A Tale of Two Cities is a lovely work of fiction except for the very severe punsihments, but sometimes those are necessary, and as Weewee says, sometimes you have to make hard choices. That's what being a criminal is about, really. I don't agree with all that nonsense about the worst of times and the best of times; I think for most people living in France the times were what they thought of as normal. But we in our country have better times, over all, and we should be glad of that.