FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  
k that there is any Cecilia in his case, nor that there is likely to be one. He personifies the abstract too passionately to need the love of women. Africa is personified to him the Cinderella of the continents, the drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper. He is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tells me. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that the Shulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, when she had conquered the latter by the power of her impassioned chastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers were both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land south of the Zambesi, and thither returned in peace at last from the foam of perilous seas. Perhaps his argument is slender; but it is good for him to believe in it himself, I think, for surely it helps his work among those that he deems her descendants. He works on out there, personifying and idealizing. I think he is as much in love with his country parish as I am with mine in England. May we both, in our placid and unfashionable ways, dream our dreams and see our visions! Meanwhile Leonard Reeve reigns in that midland town, and is treasured by the bishop who was not deceived when he expected a kindred spirit. He and Cecilia have chosen a date in this next November for their deferred marriage. Their choice of month seems to me characteristic. I do not think they will be disappointed if the day is a little urban in its murkiness. It is good for a man to be in love with his charge, is it not? Next time some fanatic of West-End work, or East-End work, or foreign mission work gets hold of you and talks excellent sense about discipline, and offering yourself to your bishop, and packing up your kit at a week's notice remember this story of mine! Is it not well to import something of the precise devotion of Holy Matrimony into the general self-oblation of Holy Orders? It is good to think that three of us friends have the very same sort of feeling Leonard Reeve for the crowds and the fogs and the odors; my cousin for the rock-sown plains and the little circles of thatched huts; I for the cornlands and the elm-shaded ridges and the cottage people. Yes, to Leonard anything grimy is just as romantic as green fields to me, or brown veld to my cousin. Do you know, I was asked to preach Leonard's Institution sermon last Whit Monday, and I dared to preach it? Cecilia, who was
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Leonard

 

Cecilia

 

preach

 

cousin

 

Solomon

 

bishop

 
excellent
 

marriage

 

discipline

 
offering

deferred

 

characteristic

 

disappointed

 

packing

 
fanatic
 

foreign

 
choice
 

murkiness

 

charge

 

mission


general
 

cottage

 

ridges

 

people

 

shaded

 
circles
 

plains

 

thatched

 

cornlands

 

romantic


sermon

 

Institution

 

Monday

 

fields

 

precise

 
devotion
 

Matrimony

 
import
 

notice

 

remember


feeling

 
crowds
 

Orders

 

oblation

 

friends

 

shepherd

 
humble
 

conquered

 
scholars
 
conjecture