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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Just as in the poem the door is faithless for letting in the cold wind, Severian’s door is faithless for failing to remain closed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Rick Norwood<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Urth [mailto:urth-bounces@lists.urth.net]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Robert Pirkola<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 21, 2014 10:16 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> urth@urth.net<br>
<b>Subject:</b> (urth) Severian's Mausoleum<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">I was struck by the term "faithless door" in the passage describing<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Severian's mausoleum " . . . it was the smallness of the room, the<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">thick walls of masonry, and the single, narrow window with its one<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">bar, together with the faithless door (so massively heavy) that <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">remained eternally ajar." (*Shadow and Claw*, pg. 17).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">I do not know, and still do not know, what a faithless door is but<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">while trying to find out, I came across this poem attributed to <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">William Gifford, called *Epitaph* (1852), which has interesting resonances<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">with Severian's story:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">EPITAPH.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Where ragged nettles mark the rising ground,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">And pois’nous night-shade breathes infection round,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Bill Brazen rots. In the good patriarch’s phrase,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“Evil and few were his unhallow’d days:”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Yet in these few and evil the rank knave<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Choused of a head-stone his poor father’s grave;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Abused his mother; grudged his children bread,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">And coffin’d them in wig boxes when dead;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Bullied his sister; kicked his wife to th’ door;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Belied the parish books, and starved the poor.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Till grown too bad for this bad town, kind Heaven<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Suffer’d the miscreant westward to be driven;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Where three long years in solitary state<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He dragg’d the drunken hours through scorn and hate;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Till as he lay one night devoid of rest,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">And conscience woke the worm within his breast,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">A wint’ry blast, with hoarse, tremendous roar,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Rush’d through the gallery, burst the faithless door,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Approach’d him, touch’d—“Christ Jesus! save,” he cried,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“A wretch! a hateful wretch!"—shook, groan’d, and died.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Now buried here, the scorn that dogg’d his way<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Through life, still scents, and opens on his clay.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">* * * * * *<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Stranger! this scene demands an awful pause:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">A vicious world takes arms in virtue’s cause:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Vice cowers beneath the shame she boasts to brave,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">And finds chastisement on this side the grave.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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