Don’t you just love when you’re reading along in your top-’o-the-stack book and a sentence jumps out at you – a sentence that makes you say “Aha!” or “Yes!” or “Why didn’t I think of that before?” Or you stumble across a sentence so perfectly written it resounds in your heart-strings for days?
Each Saturday I’ll be celebrating those Striking Sentences, the ones that pierce the soul with their wisdom or humor or craft. If you’d like to share a Striking Sentence (or sentences) from your current read, post about them on your blog, tell us why they strike your heart, and leave a link in the comments here so we may come visit.
We are about half way through A Tale of Two Cities in my British Literature class and the students are finally beginning to realize the literary skill of Charles Dickens. One of my favorite quotes from that book is from the chapter where Sydney Carton declares his love for Lucie Manette, and concludes the conversation by saying:
"...For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you.....O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" ~ page 159
Such selflessness from an unlikely character who has always lived below his potential.
Are you familiar with this story? Do you know how it ends? If not, you simply must put this classic on your reading list and experience the beauty of the story told in the eloquence that only Dickens can write.
Alas, thanks to Dirk Bogarde, I do know how this one ends. But I've yet to read it. Must fix that. Thank you.
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