" I ventured to ask if he did not feel any desire to write?
"No," he said, "frankly I do not--the world is so full of pleasant
things to do and hear and see, that I sometimes think myself almost
a fool for having spent so much time in scribbling. Do you know,"
he went on, "a delicious story I picked up the other day? A man was
travelling in some God-forsaken out-of-the-way place--I believe it
was the Andes--and he fell in with an old podgy Roman priest who
was going everywhere, in a state of perpetual fatigue, taking long
expeditions every day, and returning worn-out in the evening, but
perfectly content. The man saw a good deal of the priest, and asked
him what he was doing. The priest smiled and said, 'Well, I will
tell you. I had an illness some time ago and believed that I was
going to die. One evening--I was half unconscious--I thought I saw
some one standing by my bed. I looked, and it was a young man with
a beautiful and rather severe face, whom I knew to be an angel, who
was gazing at me rather strangely. I thought it was the messenger
of death, and--for I was wishing to be gone and have done with it
all--I said something to him about being ready to depart--and then
added that I was waiting hopefully to see the joys of Paradise, the
glory of the saints in light.
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