little increments that are almost too small to notice.

We'd probably be a happier nation if we wore the message from our inscrutable hearts on our sleeves.

[Campaspe]

I agree with res publica, you're on a roll of late. Thank you for reminding me of this magnificent passage. The next time someone complains about the great man's writing style, I will make that person rewrite this quote on the chalkboard.

[Earl Bockenfeld]

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them." With its stories generally emphasizing the points-of-view of the criminals, victims, or persons-in-crisis, Naked City exhibited a more complicated and ambiguous vision of morality and justice than traditional policiers, where good and bad were clear-cut. However, sociopaths and career crooks were far outnumbered by more mundane denizens of the naked city, thrust into crisis by circumstance: an innocent ex-con accused of murder; a disfigured youth living in the shadows of the tenements; a Puerto Rican immigrant worn down by poverty and unemployment; a lonely city bureaucrat overcome by suicidal despair; a junior executive who kills over a parking space; a sightless boy on an odyssey through the streets of Manhattan. Eight million stories--or at least 138 as dramatized in that series--rooted in the sociology and psychology of human pain. "One of its strengths, was that it said nothing which is neatly paraphraseable. It was, in truth, Chekhovian in its rueful gaze at people in the clutch of disaster."

[Pepper]

Ah, Dickens. I freaked people out when I said one of my favorite books was "Bleak House." Your chosen quotation is a welcome reminder that "A Tale of Two Cities" is far more than Madame Defarge and her knitting needles.