The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pentecost of Calamity, by Owen Wister

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Title: The Pentecost of Calamity

Author: Owen Wister

Release Date: April 23, 2010 [EBook #32098]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
PENTECOST OF
CALAMITY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

THE
PENTECOST OF
CALAMITY

_By_
OWEN WISTER
_Author of "The Virginian," etc._

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1915

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.

COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1915.
Reprinted September, twice, October, twice, November,
three times; December, 1915

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

THE PENTECOST OF CALAMITY

Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host.

--EMERSON.

I

By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more
vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we
read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic
syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms
and faces shape themselves from nothing. So, through certain
influences, not magical at all, our brains are made to flash with
visions of other days. Is there among us one to whom this experience
is unknown? For whom no particular strain of music, or no special
perfume, is linked with an inveterate association? Music and perfumes
are among the most potent of these evocatory agents; but many more
exist, such as words, sounds, handwriting. Thus almost always, at the
name of the town Cologne, the banks of the golden stream, the German
Rhine, sweep into my s