Audibly Speaking: Listening to History

Audibly Speaking: Listening to History


“The Footsteps Die out For Ever:” The final chapter in “A Tale of Two Cities”

April 05, 2021

I have finally crossed the finish line! My audio narration for Librivox is finally complete, with all forty-five chapters now in the can. I can now say “it’s a wrap.” And what a terrific chapter to end on. Dickens is at his most reflective. A novel of horror somehow has wended its way to a chapter that produces a happy ending for all, at least for all of the good-hearted and well-intended. Dickens even has kind things to say about Parisians and the French, which is quite startling coming from such a prototypical British writer. This is not history but it is magnificently philosophical, spiritual and transcendent, perhaps the best specimen of the age of Romanticism that ever flowed from the pen of men.