Mary Ellen Holmes Schick

Pageant of Life: a Human Drama Mary Ellen Holmes Schick

About the book: Rugger, shrapnel, letters home from the Front, a girl waiting for her Captain - all this and more - are present in this dramatization of PAGEANT OF LIFE, based on the novel of Owen Francis Dudley. Set in the England of WWI, PAGEANT OF LIFE plunges four teens, their families and country into the whirlwind of tension, moral testing, and fear - not only of shrapnel - that is all too familiar a century later. Cyril Rodney, the athlete, chooses Army life, thrills to the excitement of shrapnel blasts, while fighting an inner torment more devastating than shells. Bernard Rodney, Oxford student, best-selling author, revels in wealth from books defending morality, but faces a dilemma more perplexing than the philosophy he loves to read. June Campion, the girl both Rodney boys love, watches as they choose very different paths, as she waits, and endures, for her man at the Front. Thornton, medical student, volunteer in the slums, enlists as "Army Doc" with Cyril, confronts moral challenges on his knees, providing a strong anchor for his friends. Parents, teachers, monks, townspeople, marching soldiers, band players - and more - people this richly-tapestried tale of young love, young hopes, young dreams. Music is interspersed throughout.