United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"And though it's a gentleman that's coming to you, Tom for he never refuses a poor body," said Mrs. Bakewell, "it's a true Christian, Tom! and the Lord knows if the sight of him mayn't be the saving of you, for he's light to look on, and a sermon to listen to, he is!" Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, and looked a sullen dog enough when Austin entered his cell.
For a whole year he laboured incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary sublimity of the figures.
The nun remained motionless, pressing her cheek against the door-post and looking out. Her aunt had not quite shut the door by which she had entered, and a cool stream of air blew outward from the corridor and through the cell, bringing with it that peculiar odour which belongs to all large and old buildings inhabited by religious communities.
"We are led, therefore, to postulate a body of what we may term organizing spirits, who would be charged with the duty of so influencing the myriads of cell souls as to carry out their part of the work with accuracy and certainty....
"Be not so amazed, daughter Miranda," said Prospero; "there is no harm done. I have so ordered it that no person in the ship shall receive any hurt. What I have done has been in care of you, my dear child. You are ignorant who you are, or where you came from, and you know no more of me, but that I am your father, and live in this poor cave. Can you remember a time before you came to this cell?
The cracks in the pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wall where stone was joined to stone, the bars in the window, the iron ring upon the floor, such things as these, subsiding strangely into one another, and awakening an indescribable kind of interest and amusement, engrossed his whole mind; and although at the bottom of his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt, and dread of death, he felt no more than that vague consciousness of it, which a sleeper has of pain.
Fresh water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure. During the day, his bedstead turns up against the wall, and leaves more space for him to work in. His loom, or bench, or wheel, is there; and there he labours, sleeps and wakes, and counts the seasons as they change, and grows old. The first man I saw, was seated at his loom, at work.
They visited the ruins of Craigmillar Castle and stood in the little stone den, seven feet by four, which is known as "Queen Mary's bedroom." They saw those deep, dark dungeons where in the olden times captives pined away their lives forgotten of all above ground; they saw the "execution room," with its condemned cell, its chains and staples, its instruments of torture, its altar and its block.
So the matter was settled. Vol. SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA sat by the open door of her cell, looking across the stone parapet of her little balcony, and watching the changing richness of the western sky, as the sun went down far out of sight behind the mountains.
In the cell upon the other side, he puts another figure, whose face is hidden from him also. Day after day, and often when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks of these two men until he is almost distracted. He never changes them.
Word Of The Day