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The Hour Will Come; A Tale of an Alpine Cloister
The Hour Will Come A Tale of an Alpine Cloister Author:Wilhelmine von Hillern General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1879 Original Publisher: B. Tauchnitz Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can se... more »lect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. MASS was over. The whole brotherhood had assembled in the underground founder's hall, to offer up a special thanksgiving before the effigies of the founders. This hall was the most ancient part of the whole building, and in it a hundred years ago the brethren had performed their devotions until the convent-buildings were complete. Bishop Adelgott of Chur had consecrated it, and remained there still in effigy. Since then it had been the custom to perform a thanksgiving-service every year on the founder's day, in honour of the venerable bishop and the noble patrons of the house, whose portraits were preserved there for the safe keeping of the subterranean vault. Here also the pious feelings of the brethren had expressed themselves in beautifying care, and had clothed the damp walls down in the earth, where only roots can live, with the fresh green of the tree-tops that wave gaily in the upper air; the bright gleam of wax-tapers in two tall seven-branched candlesticks was reflected from the dark walls, as if the sun-shine, under which the busy convent-bees had gathered their store, had laid hidden in the wax itself, only awaiting its release. The natural incense of aromatic pine-wood filled the heavy underground atmosphere; thick translucent tears of resin hung yellow and sparkling from the freshly broken boughs, like drops of limpid topaz. The portraits of Ulrich of Trasp and his veiled wife Uta looked down with a gentle smile from thick wreaths of heath-plants and rue; and the text, "They only live who die to the world," which proceeded from the mouth ofthe...« less