In ‘The Chimes’, Charles Dickens imagined what the church bells might say to Trotty Veck, racked with guilt over Victorian England’s supposedly consumerist society. The bells roundly scold him for wanting — and for thinking they might want — to turn back the clock to days of ignorance and oppression, when Man’s earthly business is seek continual improvement through industry and innovation.

Trotty protests that he meant no harm, but the bells are not done with him. They are hurt that he thought for even one moment that they would chime in support of a politics that tries to regulate happiness as cynically as it dispenses charity. The bells demand an apology, and Trotty eagerly gives it.

117 words