United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was rather glad of the tidings, on the whole at least there was a definite cause for Corydon's suffering, and a prospect of an end to it. Both of them had still their touching faith in doctors and surgeons, as speaking with final and godlike authority upon matters beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mind.
The thought of Corydon's lying there alone, helpless and suffering, made him wild; but everywhere he met with the same response the cold weather had apparently brought an epidemic of disease, and there was no doctor in the place who could spare three or four hours to make the long journey in the snow. So there was nothing for him to do but go back.
But when the cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon's patience could hold no longer, and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with nearly the same words "Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade."
And afterwards, what ghastly wounds in Corydon's soul, that had to be bound up and tended and healed! The pity of it; the shame of it that they should be able to descend to such sordidness! That their love, which they had planned as a noble temple, should turn out an ugly hovel! "Oh Thyrsis!" the girl would cry. "The idea that you should think less of my soul than of an old newspaper!"
When he looked up again the elder nurse had the baby in her arms; and there was a wan smile on Corydon's face. The doctor's hand was in the ghastly wound, and he was talking to the young nurse, giving her instruction, in a strange, monotonous tone. "The placenta," he was saying, "often has to be removed; we do it by twisting it round and round very gently, of course. Then it comes so!"
In an old poem, entitled "Corydon's Doleful Knell," a lover specifies the decorations he intends to use: A garland shall be framed By art and nature's skill, Of sundry-colored flowers, In token of good-will. And sundry-colored ribbons On it I will bestow; But chiefly blacke and yellowe With her to grave shall go.
Of course Corydon's nature was a thing more lovely than his; and, of course, it ought to have its way, to grow in freedom and joy. But alas there was "the economic screw"! His qualities hateful though they might be were the product of stern conditions; they were the qualities which had to dominate in their lives, if they were to survive in the grim struggle for life. Section 14.
You don't blame the butterfly because it can't get down into the water and snort; and on the other hand, when the hippopotamus tries to flap his wings and flit about among the flowers, he doesn't make a success of it." There would be times when he took Corydon's point of view entirely.
Corydon would bring him the opinions of a few more members of the bourgeois world, and they would curse this world and these people together. For there was no more thought of giving up on Corydon's side than there was on his; it was not for nothing that he had talked to her upon the hill-top in the moonlight.
He pictured the work he had to do, and the loneliness to which this consigned Corydon; he told her of the horrors they had so far endured, and what effect these had had upon his wife. He showed her what her power was how she could make life possible for both of them. For she had that magic key which Thyrsis himself did not possess, she could unlock the treasure-chambers of Corydon's soul.
Word Of The Day