"
"I don't see why you should call it 'the Valley of the Grotesque.'"
I smiled at her instinctive rejection of the fanciful.
"Don't you? Call it the Valley of the Shadow, if you like. But don't
you think the attendant circumstances were rather mediaeval, gargoyley,
Orcagnesque? Don't you think the whole passage lacked the dignity which
one associates with the Valley of the Shadow of Death?"
"You mean the murder?" she said with a faint shiver.
"That," said I, "might be termed the central feature. Just look at
things as they happened. I am condemned to death. I try to face it like
a man and a gentleman. I make my arrangements. I give up what I can call
mine no longer. I think I will devote the rest of my days to performing
such acts of helpfulness and charity as would be impossible for a sound
man with a long life before him to undertake. I do it in a half-jesting
spirit, refusing to take death seriously. I pledge myself to an act of
helpfulness which I regard at first as merely an incident in my career
of beneficence.
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