FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  
great range of mountains," he began, "slashing across the American states and beautifully named the Alleghanies, there is a vast measure of coal beds. It is thither that the emigrants from Southern Europe journey. They mine out the coal, sometimes descending into the earth through pits, or what in your language are called shafts, and sometimes following the stratum of the coal bed into the hill. "This underworld, monsieur--this, sunless world, built underneath the mountains, is a section of Europe slipped under the American Republic. The language spoken there is not English. The men laboring in those buried communities cry out sparate when they are about to shoot down the coal with powder. It is Italy under there. There is a river called the Monongahela in those mountains. It is an Indian name." He paused. "And so, monsieur, what happened along it doubtless reminded me of Cooper's story--Bough of Oak and the case of Corporal Flint." He took another cigarette out of a box on the table, but he did not light it. "In one of the little mining villages along this river with the enchanting name there was a man physically like the people of the Iliad; and with that, monsieur, he had a certain cast of mind not unHellenic. He was tall, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, lean as a gladiator, and in the vigor of golden youth. "There were no wars to journey after and no adventures; but there was danger and adventure here. This land was full of cockle, winnowed out of Italy, Austria and the whole south of Europe. It took courage and the iron hand of the state to keep the peace. Here was a life of danger; and this Ionian--big, powerful, muscled like the heroes of the Circus Maximus--entered this perilous service. "Monsieur, I have said his mind was Hellenic, like his big, wonderful body. Mark you how of heroic antiquity it was! It was his boast, among the perils that constantly beset him, that no criminal should ever take his life; that, if ever he should receive a mortal wound from the hand of the assassins about him, he would not wait to die in agony by it. He himself would sever the damaged thread of life and go out like a man! "Observe, monsieur, how like the great heroes of legend--like the wounded Saul when he ordered his armor-bearer to kill him; like Brutus when he fell on his sword!" He looked intently at the American. "Doubtless, monsieur," he went on, "those near this man along the Monongahela did
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   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   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

monsieur

 

mountains

 

Europe

 
American
 
journey
 

Monongahela

 
heroes
 

danger

 

language

 

called


thread
 

Doubtless

 

muscled

 

Circus

 

Maximus

 
powerful
 

Ionian

 

damaged

 

adventures

 
legend

adventure

 
wounded
 

golden

 

Observe

 

entered

 

Austria

 

cockle

 
winnowed
 

courage

 

Monsieur


perils

 

constantly

 

heroic

 

antiquity

 

bearer

 

receive

 

mortal

 

criminal

 

assassins

 

Brutus


looked

 

intently

 

service

 

ordered

 

Hellenic

 

wonderful

 
perilous
 

underneath

 

section

 

sunless