The City and the World and Other Stories — A Reader’s Guide

Moral Contrasts in Setting and Voice

Kelley repeatedly pairs peaceful, sacred spaces with disruptive emotional or supernatural forces. In “The City and the World,” the garden’s “dripping of the tiny fountain, tinkling like a bit of familiar music” and the “swelling tones of the organ” merge into a calm that is immediately questioned by the old monk’s sigh. The narrator insists sadness is “alien” to the garden, yet the sigh suggests otherwise.

Similarly, “Le Braillard de la Magdeleine” opens with a storm where “the waves were leaping, snapping, and frothing” and the wail of a ghost baby rises above the wind. The old sailor’s tale contrasts the natural violence with a human tragedy: a mother’s sin and a child’s unbaptized death. The setting itself becomes a character, embodying the moral weight of the story.

“The Legend of Deschamps” describes the Saguenay region as “mystic country, sublime in natural beauty, and alive with traditions.” Here, the landscape is infused with “ghosts of the past” and “phantom canoes,” blending physical beauty with spiritual history. Kelley uses these contrasts to frame his moral lessons without explicit sermonizing.

Recurring Patterns of Sacrifice and Loss

Several stories center on characters who sacrifice or lose something vital. In “The City and the World,” Father Denfili’s blindness and his sigh hint at a hidden grief, while Father Tomasso, “just from the novitiate,” represents youthful hope that may be tested. The preface notes the stories were “appeals” for the Catholic Church Extension Society, often highlighting the cost of faith or mission.

“Le Braillard de la Magdeleine” tells of a mother who “pays the price of her sin, pay it out of her empty mother heart and hungry mother arms.” Her loss is eternal: she wanders the storm listening to her baby’s cry until Judgment Day. The Grand Seigneur, who killed the child, “died unrepentant and unpardoned” and never returns. The pattern of irreversible loss and lingering consequence is stark.

In “The Legend of Deschamps,” the trapper sends three sons to war and weeps because age prevents him from fighting. The story builds toward a moment of patriotic sacrifice, though the excerpt cuts off before the resolution. These repeated motifs of giving up something precious—sight, children, innocence—unify the collection.

Oral Storytelling and Regional Voice

Kelley frames several tales as spoken narratives, giving them a folkloric quality. “Le Braillard de la Magdeleine” is explicitly “the story that the old sailor from Tadousac told me,” with the sailor’s voice preserved in direct address: “You hear him? Every storm he calls so loud.” The use of French phrases like pauvre mère and Grand Seigneur roots the story in Quebec’s linguistic heritage.

“The Legend of Deschamps” adopts a more literary tone but still invokes oral tradition: “Ghosts of the past people its shores, phantom canoes float down the river of mystery.” The narrator acts as a conduit for regional legends, describing French Canada as a place of “simple faith and deep-rooted, God-implanted patriotism.”

Even the preface’s explanation—that the stories were “contributions to Extension Magazine” and not originally intended for book form—suggests an occasional, conversational origin. This oral quality reinforces the collection’s aim to “present a Catholic missionary appeal in a new way,” making the moral lessons feel personal and immediate.

Readers should approach these stories as they were written: short, purposeful narratives that blend entertainment with religious persuasion. The regional settings—Roman cloisters, Quebec storms, Canadian forests—are not mere backdrops but active elements in each moral drama. Kelley’s voice is that of a pastor and editor, not a novelist, and the collection rewards attention to its recurring contrasts between peace and disruption, sacrifice and loss, and the spoken word versus the written page.

I sometimes shelve The City and the World beside Prosper Mérimée's Short Stories — Context and Discussion, not for any obvious reason, but because both share that quiet hush of moral reckoning. Kelley’s blind monk and Mérimée’s sly narrators each teach us how faith and doubt whisper the same language, if we listen long enough.