A Tale of Two Cities: Beginning and End

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities will always be one of my favorite novels.  It’s a historical masterpiece exploring two cultures and the destruction during the French Revolution.

My favorite character is the unlikable Sydney Carton, who ends the book as the true hero of the story.  A good book always features characters who overcome great odds and become better people.  Carton is one such person.

Everyone knows the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities:  “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

But do you know the last line of the book?

It is the inner thought of Sydney Carton as he approaches his sacrificial death on the guillotine:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.