Charles Dickens — A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens, 'A Tale of Two Cities'
Dickens pauses the story to notice something enormous: every person you pass contains a world you will never enter. Not a sad fact, he insists — a wonderful one.
Language is the narrow bridge across that distance. Each phrase of English you learn lets a little more of another person's inner world reach you, and yours reach them.
Words that widen the world
Very deep or intense; showing great insight.
Synonyms: deep, intense, far-reaching
A profound mystery sat behind every face.
To make up or form something.
Synonyms: form, compose, make up
We are constituted to be unknowable.
Common questions
It reflects on how every person is ultimately a mystery to everyone else — an unknowable inner world — which Dickens calls wonderful rather than sad.
From the opening chapters of Charles Dickens's 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1859).
Carry it with you
In your own words, what does this thought mean to you? Write three or four sentences in English about a moment when it felt true — saying it yourself is how it stays with you.
Read more from Charles Dickens
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