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Du Maurier, George, 1834-1896

"Peter Ibbetson"


* * * * *
Sometimes, I remember, I could hardly sleep on a Sunday night, for pity
of the poor wretch who was to be hanged close by on Monday morning, and
it has come to that with _me_!
* * * * *
Oh, Mary, Mary, Duchess of Towers, sweet friend of my childhood, and
love of my life, what must you think of me now?
* * * * *
How blessed are the faithful! How good it must be to trust in God and
heaven, and the forgiveness of sin, and be as a little child in all but
innocence! A whole career of crime wiped out in a moment by just one
cheap little mental act of faith at the eleventh hour, in the extreme
terror of well-merited dissolution; and all the evil one has worked
through life (that goes on breeding evil for ages to come) taken off
one's shoulders like a filthy garment, and just cast aside, anywhere,
anyhow, for the infecting of others--who do not count.
What matter if it be a fool's paradise? Paradise is paradise, for
whoever owns it!
* * * * *
They say a Sicilian drum-major, during the French occupation of Palermo,
was sentenced to be shot.


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