A New Heart For A New Year

‘A new heart for a new year,’ wrote Charles Dickens in The Chimes. It was 1844. Dickens was visiting Italy, keenly observing and taking in his surroundings whilst thinking of a new story that was slowly forming in his mind. He did not know what to call it, not yet. The sound of church bells in Genoa where he was staying at the time would provide some in…