"Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc vol 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Joan of Arc)

this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it
was known that the fairies did it was this--that it was made all of
black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere.

Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were
called the Children of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it
carried with it a mystic privilege not granted to any others of the
children of this world. Which was this: whenever one of these
came to die, then beyond the vague and formless images drifting
through his darkening mind rose soft and rich and fair a vision of
the Tree--if all was well with his soul. That was what some said.
Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a warning, one or
two years in advance of death, when the soul was the captive of
sin, and then the Tree appeared in its desolate winter aspect--then
that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If repentance came, and
purity of life, the vision came again, this time summer-clad and
beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the vision was
withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still others
said that the vision came but once, and then only to the sinless
dying forlorn in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last
dear reminder of their home. And what reminder of it could go to
their hearts like the picture of the Tree that was the darling of their
love and the comrade of their joys and comforter of their small
griefs all through the divine days of their vanished youth?