Headnote vignette
John McLenan
1859
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 3, "A Disappointment"
Harper's Weekly (11 June 1859): 381. This text in the sixth installment previously appeared in the UK in All the Year Round on 4 June 1859.
The headnote depicts the point in the narrative after which we — and those in the London courtroom — have discovered the identical appearances of Carton and Darnay; that earlier discovery is depicted by the following illustration:
"Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. While his teamed friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened to fight on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike."