The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: half-breeds. There was meat with spices, and roasted quail, with various
cakes and other preparations of grain; also the brown fresh olives and
grapes, with several sorts of figs and plums, and preserved fruits, and
white and red wine--the white fifty years old. Beneath the quiet shining
of candles, fresh-cut flowers leaned from vessels of old Mexican and
Spanish make.
There at one end of this feast sat the wild, pastoral, gaudy company,
speaking little over their food; and there at the other the pale Padre,
questioning his visitor about Rachel. The mere name of a street would
bring memories crowding to his lips; and when his guest told him of a new
play he was ready with old quotations from the same author. Alfred de
|