Dominick

“ Do you realize what a man Dominick might be if he was married to the right woman, and had a decent home where he could live like a Christian? Why, he’d be a different creature. He’d have a future. He’d make his place in the community. All the world would be before him, and he’d mount up to where he belongs. ”

“ He noted an expression almost of austerity on her face that was as new to him as the revelation of obstinacy and indifference to his will she had shown to-night.
“Papa, you don’t understand what I feel. It’s not what you want, or what I want, or what Dominick wants. It’s not what’s going to please us and make us comfortable and happy. It’s something that’s much more important than that. I can’t make Dominick happy and let him make his life a success at the expense of that woman. ”

“ In the gardens not a blossom stirred. Where leaves extended from undefined darknesses of foliage, they stood out, stem and fiber, with a carven distinctness, their shadows painted on the asphalt walks in inky silhouette. There was no lamplight to warm the clear, still pallor of the street’s vista. It stretched between the fronts of houses, a river of light, white and mysterious, like a path in a dream.
It was a night for lovers, for trysts, and for whispered vows. Dominick walked slowly, feeling himself an outsider in its passionate enchantment. ”

“ Cannon rose from his chair.
“That’s just it!” he said, “and there are not so many of ’em round that we can afford to lose one of the best. I’ve always liked Dominick and getting to know him so well up at Antelope I grew downright fond of him. He’s a fine boy.”
He smiled at her with his most genial air, beaming with disinterested affection for Dominick and the desire to be helpful in a grievous strait. Mrs. Ryan looked brighter and more hopeful than she had done at the beginning of the interview.
“It’s very good of you,” she said, “to come and listen to an old woman’s complaints. ”

“ As she prodded him with her questions, her face was suffused with unusual color, and the eagerness of her curiosity shone through the carelessness with which she sought to veil it. Certain queries she accompanied with a piercing glance of investigation, watching with hungry sharpness the [273] countenance of the persecuted man. Fearful of angering her, or, still worse, of arousing her suspicions, Dominick bore the examination with all the fortitude he had, but he rose from the table with every nerve tingling, rasped and galled to the limit of endurance. ”

“ We are both much indebted to you for your gallantry, for it takes something from the weight of our misfortune when we share it, even for a single night, with a friend, and it reassures us as to our sanity, which we are sometimes driven to question."
This was the curious narrative which Sir Dominick confided to me—a story which to many would have appeared to be a grotesque impossibility, but which, after my experience of the night before, and my previous knowledge of such things, I was prepared to accept as an absolute fact. ”

“ Dominick was soon after appointed by Don Alonzo, King of Castile, to accompany his ambassador to the Court of France. On this journey the saint first encountered some of the Albigenses, and to the extinction of their heresy he chiefly devoted the remainder of his life, by instituting his celebrated order of Dominican Preaching Friars A.D. 1215, in imitation of the Franciscans, established about six years before. St. Dominick did not, however, implicitly rely on his own exertions, or on those of his order, suited as it was to the ignorance and abject slavery of those times ”

“ Dominick never eated any in his dayes, so great was his abstinence. Then he came to compare him wt the cælestial powers, which he divided out of Dionysius pseudareopagita into the Hierarchies receaved in the Romish Church, of Angels, Archangels, Powere, Dominations, Cherubins, Seraphines, etc., and then showed his Dominick to excell them all. Many stories he told us which are to be seen in his legends, but never a word of the zeal he had when he sat doune and preached to the birds (and seing a frier kissing a nun he thanked God that their was so much charité left in the world) . ”

“ What saint in heaven does the devil fear most?
Instead of returning any answer to this question, the devils begged Dominick by all that was sacred to be satisfied with the torments he had already inflicted upon them, and with those to which they were condemned in hell, begging he would not insist upon a true answer to that question before so great a congregation, to the ruin of their kingdom ”

“ The old man looked at her with a slight, indulgent smile, inwardly wondering how Dominick Ryan had endured life with this woman.
“Oh, it’s best not to have Dominick know,” he said easily; “not because there’s anything to be ashamed of, but on general principles it’s best to have as few complications as possible in the way of other people’s butting in. ”

“ I’ve the clearest kind of an idea that he hasn’t. You don’t know Dominick. He’s the best boy in the world. He’ll blame himself for everything that’s gone wrong, not that woman. She’s smart enough to let him, too. And suppose he was a different kind and did think of it? That’s all the good it would do him. Men don’t sue women for divorce except under the greatest provocation, and Dominick’s got no provocation at all. ”

“ Dominick she increased her mortification. For three years she never spoke, except at confession; never stirred out of her cell but to go to the church; and sat up all night watching—taking rest in the quire at matins only, and then lying upon the floor with a piece of wood under her head for a bolster. She was tempted by devils in a strange manner described by Ribadeneira: but to drive them away, she disciplined her body with the iron chain so much the more. When the fiend perceived he could make no impression on her virginal heart, he changed his battery. ”

“ Domestic Poultry, in Dryden's Hind and Panther, mean the Roman Catholic clergy; so called from an establishment of priests in the private chapel of Whitehall. The nuns are termed "sister partlet with the hooded head" (1687) .
Dominick, the "Spanish fryar," a kind of ecclesiastical Falstaff. A most immoral, licentious Dominican, who for money would prostitute even the Church and Holy Scriptures. Dominick helped Lorenzo in his amour with Elvi'ra the wife of Gomez.
He is a huge, fat, religious gentleman ... big
enough to be a pope. ”

“ In his “Klondike Monologue” at the Orpheum, Buford, the actor, made a sudden and unexpected hit. The morning after his first appearance, both Dominick and Berny read in the paper eulogistic notices of the new star. Dominick was particularly interested. He remembered Buford’s state of worry while at Antelope and was glad to see that the unlucky player was, in the parlance of his own world, “making good.” ”

“ KLONDIKE MEMORIES”
She remembered at once that this was the actor Dominick had spoken of as having been snowed in with them at Antelope. Dominick had evidently not expected he would come to San Francisco. He had said the man had been going to act in Sacramento. After standing for some moments looking at the words, she moved on again with the short, mincing step that was [304] habitual to her, and which always made walking a slow and undesirable mode of progression. ”

“ It is also understood, of course, that the matter’s to be kept a secret from Dominick. He must think that you are acting entirely from your own free will. He mustn’t guess his mother’s had any part in it. ”

“ Well, now, let’s leave her and look at Dominick’s side. He marries her honorably and lives with her for nearly three years. Every semblance of affection that he had for her gets rubbed off in those three years, every illusion goes. He’s tied to a woman that he can’t stand. He went up to Antelope that time because they’d had some sort of a scrap and he felt he couldn’t breathe [426] in the same house with her. He told me himself that they’d not lived as man and wife for nearly a year. ”

“ Course, he wears rings in his ears, and likely a seven inch knife down the back of his neck. He ain't perfumed with violets either, when you get right close to; but the ash collectin' business don't call for peau d'Espagne, does it?
"Hallo!" says Dominick. "You lika ride?"
Well, I can't say I'm stuck on bein' bounced around in an ash chariot; but I knew Dominick meant well, so in I gets. We'd been joltin' along for about four blocks, swappin' pigeon toed conversation, when there shows up on the road behind us the fanciest rig I've seen outside of a circus. ”

“ Know all christian men and women, that this cruel Dominick, this implacable enemy of ours, has never said one word concerning the virtues of the rosary 424that is not most true; and know ye further, that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.
Dom.—Who was the man in the world the devil hated the most?
Dev. (All of them.) Thou art the very man, who, by thy prayers, and by thy severe ways of penance, and by thy sermons, hast shown the way to Paradise to every one, and hast snatched our prey. ”

“ Dom. And I love to hear of charity; 'tis a comfortable subject.
Lor. Being in the late battle, in great hazard of my life, I recommended my person to good Saint Dominick.
Dom. You could not have pitched upon a better; he's a sure card; I never knew him fail his votaries.
Lor. Troth, I also made bold to strike up a bargain with him, that, if I escaped with life and plunder, I would present some brother of his order with part of the booty taken from the infidels, to be employed in charitable uses.
Dom. There you hit him; Saint Dominick loves 412 charity exceedingly ”

“ When the wires are up we’ll concoct a telegram that shall be a masterpiece of diplomatic lying. Lucky young man to have a loving wife at home. Of all of us you are the one who can best realize the meaning of the line, ‘’Tis sweet to know there is an eye to mark our coming and——’”
Dominick threw the rug off and rose to his feet.
“If you can get Perley to help me I’ll go up [123] stairs again. I’m tired and I’ll go back to my room.” ”

“ Lady Holden immediately afterwards rose and left the room.
Sir Dominick pushed the cigar-box over to me, and we smoked for some little time in silence. That huge bony hand of his was twitching as he raised it with his cheroot to his lips, and I felt that the man's nerves were vibrating like fiddle-strings. My instincts told me that he was on the verge of some intimate confidence, and I feared to speak lest I should interrupt it. At last he turned towards me with a spasmodic ges [Pg 15] ture like a man who throws his last scruple to the winds. ”

“ However, we are both beholden to friar Dominick; the church is an indulgent mother, she never fails to do her part.
Dom. Heavens! what will become of me?
Gom. Why, you are not like to trouble heaven; those fat guts were never made for mounting.
Lor. I shall make bold to disburden him of my hundred pistoles, to make him the lighter for his journey: indeed, 'tis partly out of conscience, that I may not be accessory to his breaking his vow of poverty. ”

“ She refused his offer, but she spread the fame of the young priest far and wide....
"He united with himself several ecclesiastics, who went about barefoot in the habit of penitents, exhorting the people to conform to the Church. The institution of the Order of St. Dominick sprang out of this association of preachers, but it was not united under an especial rule, nor confirmed, till some years later, by Pope Honorius, in 1216. ”

“ But, if God prospers him, wouldn't it be a blessin' that we never expected, to see him in the white robes, celebratin' one mass for his parents. If these ould eyes could see that, I would be continted to close them in pace an' happiness for ever.”
“An' well you'd become them, avourneen machree! Well would your mild and handsome countenance look wid the long heavenly stole of innocence upon you! and although it's atin' into my heart, I'll bear it for the sake of seein' the same blessed sight. Look at that face, Dominick; mightn't many a lord of the land be proud to have sich a son? ”

“ At last Dominick is discover'd to the Company, makes a dishonourable Exit, and is push'd off the Stage by the Rabble. This is great Justice! The Poet takes care to make him first a Knave, and then an Example: But his hand is not even. For Lewd Lorenzo comes off with Flying Colours. 'Tis not the Fault which is corrected but the Priest. The Authors Discipline is seldom without a Biass. He commonly gives the Laity the Pleasure of an ill Action, and the Clergy the Punishment. ”

“ A moment later the group joined us. "No one has been down on the wreck yet?" inquired Craig, at which Everson turned quickly to the three companions he had left in charge, himself anxious to know.
"No," replied Kinsale before any one else could answer. "Mr. Dominick thought we'd better wait until you came back."
"Then I should like to be the first," cut in Craig, to my utter surprise. Remonstrance had no effect with him. Neither Norma nor Asta could dissuade him. ”

“ Dominick descended of the Family of the Guzmans in Spain, instituted this Order, A. D. 1206. principally to fight against the Albigenses, then call’d Hereticks. He prescribed to them a White Habit, and for their Badge a Cross flory, quarterly, sable and argent. The Work being done with the Albigenses, they devoted themselves wholly to spiritual Warfare; and afterwards, upon admitting Widows and Virgins into their Order, they became called Fratres seu Sorores de Pœnitentia B. Dominici, whose Rule Pope Innocent VI. confirm’d circa An. ”