The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories by Alice Dunbar: meeting of all nations on common ground, a pot-pourri of every
conceivable human ingredient, but faintly describes it all.
There are music and flowers, cries and laughter and song and
joyousness, and never an aching heart to show its sorrow or dim
the happiness of the streets. A wondrous thing, this Carnival!
But the old cronies down in Frenchtown, who know everything, and
can recite you many a story, tell of one sad heart on Mardi Gras
years ago. It was a woman's, of course; for "Il est toujours les
femmes qui sont malheureuses," says an old proverb, and perhaps
it is right. This woman--a child, she would be called elsewhere,
save in this land of tropical growth and precocity--lost her
The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories |