Château and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well–thousands of acres of land–a whole province of France–all France itself–lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hairbreadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. ~ A Tale of Two Cities