In Malcolm Lowry's collection of short stories Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place, the significance of the past is a thematic concern shared by the diverse tales. In "The Bravest Boat," a sense of fate, which is located in the past, is shown as operating positively. "Through the Panama" transmits a message of human contact through the use of literary history and allusion. "Strange Comfort Afforded by the Profession" also refers back to a literary history which provides the protagonist with biographical models for too brief a life and transcendence of time through art. "Elephant and Colosseum" defines the past as an unambiguously positive force that invests the present with feelings of harmony, comfort, and communion. In "Present State of Pompeii," Lowry suggests that the rubble of a past civilization may exemplify -- even bequeath -- the fragility of the present estate. "Gin and Goldenrod" indicates that, with an honest reckoning of the past, there can be optimism about the future. Finally, in "The Forest Path to the Spring," the protagonist, by using the past in both art and life, frees himself from the negation of the future.
