I said I would post Bess's prize soon, and here I have come through with the goods. I think she'll approve. It was between a George Eliot book and this one, and for a minute there I wavered, but then I remembered Bess's love of Agatha Christie and thought this would be better able to satisfy the ol' tastebuds. Graham Greene was apparently quite the talented guy. The Orient Express and The Third Man are known to all, but he also had some plays, short stories and quite a few novels. One of my favorites being The Power and The Glory. Here is a quote from The Power and The Glory. Does it not remind you of a certain George MacDonald or what?
They lay quiet for a while in the hut. The priest thought the lieutenant was asleep until he spoke again. 'You never talk straight. You say one thing to me - but to another man, or a woman, you say, "God is love." But you think that stuff won't go down with me, so you say different things. Things you think I'll agree with.'
'Oh,' the priest said, 'that's another thing altogether - God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around.'
