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Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946

"Penrod and Sam"


The church had been built in the early 'Seventies, and it
contained some naive stained glass of that period. The arch at
the top of a window facing Penrod was filled with a gigantic Eye.
Of oyster-white and raw blues and reds, inflamed by the pouring
sun, it had held an awful place in the infantile life of Penrod
Schofield, for in his tenderer years he accepted it without
question as the literal Eye of Deity. He had been informed that
the church was the divine dwelling--and there was the Eye!
Nowadays, being no longer a little child, he had somehow come to
know better without being told, and, though the great flaming Eye
was no longer the terrifying thing it had been to him during his
childhood, it nevertheless retained something of its ominous
character. It made him feel spied upon, and its awful glare still
pursued him, sometimes, as he was falling asleep at night. When
he faced the window his feeling was one of dull resentment.
His own glazed eyes, becoming slightly crossed with an ennui that
was peculiarly intense this morning, rendered the Eye more
monstrous than it was.


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