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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Captives"

All the physical properties
of life--clothes, food, household possessions, money--became of less
and less importance to him. Had Amy not watched over him he would
have been many days without any food at all, and one day he come
into the living-room at breakfast-time clothed in a towel. All this
had come upon him with vastly increased power during the last
months. In Chapel, and whenever he had work to do in connection with
the Chapel, he was clear-headed and practical, but in things to do
with this world he was now worse than a child.
He was conscious of this increasing difficulty to deal with both
worlds. It was because one world--the world of God--was opening out
before him so widely and with so varied and thrilling a beauty that
there was less and less time to be spared for the drab realities of
physical things.
All his life he had been preparing, and then suddenly the call had
come. Shortly after Martin's return he had known in Chapel, one
evening, that God was approaching. It had happened that that day,
owing to his absorption in his work, he had eaten nothing, and there
had come to him, whilst praying to the congregation, a sensation of
faintness so strong that for a moment he thought he would fall from
his seat.


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