” The dragon sits at the side of the road

Originally shared by shasta davis

” The dragon sits at the side of the road ,

Watching those who pass

Beware least he devour you .

We go to the Father of Souls ,

But it is necessary to pass by the dragon .”

Flannery O’Connor

No matter what form the dragon takes , it is this mysterious passage past him , or into his jaws , that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell , and this being the case , it requires considerable courage at any time, in any country . not to turn away from the storyteller .

O’Connor was not yet forty when she died in 1964 her collective works is inevitably an occasion to lament the brevity of her writing career .~~ had she been allowed to live her three score and ten , like Stephen Crane and Scott Fitzgerald , she left us to wonder what went undone as much as to marvel at what she managed to do .I find myself in awe of the consistency and clarity of her vision , the power and integrity of her prose and her implacable depth of her religious faith . She was an American Master .