I told Tiare the story of a man I had known at St. Thomas's Hospital.
When he set out on his holiday in the Mediterranean he had every intention of returning to London and his appointment at St. Thomas's.
Not only was the shrine of
St. Thomas at Canterbury very beautiful in those days, but it was also within easy distance of London.
Presently she made her way up to Jerry and asked if he could tell her the way to
St. Thomas' Hospital, and how far it was to get there.
"'You see,
St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day.
Eleven times he had called at
St. Thomas's Hospital and received the same reply.
He decided to walk--it is no good giving in, and he had spent money enough at Queen's Hall--and he walked over Westminster Bridge, in front of
St. Thomas's Hospital, and through the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall.
May good
St. Thomas of Kent grant that it may be long before either I or mine need his help!
The great work of the period, however, and the crowning achievement of Chaucer's life, is 'The Canterbury Tales.' Every one is familiar with the plan of the story (which may well have had some basis in fact): how Chaucer finds himself one April evening with thirty other men and women, all gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (a suburb of London and just across the Thames from the city proper), ready to start next morning, as thousands of Englishmen did every year, on a pilgrimage to the shrine of
St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury.
The peasants are one and all the sons of
St. Thomas, the doubting apostle--they always like words to be supported by visible facts.
"My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, sir, if I say that a sketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the
St. Thomas Aquinas in my picture there.
Smiles filled the classrooms and hallways on Wednesday, August 14 as
St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic School opened for the 2019-2020 school year.