WHAT'S HOT
Prev | Current Page 63 | Next

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1856-1939

"Four Years"

As whenever he sinned a cardinal virtue interfered and
turned him back to virtue, he lived in great credit and made, but
for one sentence, a very holy death. As his wife and family knelt
round in admiration and grief, he suddenly said 'Damn.' 'O my dear,'
said his wife, 'what a dreadful expression.' He answered, 'I am
going to heaven' and straightway died. It was a long tale, for there
were all the jockey's vain attempts to sin, as well as all the
adventures of the clergyman, who became very sinful indeed, but it
ended happily, for when the jockey died the cardinal virtues
returned to the clergyman. I think he would talk to any audience
that offered, one audience being the same as another in his eyes,
and it may have been for this reason that my father called him
unambitious. When he was a young man he had befriended a reformed
thief and had asked the grateful thief to take him round the
thieves' quarters of London. The thief, however, hurried him away
from the worst saying, 'Another minute and they would have found you
out. If they were not the stupidest men in London, they had done so
already.


Pages:
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75