(A Tale of Two Cities, Book 3, Chapter VI)
Darnay is being judged by the people in France. These are individuals that have murdered others in the streets without scruple. During his trial, it comes out that Manette is his father-in-law. The people know and love Manette because of his experience of being unjustly imprisoned for so many years. The discovery of the connection affects the people:
"So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him."
And then later,
"No sooner was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same intensity to rend him to pieces and strew him over the streets."
People have the capacity for great good as well as great evil within themselves. This life is all about controlling the impulses that come to us, and choosing the good. It is shocking to read about these individuals that could be so vicious and then suddenly so kind. But is it a truth we experience in our lives?
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