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Rosalind Connage
Monsignor Darcy is a Catholic priest who lives in upstate New York. He is close mentor to Amory. Monsignor Darcy had had a passionate love affair with Beatrice before she decided to marry Stephen Blaine for his background and money. This affair caused Darcy to have a “spiritual crisis” and convert to Catholicism. Amory visits Monsignor Darcy before he starts at St. Regis, and they immediately become close. They maintain a written correspondence throughout Amory’s life. Monsignor Darcy helps guide Amory through the process of coming of age. Monsignor Darcy introduces Amory to the concept of a “personality” versus “personage,” an idea that frames Amory’s quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement. Amory trusts Monsignor Darcy’s advice more than anyone else’s, and Monsignor Darcy considers Amory a “reincarnation’ of himself, implying that he considers himself to be like a father to Amory. Amory is very saddened by Monsignor Darcy’s sudden death later in the novel—much sadder than he was after his own father’s death. During Monsignor Darcy’s funeral, Amory realizes that he wants to be a better man whom people trust, like many people trusted Monsignor Darcy.
Monsignor Darcy Quotes in This Side of Paradise
The This Side of Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Monsignor Darcy or refer to Monsignor Darcy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers
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“A personality is what you thought you were, what this Kerry and Sloane you tell me of evidently are. Personality is a physical matter almost entirely; it lowers the people it acts on—I’ve seen it vanish in a long sickness. But while a personality is active, it overrides ‘the next thing.’ Now a personage, on the other hand, gathers. He is never thought of apart from what he’s done. He’s a bar on which a thousand things have been hung—glittering things sometimes, as ours are; but he uses those things with a cold mentality back of them.”
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Interlude: May, 1917 – February, 1919
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This is the end of one thing: for better or worse you will never again be quite the Amory Blaine that I knew, never again will we meet as we have met, because your generation is growing hard, much harder than mine ever grew, nourished as they were in the stuff of the nineties.
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Book 2, Chapter 5: The Egotist Becomes a Personage
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Life opened up in one of its amazing bursts of radiance and Amory suddenly and permanently rejected an old epigram that had been playing listlessly in his mind: “Very few things matter and nothing matters very much.”
On the contrary, Amory felt an immense desire to give people a sense of security.
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Monsignor Darcy Character Timeline in This Side of Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Monsignor Darcy appears in This Side of Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice
...men to go to elite colleges. After taking his exams at St. Regis, Amory visits Monsignor Darcy , a friend and former lover of his mother who is now a Catholic priest...
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Book 1, Chapter 3: The Egotist Considers
Amory visits Monsignor Darcy at Christmas and admits that he wants to leave college, and that Kerry has asked...
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Book 1, Chapter 4: Narcissus Off Duty
...as long as he is the same Amory as before. Amory brings Burne to visit Monsignor Darcy , and they get along well. Afterwards, Darcy, in a letter, asks Amory to visit...
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Interlude: May, 1917 – February, 1919
In January 1918, Monsignor Darcy writes a letter to Amory, who is now a second lieutenant stationed in Long Island....
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Book 2, Chapter 2: Experiments in Convalescence
...than he loved Rosalind. He begins writing and reading again. Amory contacts a friend of Monsignor Darcy ’s, Mrs. Lawrence, who reminds him of Beatrice. Spending time with Mrs. Lawrence revives Amory’s...
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...about the spirit of the times and his lost youth. Amory receives a letter from Monsignor Darcy inviting Amory to visit him in Washington. When Tom’s mother becomes sick, they both move...
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Book 2, Chapter 4: The Supercilious Sacrifice
...telling him that his family’s money has run out. Soon after, he receives news that Monsignor Darcy has died.
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Book 2, Chapter 5: The Egotist Becomes a Personage
...questions the nature of progress, which he believes is the inheritance of his generation. At Monsignor Darcy ’s funeral, Amory realizes that he wants to give other people “a sense of security.”
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