Headnote Vignette of the newly-weds, Charles Darnay and Lucie: Book II, Chapter 19, "An Opinion" "A Tale of Two Cities" by John McLenan for "Harper's Weekly" (27 August 1859)

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Headnote Vignette: The Newly-weds

John McLenan

Harper's Weekly (27 August 1859): 557.

Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapters 19, "An Opinion," and 20, "A Plea," appeared in the UK on Saturday, 20 August, in All the Year Round withut illustration.

This illustration, which depicts Lucie and her new husband, Darnay, refers to the opening of the succeeding chapter, "A Plea," the second in this seventeenth instalment.

The illustrations appearing here are courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.

Passage Illustrated at the Curtain of the Instalment: Lucie's Tenderness for Carton

“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.”

“It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, “that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him.”

“My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.”

She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours.

“And, O my dearest Love!” she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, “remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!”

The supplication touched him home. “I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.”

He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night — and the words would not have parted from his lips for the first time —

“God bless her for her sweet compassion!” [Book the Second — "The Golden Thread," Chapter XX, "A Plea," 558]

Other Illustrated Editions (1859-1910)

Related Material

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 7 May through 3 December 1859.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities: A story of the French Revolution. Project Gutenberg e-text by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. Release Date: September 25, 2004 [EBook #98].

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.

Created 28 November 2007

Last modified 26 November 2025