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Writer's pictureLinda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs

Excerpted Inspirations #28


"They sat up late that night talking -- Marise must tell all about Rome and the old Visconti, as legendary a figure to Mlle. Hasparren as Paganini; and Mlle. Hasparren must tell how she came to leave her city-school and go back to the mountaineers in the rough, plain village class-room. 'I seemed to feel nearer to them,' she said, not knowing very well how to tell why she had, 'and I felt a great longing for my mountains and my own old home. And they need music here. Do you remember Father Armandariz?'


"'Oh, yes,' Marise nodded. She had never forgotten the lean young priest who led the open-air singing of his improvised chorus in front of his fortress-like old church. 'Oh, yes, don't you remember we used to drive over just to hear his choir sing here and in another parish too?'


"'He is doing wonderful work. We work together a great deal.'


"'You! With a curé!' Marise was astounded.


"Mlle. Hasparren laughed. 'Oh, yes, yes, those radical ideas of mine. Of course I still have them. But they don't seem so important as they did. Father Armandariz and I are good friends. We both love music. That's enough. He puts cotton in his ears when I let fall a heresy, and I dip my fingers in the holy-water font and cross myself when I go to play the organ in church. Those are little things, and little things mustn't be allowed to interfere with great ones.'"


-Dorothy Canfield, Rough-Hewn (1922), p. 480

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