|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: tempered air brought its reverberations to remind us that this was the
sacred hour when Christianity repeats the words said by the angel to
the woman who has redeemed the faults of her sex. "Ave Maria!"--
surely, at this moment the words were a salutation from heaven. The
prophecy was so plain, the event so near that we burst into tears. The
murmuring sounds of evening, melodious breezes in the leafage, last
warbling of the birds, the hum and echo of the insects, the voices of
the waters, the plaintive cry of the tree-frog,--all country things
were bidding farewell to the loveliest lily of the valley, to her
simple, rural life. The religious poesy of the hour, now added to that
of Nature, expressed so vividly the psalm of the departing soul that
The Lily of the Valley |
