| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: after the intoning he sat with his homesick thoughts unchanged, to draw
both pain and enjoyment from the music that he had set to the Dixit
Dominus. He listened to the tender chorus that opens William Tell; and,
as the Latin psalm proceeded, pictures of the past rose between him and
the altar. One after another came these strains he had taken from operas
famous in their day, until at length the Padre was murmuring to some
music seldom long out of his heart--not the Latin verse which the choir
sang, but the original French words:
"Ah, voile man envie,
Voila mon seul desir:
Rendez moi ma patrie,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: letter (as a means of grace, perhaps) to the religious papers;
where, after many months, I found and read and wondered at it; and
whence I have now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you
and your dear brother have, by this cycle of operations, built up a
contrast very edifying to examine in detail. The man whom you
would not care to have to dinner, on the one side; on the other,
the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage: the Apia bar-
room, the Honolulu manse.
But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your fellow-men;
and to bring it home to you, I will suppose your story to be true.
I will suppose - and God forgive me for supposing it - that Damien
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant
widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for
the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a
little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily,
whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in it?--smuggled, you
know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like
cordial!"
Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old
trick, and shook her head with a meaning the old woman was
far from translating. She pretended to eat a little of the
furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
