|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: The girl felt the longing for life in her heart, and for love that
spoke through the handsome adventurer, a young miscreant who haunted
churches in search of a prize, an heiress to marry, or ready money.
The Bishop bestowed his benison on the waves, and bade them be calm;
it was all that he could do. He thought of his concubine, and of the
delicate feast with which she would welcome him; perhaps at that very
moment she was bathing, perfuming herself, robing herself in velvet,
fastening her necklace and her jeweled clasps; and the perverse
Bishop, so far from thinking of the power of Holy Church, of his duty
to comfort Christians and exhort them to trust in God, mingled worldly
regrets and lover's sighs with the holy words of the breviary. By the
|
