a night of revelation and last redemption
a tale by charles dickens
There are many things from which I have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say...
You fear the world so much.
All your hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.
Charge their doings on themselves, not us.
I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.
I will live in the Past, Present and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.
Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!
His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.