Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks in Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep.
Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined spirit.

Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Since the sun went down last night, the darkness has gradually swelled until it fills every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights burning. But they are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare; but she has passed on and is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, and Tom is fast asleep.
Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of Parliament, concerning Tom, and how Tom shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by constables, or by beadles, or by churches; or whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. One thing is perfectly clear: that Tom can and will only be reclaimed according to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the meantime, Tom goes to perdition.
