The Grip of Desire

The Grip of Desire: The Story Of a Parish-Priest by Hector France is a detailed collection of portraits of significant figures and aspects of the Catholic church. Excerpt: «I do not assert that all the personages in this story are models of virtue. To some of them has been given a part which severe morality reproves. But I am a realist and not an idealist, and for that, I beg the reader a thousand pardons. I have tried to paint what I saw and not that of which I dreamed. If my figures are not chaste, the fault is not mine, but of those who passed before me and whose features I sketched as my pen ran on.»