worst of times, age of
foolishness, the epoch of
incredulity
La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie!
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.
The opening to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Mr. Dickens was trying to portray life in the era of the French Revolution.
Something the Brits must have viewed with a bit of relief.
See the French had a law about leaving France to go to the new world.
You had support the government, had to support the King and you had to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church.
The Brits took the line of ‘if you don’t like it here, you can go to America and complain there.’
So those PROTESTing PROTESTants did and when the time came for a British revolution, it was far from home.
In France, they kept all the rabble rousers home and when they had their revolution it was in the front yard.
Mr. Dickens was writing a little more than 50 years after the events of revolution in France.
Here is almost 225 years later.
And it is the worst of times …
The age of foolishness …
The epoch of incredulity …
The season of Darkness …
The winter of despair …
Nothing before us …
We were all going direct not to Heaven, but the other way …
Still …
Remember, the barricade blocks the street but opens the way.
PS: By chance I put this haiku together from the book and was thinking about a picture to use and I checked my Thurber database to see that this drawing with the caption, See you at the barricades, Mr. Whitsonby! was first published in the New Yorker Magazine on February 15, 1936. 90 years ago today! And as we all remember, to the barricades is the motto of the French Revolution or as history has it, La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie! or The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.
No Haiku For You 