Tuberculosis in human culture the disease, which allegedly helped them to see life more clearly and to act decisively. In 1680 John Bunyan referred to it as "the captain of all these men of death". Several major operas have exploited the theme of heroines dying tragically of tuberculosis, including Mimì in Puccini's opera "La bohème". Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata" features the consumptive Violetta Valéry, based on Marguerite Gautier in Alexandre Dumas, "fils"'s 1848 novel "La Dame aux Camélias". In Jacques Offenbach's opera "The Tales of Hoffmann", Antonia has tuberculosis and is under the control of a Svengali-like quack doctor who forces her to sing
A Death in the Desert Cather's reading of Robert Browning. Allusions to Alexandre Dumas, fils' "La dame aux camelias" and Lucretius's "De rerum natura" have also been found. A Death in the Desert "A Death in the Desert" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in "The Scribner's" in January 1903. Everett is on a train from Holdrege, Nebraska to Cheyenne, Wyoming. He is a man that looks like his older prodigy brother Adriance--this similarity haunts him throughout the entire novel and robs him of his own personality. He will always be Adriance's brother. Moreover, Gussie Davis's song "In The Baggage