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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Puritans, by Arlo Bates

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Title: The Puritans
Author: Arlo Bates
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8522]

[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]

[This file was first posted on July 19, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURITANS ***

Produced by Eric Eldred, ckirschner
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
The Puritans
By
Arlo Bates
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
_All's Well That Ends Well_, iv. 3.
"Abandoning my heart, and rapt in ecstasy, I ran after her till I came
to a place in which religion and reason forsook me."
_Persian Religious Hymn.
CONTENTS
I. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT
II. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION
III. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND
IV. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE
V. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE
VI. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY
VII. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT
VIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE
IX. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH
X. A SYMPATHY OF WOE
XI. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING
XII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE
XIII. A NECESSARY EVIL
XIV. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY
XV. HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT
XVI. THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART
XVII. A BOND OF AIR
XVIII. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH
XIX. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL
XX. IN WAY OF TASTE
XXI. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES
XXII. THE BITTER PAST

XXIII. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME
XXIV. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL, AND EVER
XXV. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED
XXVI. O WICKED WIT AND GIFT

XXVII. UPON A CHURCH BENCH
XXVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE
XXIX. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE
XXX. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP
XXXI. HOW CHANCES MOCK
XXXII. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS
XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN
XXXIV. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED
XXXV. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED
XXXVI. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
XXXVII. THIS IS NOT A BOON
THE PURITANS
I
AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT
Henry VIII., i. 3.
"We are all the children of the Puritans," Mrs. Herman said smiling.
"Of course there is an ethical strain in all of us."
Her cousin, Philip Ashe, who wore the dress of a novice from the Clergy
House of St. Mark, regarded her with a serious and doubtful glance.
"But there is so much difference between you and me," he began. Then he
hesitated as if not knowing exactly how to finish his sentence.

"The difference," she responded, "is chiefly a matter of the difference
between action and reaction. You and I come of much the same stock
ethically. My childhood was oppressed by the weight of the Puritan
creed, and the reaction from it has made me what you feel obliged to
call heretic; while you, with a saint for a mother, found even
Puritanism hardly strict enough for you, and have taken to semi-
monasticism. We are both pushed on by the same original impulse: the
stress of Puritanism."

She had been putting on her gloves as she spoke, and now rose and stood
ready to go out. Philip looked at her with a troubled glance, rising
also.

"I hardly know," said he slowly, "if it's right for me to go with you.
It would have been more in keeping if I adhered to the rules of the
Clergy House while I am away from it."

Mrs. Herman smiled with what seemed to him something of the tolerance
one has for the whim of a child.
"And what would you be doing at the Clergy House at this time of day?"
she asked. "Wouldn't it be recreation hour or something of the sort?"
He looked down. He never found himself able to be entirely at ease in
answering her questions about the routine of the Clergy House.
"No," he answered. "The half hour of recreation which follows Nones
would just be ended."
His cousin laughed confusingly.

"Well, then," she rejoined, "begin it over again. Tell your confessor
that the woman tempted you, and you did sin. You are not in the Clergy
House just now; and as I have taken the trouble to ask leave to carry
you to Mrs. Gore's this afternoon, more because you wanted to see this
Persian than because I cared about it, it is rather late for
objections."

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