Best of Times, Worst of Times.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," Charles Dickens described these years; "it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way." It is hard to imagine a period of greater contrasts, unless we think of our own time. In Europe Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Joseph Haydn were creating the most enduring music in human history; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Robert Burns, and William Wordsworth were writing the world's greatest literature. Scientists were finding ways to prevent smallpox and other...