Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1884-08-01


few years so changes that their most
fanil friends would pass Them BY SSor
la strang yet perchance turn d back
ward look as the image off some faint
personal resen blance to one hom they
well remembered in bYgone years
flashed across the en- or, His once
towering and upright form had yielded
TO ~ slight stoop, IS Of premature age;
/ lis rich raven locks were white AS the
snow that lies more than half the year
round on Alpine highlands which be-
girdle the valleys Of the Roya; more
over, their rare luxurianee had h been
long since subjected to the shears and
the tonsure in conformity with the ans
tere self abnegating VOWS to 81 which
their once proud possessor had vol11n.
tarily submit tilted. e L Hi s5 5s8#F
NJ Perhaps the most faithful and fore.
ible comparison which could be sug-
gested between the grave and marble
pale, smooth faced Brother Sebastian
lof the present with the gay, proud, hir-
suite Count Robert of the past, would be
that Of q plaster cast OF post mortem
picture contrasted with the living pro-
totype in the heyday Of youth and ex-
uberant vitality j ii .. .s5s
| "Bl1t the memorable finger Of time
speeds fast round the arrival Of Dom
Sebastian, gradually sank beneath the
weight Of his infirmitiies and his Office
became vacant. With one voice the
grateful and apprecative fraternity ell
ected their exemplary and generous
benefactor for their spiritual head; a
! dignity which: he exercised to the geGer-
al satisfaction and ee1ifcation during the
brief continuance Of his a1lstere but
kindly and paterna1 sway. Not till
| years after his decease, and the subse-
quent dispersion Of the community BY
the stormy breath of the great French
Revolution, was the secret Of his life be-
trayed to the world, by the chance dis
coyery, toWhieh I have already referred,
Of certain documents, forgotten or mis-
| laid amid the hurry and confusion of the
general encouragement and Sauye- quiz
peut. a. -
1.-THE secret was now divulged, and
| the key to the enigma at last found.
| The beloved and reyered Lord Abbot
! Of St. Dalmas di Tenda was no other
than the heartbroken and prenaaturely
aged Count Robert Of Nice; who, in the
flower Of early manhood, had borne in
his arms, from the altar stair OF St.
Reparata's Cathedral church, the life
| less form-lovely even in death-of his
| bride,--Maria de ST. Taller?
MAY, none, had even for moment
| coniectured that the sweet name, which
ever and anon fell from his bloodless
lips, was not always that of her whose
presence and guardianship were daily
invoked by the chime of the Angelus
4 bell--but sometimes also. though the
frailty of human nature, of the Marie
who was to him a wife of an instant and
the bride OF eternity. Nor was it ever
surmised among the guileless and I'M
suspecting community that when the
Lord Abbot spent hours of moonlight
meditation in his island sanctuary, fix
ing q wrapt and wistful gaze in statues
que immobility on yonder silver bah
bling font, which rises so spiritlike
amidst the impenetrable foliage betting
it in on all sides, like the sacred grove
Of Greek temple-tbat this austere and
holy man, saw and heard, with inner
eye and ear, only the shape and voice OF
her whose faithful and loving worship
per he was even unto death. Few or
none had, even at such an hour, caught
the passionate accents which broke from
the heaving bosom Of the lonely abbot
and which, echo alone. whispering the
name OF Marie discretely buried in
her secret and silent cave" -Belgrayia