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PORTRAITS OF DESTINY by Melville Harcourt

PORTRAITS OF DESTINY

By

Pub Date: Aug. 24th, 1966
Publisher: Sheed & Ward

Canon Harcourt, an Episcopal priest, has written a series of four biographical sketches of individuals who, by following the dictates of their consciences in an age when to run with the herd is considered wisdom, have demonstrated the more considerable wisdom of being true to one's own beliefs: Kaj Munk, Lutheran priest, playwright, and inspiration of the Danish Resistance during World War II; Danilo Dolci, Italian social reformer and ""Savior of Sicily""; Albert Luthuli, Zulu chief of South Africa, apostle of racial integration by non-violent means, and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize; Violette Szabo, a British espionage agent in German-occupied France. The individual biographies are effective and laudatory rather than critical, and the subjects seem therefore more medieval saints than modern men and women. The book has, however, a good deal of old-fashioned charm both narrative and literary, and it should find a moderate audience particularly among sentiment-prone feminine readers.