Melbourne House, Volume 2 by Susan Warner
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page 10 of 402 (02%)
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Gary at that wheeled partly round, and stroked his chin and moustache with the most comical expression of doubt and confusion. "I declare I don't know, Daisy! I think it means a person who is too good for this world, and therefore isn't allowed to live here. They all go off in flames of some sort--may look like glory, but is very uncomfortable--and there is a peculiar odour about them. Doctor, what is that odour called?" Gary spoke with absurd soberness, but the doctor gave him no attention. "The odour of sanctity!--that is it!" said Gary. "I had forgot. I don't know what it is like, myself; but it must be very disagreeable to have such a peculiarity attached to one." "How can anybody be too good for this world?" Daisy ventured. "Too good to live in it! You can't live among people unless you live like them--so the saints all leave the rest of the world in some way or other; the children die, and the grown ones go missionaries or become nuns--they are a sort of human meteor--shine and disappear, but don't really accomplish much, because no one wants to be meteors. So your old woman can't be a saint, Daisy, or she would have quitted the world long ago." Something called off Gary. Daisy was left feeling very thoroughly disturbed. That people could talk so--and think so--about what was so precious to her; talk about being saints, as if it were an undesirable thing; and as if such were unlovely. Her thought went back to Juanita, |
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