sh theology.
To him in those days Heaven was Heaven and Hell was Hell.

The years at school had brought doubt--apostasy. Then on the fields of
France, Randy's God had come back to him--the Christ who bound up
wounds, who gave a cup of cold water, who fought with flaming sword
against the battalions of brutality, who led up and up that white
company who gave their lives for a glorious Cause. Here, indeed, was a
God of righteousness and of justice, of tenderness and purity. To
other men than Randy, Christ had in a very personal and specific sense
been born across the sea.

It was in France, too, that the dream had come to him of a future of
creative purpose. He had always wanted to write. Looking back over
his University days, he was aware of a formative process which had led
towards this end. It was there he had communed with the spirit of a
tragic muse. There had been all the traditions of Poe and his
tempestuous youth--and Randy, passing the door which had once opened
and closed on that dark figure, had felt the thrill of a living
personality--of one who spoke still in lines of ineffable
beauty--"_Banners yellow, glorious, golden. On its roof did float and
flow----_" and again "_A dirge for her the doubly dead, in that she
died so young----_" with the gayety and gloom and grandeur of those
chiming, rhyming, tolling bells--"_Keeping time, time, time, In a sort
of Runic rhyme----_" and that "_grim and ancient Raven wandering from
the Nightly shore----_"

"Do you think I could write?" Randy had asked one of his teachers,
coming verse-saturated to the question.

The man had looked at him with somber eyes. "You have an ear for
it--and an eye---- But genius pays a price."

"What do you mean?"

"It shows its heart to the world, dissects its sacred thoughts, has no
secrets----"

"But think of leaving a thing behind you like--'To Helen----'"

"Do you think the knowledge that he had written a few bits of
incomparable verse helped Poe to live? If he had invented a pill or a
headache powder, he would have slept on down and have dined from gold
dishes."

"I'd rather write 'Ulalume' than dine from gold dishes."

"You think that now. But in twenty years you will sigh for a--feather
bed----"

"You don't believe that."

There had come a lighting of the somber eyes. "My dear fellow, if you,
by the grace of God, have it in you to write, what I believe won't have
anything to do with it. You will crucify your