Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book 1, Chapter 5: The Wine Shop
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One tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees — blood. The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there.

— Charles Dickens on Blood

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "One tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees — blood. The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there." in the context of "Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book 1, Chapter 5: The Wine Shop" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Blood" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Charles Dickens

About Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Charles Dickens was trying to ban workhouses his whole career.