There Was Always Another Side

It Seemed To Scobie That Life Was Immeasurably Long. Couldn’t The Test Of Man Have Been Carried Out In Fewer Years? Couldn’t We Have Committed Our First Major Sin At Seven, Have Ruined Ourselves For Love Or Hate At Ten, Have Clutched At Redemption On A Fifteen-year-old Deathbed?

What Have We All Got To Expect That We Allow Ourselves To Be So Lined With Disappointment?

A Story Has No Beginning Or End: Arbitrarily One Chooses That Moment Of Experience From Which To Look Back Or From Which To Look Ahead.

You Don't Bless What You Love...it's When You Want To Love And You Can't Manage It. You Stretch Out Your Hands And You Say God Forgive Me That I Can't Love But Bless This Thing Anyway...we Have To Bless What We Hate...it Would Be Better To Love, But That's Not Always Possible.

But I'm A Bad Priest, You See. I Know--from Experience--how Much Beauty Satan Carried Down With Him When He Fell. Nobody Ever Said The Fallen Angels Were The Ugly Ones. Oh, No, They Were Just As Quick And Light And . . .