Dickensian nightmare

[Jonathan Lighter]

I find in Dickens's Preface to _A Tale of Two Cities_ two passages that seem like gibberish.  Has TV dumbed me down?
 
Either my own syntactical skills or those of our entire generation are now so enfeebled as to cut off from comprehension whole sentences of English literature.
 
After too much effort I believe I understand them in the way a major in sports management studies understands Hopkins. For your amusement:
 
1. "When I was acting...I first conceived the main idea of this story. A strong desire was upon me then to embody it in my own person; and I traced out in my fancy the state of mind of which it would necessitate the presentation to an observant spectator, with particular care and interest."
 
2. "The idea...has had complete possession of me. I have so far verified what is done and suffered in these pages, as that I have certainly done and suffered it all myself."
 
"Of which" what? "As that" why? Whaa?
 
Check one:
 
A. perfectly lucid, if old-fashioned, writing by a prose master.
B. thoroughly understandable, but clumsily constructed by one with deficient writing skills.
C. close to gibberish. 
D. now one, now another
  
JL




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