Fairless, Michael

There is need to ask indulgence for this little book, because at first sight it seems to possess no other unity than that of type and cover. The root of its unity lies deeper, deeper even than any of subject or of method; it lies in the personal gift, the communication of heart to heart, which is the secret of charm in all the author’s work. For this reason its publication is justified.

The papers, poems, and stories it contains have, with two exceptions, appeared elsewhere, most of them in p. vi‘The Pilot,’ where the Roadmender found his first welcome and his literary home.

The fairy-tales were told by word of mouth to one child and another of widely differing ages; and three of them were afterwards published in ‘The Parents’ Review.’ ‘The Grey Brethren’ is from ‘The Commonwealth.’ The Christmas papers and poems were brought out as a booklet by Messrs Mowbray Son.

The author’s characteristic quality is best displayed in these last, and in Expand

Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart.

The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death and a monk with an artist’s eyes; but for the author it is a romance of the Image of God. While the Divine Face is being unveiled for Hilarius in the masque that shocks and bewilders him, and the secret of sorrow and sin, of death and life and love, is told by his speechless and dying “little maid,” we, if we choose, may hear again the Road mender’s epilogue to the story of the man of this earth, the man of the common highway:—“‘Dust and ashes and a house of devils,’ he cries; and there comes back for answer, ‘Rex concupiscet decorem tuum.’”

Через эту маленькую книгу проходит дорога жизни, обычная дорога людей, белое шо Expand