Beasts Of A Little Land Quotes

Life is only bearable because time makes you forget everything. But life is worthwhile because love makes you remember everything.

Everywhere around them, life was happening without their knowing, and their lives were also happening in the presence of all else. All existences were touching lightly as air and leaving invisible fingerprints.

It begins, as most things begin, with a song. In the beginning, after all, were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world. They were sung. The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds, and the dark. Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs.

Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multicolored petals. It happened in my backyard, too, if the magic was strong enough. Butterflies were small and light, and very magic sensitive. For some reason I made them feel safe and they gravitated to me like iron shavings to a magnet. They ruined my ferocious badass image, but you’d have to be a complete beast to swat butterflies. If a baby deer frolicked out from between the buildings trying to cuddle up, I would roar. I wouldn’t bite it, but I would roar. I had my limits.

There are just two things in the world that give you true confidence. One is overcoming difficulties on your own, and the other is being deeply loved. If you experience both, then you will be confident for the rest of your life.

Now that I’m older I know that life is not about what keeps you safe, but what you keep safe, and that’s what matters the most.

There may be people who like centipedes... Personally, I would regard such an individual with deep suspicion. I have just petted my cat: "And how is this good little cat beast?" Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede on his underbelly? "And here is my good big centipede!" If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.

Death was such a small price to pay for life.

Everyone dreams, but only some people are dreamers. The non-dreamers, by far more numerous, are those who see the world as it is. Then there are the few dreamers, who see the world as they are. The moon, the river, the train station, the sound of rain, and even something as mundane as porridge become something else with many layers. The world feels like an oil painting rather than a photograph, and the dreamers are forever seeing hidden colors where others just see the top shade. The nondreamers look through glasses, and the dreamers through a prism

She fluttered with the knowledge that certain words in a certain order could rearrange her on the inside, like moving furniture. Words changed and remade her constantly, and no one else could even sense a difference.

The king was silent. "Ents!" he said at length. "Out of the shadows of legend I begin a little to understand the marvel of the trees, I think. I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of the strange places, and walk visible under the Sun." "You should be glad," Théoden King," said Gandalf. "For not only the little life of Men is now endangered, but the life also of those thing which you have deemed the matter of legend. You are not without allies, even if you know them not." "Yet also I should be sad," said Théoden. "For however the fortune of war shall go, may it not so end that much that was fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle-earth?

But wild beasts had never frightened her-it was the humans who terrified her with their savagery.

Perhaps this was why her mother had warned against the corruptive power of education-even without any man in sight, language itself seduced her. She fluttered with the knowledge that certain words in a certain order could rearrange her on the inside, like moving furniture. Words changed and remade her constantly, and no one else could even sense a difference.

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children — those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own — being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty...

On August 6, the whole world would change with the discovery that man can ignite the fire of the sun upon the surface of the earth.

If only I could I would pluck off the stars from the night sky and toss them all into her garden and that wouldn't even be enough.

Words changed and remade her constantly, and no one else could even sense a difference.

Prince Severin happened to be pacing in the little hall when the stained-glass skylight shattered, and a young woman fell through the ceiling with the broken glass. She dropped like a twisting cat and landed with an ominous crack. The

. . .believed in inyeon -- human thread -- and that connections and encounters between people were preordained. The best and most important inyeon were between husband and wife, and parent and child. Those bonds do not break even beyond the pale. . . .

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank. Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things. While closer at hand, a patient pigeon scuffed its feet on the flashing. Easing

It's an uncanny thing -- inyeon. If it's not meant to be, you can't hold on to people no matter how hard you try. Some people you love deeply will turn into a stranger in an instant, if the inyeon has run its course. And sometimes people will be attached to you forever despite all likelihood.

If you really love someone you say goodbye without ever leaving.

Now that I'm older I know that life is not about what keeps you safe, but what you keep safe, and that's what matters the most.

It was achingly beautiful how new the world was each day, and he only wished that he could have realized it a little earlier.

It was utterly senseless, this world--and to act as though it did make sense was the greatest crime.

Everything you write henceforth under your name has to be done in honesty and good faith. That’s what it means to have a good name—not who your family is or how rich or famous you are.

The air in Seoul smells of rain, cooking oil, garbage, pine trees, persimmon, perfume, red bean paste, hot metal, and snow. It changes by the season and the time of day and the neighborhood.

It was as if the boy had already divined what his senses and intellect had not encompassed yet: that doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness, men myriad and nameless even to one another in the land where the old bear had earned a name, and through which ran not even a mortal beast but an anachronism indomitable and invincible out of an old dead time, a phantom, epitome and apotheosis of the old wild life which the little puny humans swarmed and hacked at in fury of abhorrence and fear like pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant;--the old bear, solitary, indomitable, and alone; widowered childless and absolved of mortality--old Priam reft of his old wife and outlived all his sons.

The sun rose in the new Republic just as he was locked in his third-story cell. The window was not so high, and he could see the tiled roofs and bare-branched trees shimmering in the orange light, and the birds singing and gliding across the sky. This, the everlasting stillness of morning, brought him unbearable joy and sorrow. Tears flowed down his cheeks raked by time. Death was such a small price to pay for life.

And not only the world but humanity itself does need dragons” “And why is that?” Chade demanded disdainfully. “To keep the balance,” the Fool replied. He glanced over me, and then past me, out of the window and his eyes went far and pensive. “Humanity fears no rivals. You have forgotten what it was to share the world with creatures as arrogantly superior as yourselves. You think to arrange the world to your liking. So you map the land and draw lines across it, claiming ownership simply because you can draw a picture of it. The plants that grow and the beasts that rove, you mark as your own, claiming not only what lives today, but what might grow tomorrow, to do with as you please. Then, in your conceit and aggression, you wage wars and slay one another over the lines you have imagined on the world’s face.” “And I suppose dragons are better than we are because they don’t do such things, because they simply take whatever they see. Free spirits, nature’s creatures, possessing all the moral loftiness that comes from not being able to think.” The Fool shook his head, smiling. “No. Dragons are no better than humans. They are little different at all from men. They will hold up a mirror to humanity’s selfishness. They will remind you that all your talk of owning this and claiming that is no more than the snarling of a chained dog or a sparrow’s challenge song. The reality of those claims lasts but for the instant of its sounding. Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. You will not own the earth that eventually your body will become, nor will it recall the name it once answered to.

It's an uncanny thing -- inyeon. If it's not meant to be, you can't hold on to people no matter how hard you try. Some people you love deeply will turn into a stranger in an instant, if the inyeon has run its course. And sometimes people will be attached to you forever despite all likelihood.

If he had to describe how she looked, he would have said: like a song your mother used to sing. Or an unopened letter from someone you loved a long time ago, found in the back of a drawer. Or an old tree that suddenly comes to life on spring, it's black branches aflame with flowers, as if saying I, I, I.

The round-backed cottages clung to the earth like long animals whose folded heads were always to the mountain. Lying thus to the slopes they were part of the rhythm of the land itself... There were little herds of these cottages at long intervals, and every now and then a cottage by itself like a wandered beast...

All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict "to begin it": In gentler tones Secunda hopes "There will be nonsense in it!" While Tertia interrupts the tale Not MORE than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast— And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, "The rest next time—" "It IS next time!" The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out— And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! A childish story take, And, with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers Pluck'd in a far-off land.

He held out his hand. “Need help down?” “I can manage.” Hopefully. She’d never admit it—especially not to this arrogant gnat—but this was the first time she remembered riding a horse, and she knew for certain this was her first time dismounting on her own. Elmery exhaled and gripped the horse’s mane. The two men continued chatting, occasionally waving to the others riding in. She could do this. Surely a learned woman of twenty-four summers could climb off a horse with minimal risk of injury, death, or embarrassment. Praying the massive beast beneath her remained still, she slowly attempted to swing her leg over the horse’s back. Her slipper fell off, landing with an inglorious plop on the right side.

how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world. They were sung. The great beasts were sung into existence, after the Singer had done with the planets and the hills and the trees and the oceans and the lesser beasts. The cliffs that bound existence were sung, and the hunting grounds, and the dark. Songs

The tyrant-father of Heaven, the one who created, hated and drove out the first woman, yoked men with a horrible curse, far worse than any imagined to have been handed down to Eve. Men were told they were masters of this world, of their mates, of the beasts and fish, of the land and sea and sky. How ridiculous! That's like telling a little boy he's in charge of the house when his da is gone. It's silly! "And like that little boy, men have tried to live up to the unreasonable demands of their mute, wayward, celestial father. They have enslaved and dominated, conquered and killed, all in the name of shepherding, of protecting, of ruling the world. They spend their lives trying to do what they think is right, what their father on high would want of them. The bastard.

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things, of war’s brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the “hat trick” with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers’ knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle arts, over-sensitized to the subtleties of half-tones, delicate scales of emotion, fastidious in their choice of words, in their sense of beauty, found themselves compelled to live and act like ape-men; and it was abominably funny. They laughed at the most frightful episodes, which revealed this contrast between civilized ethics and the old beast law. The more revolting it was the more, sometimes, they shouted with laughter, especially in reminiscence, when the tale was told in the gilded salon of a French chateau, or at a mess-table. It was, I think, the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love, and that mankind, in its progress to perfection, had killed the beast instinct, cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage law of survival by tooth and claw and club and ax. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this gospel and this promise. Now that ideal had broken like a china vase dashed to hard ground. The contrast between That and This was devastating. It was, in an enormous world-shaking way, like a highly dignified man in a silk hat, morning coat, creased trousers, spats, and patent boots suddenly slipping on a piece of orange-peel and sitting, all of a heap, with silk hat flying, in a filthy gutter. The war-time humor of the soul roared with mirth at the sight of all that dignity and elegance despoiled. So we laughed merrily, I remember, when a military chaplain (Eton, Christ Church, and Christian service) described how an English sergeant stood round the traverse of a German trench, in a night raid, and as the Germans came his way, thinking to escape, he cleft one skull after another with a steel-studded bludgeon a weapon which he had made with loving craftsmanship on the model of Blunderbore’s club in the pictures of a fairy-tale. So we laughed at the adventures of a young barrister (a brilliant fellow in the Oxford “Union”) whose pleasure it was to creep out o’ nights into No Man’s Land and lie doggo in a shell-hole close to the enemy’s barbed wire, until presently, after an hour’s waiting or two, a German soldier would crawl out to fetch in a corpse. The English barrister lay with his rifle ready. Where there had been one corpse there were two. Each night he made a notch on his rifle three notches one night to check the number of his victims. Then he came back to breakfast in his dugout with a hearty appetite.

He never blamed his circumstances or thought regretfully about the past. He was like an empty vessel, but in the best way: it was true he didn't hold a lot of knowledge, but his mind was free to flow in whatever direction, and he didn't nurture pain. Whatever he did keep permanently, Jade was certain that he would protect firmly in the bottom of his jangdok pot. He might never fling himself far from where he'd landed, Jade thought, but he would nonetheless be happy for the simple reason that he refused to be caged.

As he was leaving it occurred to him that he would not come back, to this zoo or to any of them. With the elephants more than any of the others, he thought as he left them--as he left behind these great beasts who recognized him when he came, who rumbled and swayed sadly--he could feel them waiting. He had thought at first it was food they were waiting for. Here they were, the last animals, locked up and ogled, who had no chance remaining of not being alone. Here they were, and what he had assumed in his smallness was that they wanted food. It was possible to be fooled by the signs of their animation, in the course of a day. But it was not food that interested them. Food was only a diversion for them, because they had little else. They were not waiting for food, but they were, in fact, waiting. He had not been wrong about that. It was obvious: all of them waited and they waited, up until their last day and their last night of sleep. They never gave up waiting, because they had nothing else to do. They waited to go back to the bright land; they waited to go home.

Prefatory Poem All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict “to begin it”; In gentler tones Secunda hopes “There will be nonsense in it!” While Tertia interrupts the tale Not more than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast— And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, “The rest next time—” “It is next time!” The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out— And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! A childish story take, And, with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined In Memory’s mystic band, Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers Pluck’d in a far-off land.

Oh yes, that's the clockwork crocodile. Now free from its previous task, the toy beast sought its way downstream to find other people in need of help. And, I daresay, we might have use of a clockwork crocodile somewhere along the way- against pirates, maybe? One particular crocodile-fearing pirate?" Tinker Bell stared at her friend in newly discovered admiration- and the teeniest bit of horror. You've changed, girl. Wendy smiled as she pushed the boat away from the bank. There was more to her than just manners and wishing, as her little fairy friend had pointed out. A whole world of Never Land was inside Wendy... with beasts as well with fairies.

Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon. The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified. It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel. One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice. The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched. The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward. Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dis­mount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along. In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment. Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there. There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them. For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops. But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.

Gene was leaning intently over the side, his knife held ready, dagger fashion. Finally, a shark swam bravely up to him. The knife flashed out and down, and there was a sound like a punch. Gene turned pale. “I—I think I hit the boat,” he said. He held his hand in the water where he had struck. There was a quick, convulsive thrash and Gene’s arm was yanked like a line. “Wait! I got him,” he yelled. He had been fortunate enough to strike the shark in the gill. That, we learned later, was the only spot vulnerable to the little knife. Quickly, but with care, Gene hauled the shark into the boat, using the knife like a hook. Tony again was dozing in the bottom of the boat. The shark landed right on top of him. I haven’t had the experience yet of having a live shark, wet and bleeding, thump me in the ribs while I was half asleep. It nearly scared the wits out of Tony. The yelp of surprise was hardly out of Tony’s mouth, though, when he grasped the whole situation. Like a wrestler, Tony flipped over and slammed all his weight on the struggling sea beast. He concentrated every ounce of his energy on holding down the sinewy, slippery thing.

Vague assertions as to the equality of the sexes and the similarity of their duties are only empty words; they are no answer to my argument. It is a poor sort of logic to quote isolated exceptions against laws so firmly established. Women, you say, are not always bearing children. Granted; yet that is their proper business. Because there are a hundred or so of large towns in the world where women live licentiously and have few children, will you maintain that it is their business to have few children? And what would become of your towns if the remote country districts, with their simpler and purer women, did not make up for the barrenness of your fine ladies? There are plenty of country places where women with only four or five children are reckoned unfruitful. In conclusion, although here and there a woman may have few children, what difference does it make? Is it any the less a woman's business to be a mother? And do not the general laws of nature and morality make provision for this state of things? Even if there were these long intervals, which you assume, between the periods of pregnancy, can a woman suddenly change her way of life without danger? Can she be a nursing mother to-day and a soldier tomorrow? Will she change her tastes and her feelings as a chameleon changes his color? Will she pass at once from the privacy of household duties and indoor occupations to the buffeting of the winds, the toils, the labors, the perils of war? Will she be now timid, now brave, now fragile, now robust? If the young men of Paris find a soldier's life too hard for them, how would a woman put up with it, a woman who has hardly ventured out of doors without a parasol and who has scarcely put a foot to the ground? Will she make a good soldier at an age when even men are retiring from this arduous business? There are countries, I grant you, where women bear and rear children with little or no difficulty, but in those lands the men go half-naked in all weathers, they strike down the wild beasts, they carry a canoe as easily as a knapsack, they pursue the chase for 700 or 800 leagues, they sleep in the open on the bare ground, they bear incredible fatigues and go many days without food. When women become strong, men become still stronger; when men become soft, women become softer; change both the terms and the ratio remains unaltered.

When I heard the language of men uttered by my mare," continued Aravis, "I said to myself, the fear of death has disordered my reason and subjected me to delusions. And I became full of shame for none of my lineage ought to fear death more than the biting of a gnat. Therefore I addressed myself a second time to the stabbing, but Hwin came near to me and put her head in between me and the dagger and discoursed to me most excellent reasons and rebuked me as a mother rebukes her daughter. And now my wonder was so great that I forgot about killing myself and about Ahoshta and said, 'O my mare, how have you learned to speak like one of the daughters of men?' And Hwin told me what is known to all this company, that in Narnia there are beasts that talk, and how she herself was stolen from thence when she was a little foal. She told me also of the woods and waters of Narnia and the castles and the great ships, till I said, 'In the name of Tash and Azaroth and Zardeenah, Lady of the Night, I have a great wish to be in that country of Narnia,' 'O my mistress,' answered the mare, 'if you were in Narnia you would be happy, for in that land no maiden is forced to marry against her will.

ADVENTURERS AVAUNT! There is no greater plague upon the lands than the chartered adventurer. Crown-sanctioned mischief makers, brigands whose thefts, casual murders, rapine and pillage are excused where the same things done by a cobbler or a milkmaid would be answered with severings of hands or other appendages, plus brandings—or all of those and hanging or death by drawing between four horses. Yet there is no more necessary plague. Adventurers make even kings think twice about cruelly oppressing all who pass within reach, teach prudence to high priests and even rogue wizards, and are almost the only curb upon the numbers of dragons and other large and monstrous beasts. On the whole, I think the balance comes out about even. What makes us keep adventuring charters instead of burning them along with their bearers is the entertainment adventurers afford the populace. In hamlets and at waymoots, after one’s grumbled about the weather, taxes, the latest rumors of war and orc raids, and the all-too-paltry gossip about the indiscretions of royalty and nobility, there’s little else to talk about but the foolish escapades of adventurers. Thundaerlel Maurlatrimm Four Decades of Innkeeping published in the Year of the Highmantle

DAYS ONE THROUGH SIX, ETC. You keep on asking me that – “Which day was the hardest?” Blockheads! They were all hard – And of course, since I’m omnipotent, they were all easy. It was Chaos, to begin with. Can you imagine Primeval Chaos? Of course you can’t. How long had it been swirling around out there? Forever. How long had I been there? Longer than that. It was a mess, that’s what it was. Chaos is Rocky. Fuzzy. Slippery. Prickly. As scraggly and obstreperous as the endless behind of an infinite jackass. Shove on it anywhere, it gives, then slips in behind you, like smog, like lava, like slag. I’m telling you, chaos is – chaotic. You see what I was up against. Who could make a world out of that muck? I could, that’s who – land from water, light from dark, and so on. It might seem like a piece of cake now that it’s done, but back then, without a blueprint, without a set of instructions, without a committee, could you have created a firmament? Of course there were bugs in the process, grit in the gears, blips, bloopers – bringing forth grass and trees on Day Three and not making sunlight until Day Four, that, I must say, wasn’t my best move. And making the animals and vegetables before there was any rain whatsoever – well, anyone can have a bad day. Even Adam, as it turned out, wasn’t such a great idea – those shifty eyes, the alibis, blaming things on his wife – I mean, it set a bad example. How could he expect that little toddler, Cain, to learn correct family values with a role model like him? And then there was the nasty squabble Over the beasts and birds. OK, I admit I told Adam to name them, but – Platypus? Aardvark? Hippopotamus? Let me make one thing perfectly clear – he didn’t get that gibberish from Me. No, I don’t need a planet to fall on Me, I know something about subtext. He did it to irritate Me, just plain spite – and did I need the aggravation? Well, as you know, things went from bad to worse, from begat to begat, father to son, the evil fruit of all that early bile. So next there was narcissism, then bigotry, then jealousy, rage, vengeance! And finally I realized, the spawn of Adam had become exactly like – Me. No Deity with any self-respect would tolerate that kind of competition, so what could I do? I killed them all, that’s what! Just as the Good Book says, I drowned man, woman, and child, like so many cats. Oh, I saved a few for restocking, Noah and his crew, the best of the lot, I thought. But now you’re back to your old tricks again, just about due for another good ducking, or maybe a giant barbecue. And I’m warning you, if I have to do it again, there won’t be any survivors, not even a cockroach! Then, for the first time since it was Primeval Chaos, the world will be perfect – nobody in it but Me.

They looked at each other as with the feeling of an occasion missed; the present would have been so much better if the other, in the far distance, in the foreign land, hadn’t been so stupidly meagre. There weren’t, apparently, all counted, more than a dozen little old things that had succeeded in coming to pass between them; trivialities of youth, simplicities of freshness, stupidities of ignorance, small possible germs, but too deeply buried—too deeply (didn’t it seem?) to sprout after so many years. Marcher could only feel he ought to have rendered her some service—saved her from a capsized boat in the bay or at least recovered her dressing-bag, filched from her cab in the streets of Naples by a lazzarone with a stiletto. Or it would have been nice if he could have been taken with fever all alone at his hotel, and she could have come to look after him, to write to his people, to drive him out in convalescence. Then they would be in possession of the something or other that their actual show seemed to lack. It yet somehow presented itself, this show, as too good to be spoiled; so that they were reduced for a few minutes more to wondering a little helplessly why—since they seemed to know a certain number of the same people—their reunion had been so long averted. They didn’t use that name for it, but their delay from minute to minute to join the others was a kind of confession that they didn’t quite want it to be a failure.

And sometimes it is possible to rouse them from a seemingly meaningless life with a really good story,' Jane said, 'one that will reach their hearts and wake them up.' 'Can you give me an example?' 'One of my very favorites is fictitious but seems so appropriate now. It is Lord of the Rings.' 'What makes it such an appropriate story for the hopeless?' I asked. 'Because the might the heroes were up against seemed utterly invincible-the might of Mordor, the orcs, and the Black Riders on horses and then on those huge flying beasts. And Samwise and Frodo, two little hobbits, traveling into the heart of danger on their own..... I think it provides us with a blueprint of how we survive and turn around climate change and loos of biodiversity, poverty, racism, discrimination, greed, and corruption. The Dark Lord of Mordor and the Black Riders symbolize all the wickedness we have to fight. The fellowship of the Ring includes all those who are fighting the good fight-we have to work so hard to grow the fellowship around the world.' Jane pointed out that the land of Middle-earth was polluted by the destructive industry of that world in the same way that our environment is devastated today. And she reminded me that Lady Galadriel had given Sam a little box of earth from her orchard. 'Do you remember how he used that gift when he surveyed the devastated landscape after the Dark Lord was finally defeated? He started sprinkling little pinches of the earth all around the country-and everywhere nature sprang back to life. Well, that earth represents all the projects people are doing to restore habitats on planet Earth.

this I say,—we must never forget that all the education a man's head can receive, will not save his soul from hell, unless he knows the truths of the Bible. A man may have prodigious learning, and yet never be saved. He may be master of half the languages spoken round the globe. He may be acquainted with the highest and deepest things in heaven and earth. He may have read books till he is like a walking cyclopædia. He may be familiar with the stars of heaven,—the birds of the air,—the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the sea. He may be able, like Solomon, to "speak of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall, of beasts also, and fowls, and creeping things, and fishes." (1 King iv. 33.) He may be able to discourse of all the secrets of fire, air, earth, and water. And yet, if he dies ignorant of Bible truths, he dies a miserable man! Chemistry never silenced a guilty conscience. Mathematics never healed a broken heart. All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death. No natural theology ever gave peace in the prospect of meeting a holy God. All these things are of the earth, earthy, and can never raise a man above the earth's level. They may enable a man to strut and fret his little season here below with a more dignified gait than his fellow-mortals, but they can never give him wings, and enable him to soar towards heaven. He that has the largest share of them, will find at length that without Bible knowledge he has got no lasting possession. Death will make an end of all his attainments, and after death they will do him no good at all. A man may be a very ignorant man, and yet be saved. He may be unable to read a word, or write a letter. He may know nothing of geography beyond the bounds of his own parish, and be utterly unable to say which is nearest to England, Paris or New York. He may know nothing of arithmetic, and not see any difference between a million and a thousand. He may know nothing of history, not even of his own land, and be quite ignorant whether his country owes most to Semiramis, Boadicea, or Queen Elizabeth. He may know nothing of the affairs of his own times, and be incapable of telling you whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Commander-in-Chief, or the Archbishop of Canterbury is managing the national finances. He may know nothing of science, and its discoveries,—and whether Julius Cæsar won his victories with gunpowder, or the apostles had a printing press, or the sun goes round the earth, may be matters about which he has not an idea. And yet if that very man has heard Bible truth with his ears, and believed it with his heart, he knows enough to save his soul. He will be found at last with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, while his scientific fellow-creature, who has died unconverted, is lost for ever. There is much talk in these days about science and "useful knowledge." But after all a knowledge of the Bible is the one knowledge that is needful and eternally useful. A man may get to heaven without money, learning, health, or friends,—but without Bible knowledge he will never get there at all. A man may have the mightiest of minds, and a memory stored with all that mighty mind can grasp,—and yet, if he does not know the things of the Bible, he will make shipwreck of his soul for ever. Woe! woe! woe to the man who dies in ignorance of the Bible! This is the Book about which I am addressing the readers of these pages to-day. It is no light matter what you do with such a book. It concerns the life of your soul. I summon you,—I charge you to give an honest answer to my question. What are you doing with the Bible? Do you read it? HOW READEST THOU?

What is that?” Morgan asked, coming out of her shock and pointing at the “wagon” they had procured for the journey. “What do you mean?” Ladon asked. “It’s a wagon. For Melisande and the supplies.” Melly cleared her throat and tried not to laugh. “Generally wagons in the human world are made of wood. Not gold and precious gems.” She didn’t want to even think about how strong those fire beasts had to be to pull a solid gold wagon. Morgan laughed beside her while Melly continued, trying to be diplomatic, “If we are trying to remain unnoticed, we” “ will need to be a little less ... ostentatious.” The dragons looked around at each other. It was Eben who spoke. “We decided since there was no way for our dragons to pass as human, we would give a display of wealth and violence, so that the humans would be impressed enough to keep their distance.” Melly looked at Morgan, who rolled her eyes, her lips twitching. “I believe that the Dragon Knights and flaming horses will be a sufficient sight to strike fear in the populace,” Melly said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. “Perhaps excessive even. But it would be best not to advertise quite so strongly the wealth of the dragon lands. Humans have been known to act foolishly when wealth is at stake.” All the dragons looked to the wagon again. “Perhaps you are right,” Eben finally said. The big blue dragon male shrugged his massive shoulders and nodded. “Humans can be greedy things.” Coming from a people that surrounded themselves with treasure and had made a solid gold wagon, this struck Melly as ironic. Morgan must have thought so too. Her voice was dry when she spoke. “Yes, If only they had the fortitude of dragons to be able to resist acquiring shiny baubles.” The dragons turned as one and looked at them, blinking big exotic eyes, and glinting like jewels in the sun. Melly cleared her throat. “So, a wooden wagon?

Well, those who mean to escape their catching must get ready. I’m getting ready. Mind you, it isn’t all of us that are made for wild beasts; and that’s what it’s got to be. That’s why I watched you. I had my doubts. You’re slender. I didn’t know that it was you, you see, or just how you’d been buried. All these—the sort of people that lived in these houses, and all those damn little clerks that used to live down that way—they’d be no good. They haven’t any spirit in them—no proud dreams and no proud lusts; and a man who hasn’t one or the other—Lord! What is he but funk and precautions? They just used to skedaddle off to work—I’ve seen hundreds of ’em, bit of breakfast in hand, running wild and shining to catch their little season-ticket train, for fear they’d get dismissed if they didn’t; working at businesses they were afraid to take the trouble to understand; skedaddling back for fear they wouldn’t be in time for dinner; keeping indoors after dinner for fear of the back streets, and sleeping with the wives they married, not because they wanted them, but because they had a bit of money that would make for safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world. Lives insured and a bit invested for fear of accidents. And on Sundays—fear of the hereafter. As if hell was built for rabbits! Well, the Martians will just be a godsend to these. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they’ll come and be caught cheerful. They’ll be quite glad after a bit. They’ll wonder what people did before there were Martians to take care of them. And the bar loafers, and mashers, and singers—I can imagine them. I can imagine them,” he said, with a sort of sombre gratification. “There’ll be any amount of sentiment and religion loose among them. There’s hundreds of things I saw with my eyes that I’ve only begun to see clearly these last few days. There’s lots will take things as they are—fat and stupid; and lots will be worried by a sort of feeling that it’s all wrong, and that they ought to be doing something. Now whenever things are so that a lot of people feel they ought to be doing something, the weak, and those who go weak with a lot of complicated thinking, always make for a sort of do-nothing religion, very pious and superior, and submit to persecution and the will of the Lord. Very likely you’ve seen the same thing. It’s energy in a gale of funk, and turned clean inside out. These cages will be full of psalms and hymns and piety. And those of a less simple sort will work in a bit of—what is it?—eroticism.

Fuck, she was even hotter when she was furious. I seriously wouldn't have minded her taking that anger out on my body all night long. I'd be more than happy to angry fuck her until her body bent and bowed and finally gave in to the power play between us. I'd force her beneath me physically as well as with my power and maybe she'd find she liked it there just fine. Or maybe she'd stab me to death and cut my cock off for good measure because the look she was aiming my way said that was a whole lot more likely than me getting to spend the night ruining her. But it was a damn nice fantasy to indulge in for a few moments. ... She gave me a look of utter contempt and it made my cock throb as her nearness just compounded the desire I was already feeling for her and made me get all kinds of insane ideas about what I'd like to do with this little princess if I got her to myself for long enough. She made no attempt to cover herself, no sign of shame in her frosty features as she stalked forward to claim her key, a sneer touching those edible lips of hers. Her jaw was tight with rage which she was doing nothing to hide and as she reached out to snatch the key from my hand, I couldn't help but ache to bring her closer, draw her nearer, see just how far she'd go in this denial of my power over her. Her fingers curled around the brass key, but I didn't release it, instead using my hold on it to tug her a step closer so that only a breath of space divided our bodies. I looked down at her from my imposing height, dominating her space with the bulk of my body and making sure she took in every last inch of height I had over her. “Of course, if you’d rather just come on up to my room, I can give you a real welcome to the House of Fire,” I suggested my gaze dropping down to her body, the noticeable bulge in my pants making it clear enough how much I meant that offer. I probably shouldn't have been making it at all, but the beast in me couldn't help myself. Dragons saw something they wanted and they took it. And I hadn't seen something I wanted as much as this girl in as long as I could remember. Our gazes collided and the heat there was almost strong enough to burn, the tension between us crackling so loudly I was surprised the whole room couldn't hear it. But then her gaze shuttered and her lips pursed, her eyes dropping down to take me in, my skin buzzing everywhere they landed as I could feel the want in her while she assessed me. But as those deep green eyes met mine again and I gave her a knowing smirk, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I didn't know if she was going to bow to this heat between us or just stoke the flames, and the fact that I didn't know had my heart thumping in anticipation deep in my chest. She shifted an inch closer to me, tilting her mouth towards my ear and making my flesh spark with the need to take her, own her, destroy her in all the best ways. But just as my cock began to get overexcited at the prospect of all the ways I could make her scream for me given enough time, she spoke and it wasn't in the sultry purr I'd been expecting, her voice coming out loud enough for everyone to hear instead. “I wouldn’t come near you even if someone held a knife to my heart and told me that the world would end if I didn’t,” she snarled, snatching the key out of my hand as my surprise at her words made me forget to keep my grip tight enough to keep it. “So why don’t you take a long, hard look while you can. Because I can promise you, you won’t be seeing this again.”(Darius POV)

For unknown ages after the explosive outpouring of matter and energy of the Big Bang, the Cosmos was without form. There were no galaxies, no planets, no life. Deep, impenetrable darkness was everywhere, hydrogen atoms in the void. Here and there, denser accumulations of gas were imperceptibly growing, globes of matter were condensing-hydrogen raindrops more massive than suns. Within these globes of gas was kindled the nuclear fire latent in matter. A first generation of stars was born, flooding the Cosmos with light. There were in those times, not yet any planets to receive the light, no living creatures to admire the radiance of the heavens. Deep in the stellar furnaces, the alchemy of nuclear fusion created heavy elements from the ashes of hydrogen burning, the atomic building blocks of future planets and lifeforms. Massive stars soon exhausted their stores of nuclear fuel. Rocked by colossal explosions, they returned most of their substance back into the thin gas from which they had once condensed. Here in the dark lush clouds between the stars, new raindrops made of many elements were forming, later generation of stars being born. Nearby, smaller raindrops grew, bodies far too little to ignite the nuclear fire, droplets in the interstellar mist on their way to form planets. Among them was a small world of stone and iron, the early Earth. Congealing and warming, the Earth released methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen gases that had been trapped within, forming the primitive atmosphere and the first oceans. Starlight from the Sun bathed and warmed the primeval Earth, drove storms, generated lightning and thunder. Volcanoes overflowed with lava. These processes disrupted molecules of the primitive atmosphere; the fragments fell back together into more and more complex forms, which dissolved into the early oceans. After a while the seas achieved the consistency of a warm, dilute soup. Molecules were organized, and complex chemical reactions driven, on the surface of clay. And one day a molecule arose that quite by accident was able to make crude copies of itself out of the other molecules in the broth. As time passed, more elaborate and more accurate self replicating molecules arose. Those combinations best suited to further replication were favored by the sieve of natural selection. Those that copied better produced more copies. And the primitive oceanic broth gradually grew thin as it was consumed by and transformed into complex condensations of self replicating organic molecules. Gradually, imperceptibly, life had begun. Single-celled plants evolved, and life began generating its own food. Photosynthesis transformed the atmosphere. Sex was invented. Once free living forms bonded together to make a complex cell with specialized functions. Chemical receptors evolved, and the Cosmos could taste and smell. One celled organisms evolved into multicellular colonies, elaborating their various parts into specialized organ systems. Eyes and ears evolved, and now the Cosmos could see and hear. Plants and animals discovered that land could support life. Organisms buzzed, crawled, scuttled, lumbered, glided, flapped, shimmied, climbed and soared. Colossal beasts thundered through steaming jungles. Small creatures emerged, born live instead of in hard-shelled containers, with a fluid like the early ocean coursing through their veins. They survived by swiftness and cunning. And then, only a moment ago, some small arboreal animals scampered down from the trees. They became upright and taught themselves the use of tools, domesticated other animals, plants and fire, and devised language. The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.

There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a prodigy—in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the angels"—yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!

The long-term integrity of the empire would not be assured by warm words alone. Britain"s own position in the empire had changed. Once, the country been the engine room of empire, the productive heart of the beast. But with Britain becoming more like a boardroom, investing money, taking decisions, but essentially living off the labor of others, and off the earnings of the past? At some point in the future, might even this role wither away, and might Britain become little more than a repository of British tradition, a common idealized land into which Britons abroad – in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or South Africa – could retreat, a collective memory of Greenfields and swooping glens?

What I am trying to tell you,” Trinka said softly, looking back at him, “is that there are good ways to live, and bad ones. This is not a matter of opinion; it is objective truth. The Empire fights the Wilders because we need their land; that’s true. But there are other reasons. We fight them because they are unworthy. They are not fit to share this world – this divine gift – with folk who do not murder children. With people who do not rape women, or make slaves of the weak. The Wilders are undeserving of the gift of life, of divine choice. They are not fit to be called Children of Bræa. Their way of life is a blight upon the earth. They may look like men, but they live, and behave, like beasts. “If they were able to learn to live like civilized folk,” she sighed, “then we would make it our business to teach them; indeed, I would account it our duty to bring them into the light. We have tried. It has been more than a century since we first began settling the frontiers beyond the mountains, and in the three-score years since Duncala, we have tried many times to bring them the gift of civilization. But if they will not learn to act like civilized men, then civilized men are not obliged to tolerate them. The whole of Bræa’s creation, her divine intent, and her gift of choice to all of us – the gift of choice that grants us the possibility, and therefore the obligation, of bettering ourselves! – cries out against tolerating what by any reasoned definition is utter, bestial depravity. “We are Bræa’s heirs, the inheritors of her divine design. We are not obliged to endure depravity,” she said gravely. “We are obliged to redeem it, if we can; but if we cannot, then our obligation – to ourselves, our posterity, and the Holy Mother’s design – is to end it.” She cocked her head. “In this wise, it might help to think of the Wilders as little different from the hordes of Bardan, whose legacy of death and devastation ended the ancient world, and plunged all into darkness for twice a thousand years.” Her fist clenched involuntarily. “We will not suffer the darkness again, Esuric Mason. My brothers...my former comrades, I mean...they will not allow it.” She looked down at her hands. For a wonder, they were steady. “I will not allow it,” she whispered. - The Wizard's Eye (Hallow's Heart, Book II; Forthcoming)

Dragon’s breath billowed across the peaks of Feldall Forest, waves of green flame bursting into tongues of orange and red as it caught the trees in its path. The creature swooped, serrated wings chopping down the blazing tree-tops to spread the flames along the forest floor. Its scream shook the earth and set the horses to panic, but the three riders held their position along the edge of the tree line. Lady Jasmine of Feldall cursed as her black Friesen, Nalen, reared, and she struggled to stay in her seat. Tendrils of dark brown hair fluttered in her face and she puffed out a breath to clear her vision. This dragon had plagued their lands for months, terrorizing the skies as well as their cattle—what little remained of the herds after a three month drought. Whatever fate had brought the beast out to play while she, Jayden, and Corey were cleaning up the damage he’d done, this was the closest they’d come to ridding themselves of at least one plight. If only Corey would take the shot.

Valley of the Damned. Valkyrie Kari tells of the great warrior Crazy Horse (abridged) ’Twas written of those of long ago, That honor should be “as long as grass shall grow.” In battle honor is a fearsome beast, none can contain, In the strength of heart, it brings only shame. A mighty warrior of the plains was he, Crazy Horse of Sioux battle creed. Given to the ravages of noble, savage war, Against his enemies, he vaulted fore. Peering down from lofty mountain hold, The Horse in dream; the warrior was of olde. The promises they were broken one by one, Until only war unbridled could be hardtily done. Understanding and honor was not for those weak, Only the evil Long-knives now he eagerly did seek. The Knives came to steal, to plunder their land, To kill sacred mother with marauding, guilty hands. They had no regard for their own swelling words, With lust in their eyes, their greed greatly stirred. From southern lands came noise that Longhair did kill, Black Kettle’s camp, their blood he had spilled. Longhair destroyed all; dastard agent of evil strife, Deprived them of children and their bountiful life. Yet this lone, brave holy man stood in Longhair’s way, Crazy Horse, vision man, his plans were well framed. His command rode north hard to that destined battle, To meet wicked Longhair—to dash him from the saddle. Fate led him on to Little Bighorn, Where warriors of the sun met with sacred horn. A hellish dry place of calamitous battle, Found many a soul hearing death’s final rattle. The Long-snakes scouted for the great camp, That morn’ they set their fateful, forked-tongue attack. They raised their sabers, waved them strong, Entered eternity, their deaths foresaw. A sea of pilfered blue engulfed in crimson red, Amidst swirls of feathers sacred of the motherland. Through carnage, The Horse did lead his men, Beyond the battle, to the place where legend began. Up hill rode the bold Crazy Horse, With a thousand others to show determined force. To engage Long-knives at their last stand, Striking them down until dead was every man. Great Gall and Crazy Horse led that righteous attack, Against forceful Custer, whose plans did not lack, For ’twas he himself who boasted, wantonly said, “I will become a great chief, if my enemies I fill with lead.” With righteous honor as their sacred ally, Holy arrows that day swiftly let fly. Horse met Longhair in battle forever stayed, Defeated mighty Custer; his corpse on the field in state. Upon that fateful day, on sage choked sandy plain, Spirits clashed with spirits, for the sacred domain. Unconquerable, indomitable this sacred warrior heart, Leads many against the evil now, for this righteous court. Thus, Horse brought the valiants into stark raved battle, Battle scarred by holy wounds delivered by blue devils. Yet he would not relent, this honorable man of gifted vision, But peace came through the lie; his life ended by steel incision. Breathing his last, quiet honor came his way, “Bring my heart home, the Great Spirit will find my way.” Thus ˊtis with all whose understanding shows what may, Honor leads righteousness to death, ask they of that claim. War spirit vigilant with mighty spear and bow in hand, Leads Great Plains spirits, under his gallant command. His spirit never conquered lives it to this good day, Among the heroic mighty, let us his spirit proclaim. In the hour of travail, honor can be finely seen, Leading multitudes unto battle, their hearts boundlessly free. Cowards can never know the freedom of the plains and wind, Or how she musters a soul and the courage found within. Born in deep commune of Earth and Great Spirit above, Understanding and honor flow from hearts of great love. One without understanding is a fool at best, One without honor is a spirit that ne’er rests. O’ majestic One of the relentless plain, The mountains ring joyous with thy name.

And he said to me, "Truly, nay; for you Christians care not how untruly you serve God. You should set an example to the common people to do well, and you set them an example of doing evil. For the commons, upon festival days, when they should go to church to serve God, go to taverns, and are there in gluttony all day and night, and eat and drink as beasts that have no reason, and know not when they have enough. And also, the Christians encourage one another, in all ways that they may, to fight, and to deceive one another. And they are so proud that they know not how to be clothed; now long, now short, now straight, now large, now with sword, now with dagger, and in all manner of guises. They should be simple, meek, and true, and full of alms-deeds, as Jesus was, in whom they believe ; but they are all the contrary, and ever inclined to evil, and to do evil. And they are so covetous, that for a little silver they sell their daughters, their sisters, and their own wives, to put them to lechery. And one seduces the wife of another, and none of them holdeth faith to another ; but they break their law, that Jesus Christ gave them to keep for their salvation. And thus, for their sins, have they lost all this land which we hold.

Entering the city of Monrovia on Tubman Boulevard, the road suddenly became paved and a little smoother. Most of the other streets were made of sand and coated with used crankcase oil, making them extremely slick. I couldn’t believe the huge water-filled potholes everywhere; couldn’t they fill them in? A major problem was that there was no way of knowing how deep the holes were since they were full of water…. Jimmy had his hands full bouncing along in a car that didn’t seem to have shocks, and from the looks of the tires I don’t believe the front wheels had ever been aligned. Some of the streets went from being a rutted, muddy mess, to being exposed bed-rock with shale stone filling in the worst holes. Somehow Jimmy skillfully navigated these streets, at what I considered at the time, as being reckless speeds. We passed simple dwellings pieced together from flotsam, debris, and recycled planks or pieces of plywood, including what appeared to be random soft drink signs and the likes. It reminded me of some of the Mexican border towns I had been to. There were mangy dogs picking through the piles of garbage, without much hope of finding anything edible. The raw garbage, scattered on the streets, had obviously been picked through already by people or other feral beasts trying to live off the land. If the dogs and cats left anything behind, I could only imagine the rats getting it!

Eamon stood and adjusted the sword at his waist. Buck edged over to peer around their little rock shelter, taking a closer look at both cliff sides.   “We’ll spread out so if it attacks, the rest have a better chance of doing something,” Eamon said softly. “We know its weak spot now. We have a chance.”   Shea’s expression said ‘what the fuck is that going to do?’   “This is what a scout does, Daisy,” Buck said with a jaunty grin. “We go where others fear to tread. It’s why we’re the best of Hawkvale’s Army. Men fight for the privilege of being a scout. Father’s train their boys from birth for the sole purpose of joining our ranks. Who wants to be swinging a blade while hemmed in on their left and right when they have a chance at true glory? We slay beasts, and we’re not afraid of anything. Not even death.

Prince Severin happened to be pacing in the little hall when the stained-glass skylight shattered, and a young woman fell through the ceiling with the broken glass. She dropped like a twisting cat and landed with an ominous crack. The handful of chateau servants that had been hovering around him slapped their hands to their masked faces, their mouths dropping open in screams that couldn’t tear loose from their throats. Severin flexed his paw-like hands, drawing his claws as the servants scurried towards the girl. A footman and one of the grooms reached her first. She was passably pretty, but plain, wearing the muted colors of a villager. Her breathing was ragged, and her face tight with pain. The groom tried to roll her onto her side. “No!” she screamed. The footman and

Everyone dreams, but only some people are dreamers. The non-dreamers, by far more numerous, are those who see the world as it is. Then there are the few dreamers, who see the world as are. The moon, the river, the train station, the sound of rain, and even something as mundane as porridge become something else with many layers. The world feels like an oil painting rather than a photograph, and the dreamers are forever seeing hidden colors where others just see the top shade. The nondreamers look through glasses, and the dreamers through a prism.

Everyone dreams, but only some people are dreamers. The non-dreamers, by far more numerous, are those who see the world as it is. Then there are the few dreamers, who see the world as are. The moon, the river, the train station, the sound of rain, and even something as mundane as porridge become something else with many layers. The world feels like an oil painting rather than a photograph, and the dreamers are forever seeing hidden colors where others just see the top shade. The nondreamers look through glasses, and the dreamers through a prism.

Boy Lost Picture a sunset in a small port town by the sea. Two teenaged boys sitting on the docks watching the ships as they fly across the water. One reaches out and takes the other’s hand. In this brush of skin for skin, a thousand unspoken promises erupt between them, and both are determined to keep them. This is what youth is. The sheer belief that you will be able to keep every promise you made to someone else. That you will be able to love someone into a forever when you do not even understand what forever means. An evening spent in the headiness of love, they go back to their respective homes. One boy helps his mother with cooking and cleaning and looking after his little sister. His father is a good man, a sailor who brings home with him meagre wages, but a heart full of love and a quicksilver tongue that tells stories of faraway lands to enthral them all. But this boy, despite his blessings, is not happy. He may have been blessed with a loving family, but that faraway look is made of unrest and wanderlust, something about him says fae, changeling, wearing the skin of a boy who was always destined to fly, to leave.   The other boy returns home to a father who drinks and a mother who works so hard that she is never there. He is the unwanted creature in this home, a beating waiting for him at every corner. His father’s temper is a beast so powerful that a boy made of paper bones barely held together cannot fight him. He hides in his room. He lives for a boy at sunset, hope made into a human being. Now picture this. This boy of paper bones alone at the docks the next sunset. And this boy alone on the docks again on a rainy day. And this boy alone on the docks every day after, waiting for someone who promised him forevers he never intended to keep. This boy becoming a man, a heart wounded so young in youth that it never quite healed right. Imagine him becoming a sailor, searching land after land for a boy he once loved, thinking he was hurt, or stolen, just needing to know what happened to him. Now see him finally finding out that the boy he loved in his boyhood ran away to a magical land where he never grew up. That without a second glance, he just forgot every promise of forever. Imagine his rage, that ancient pain turning to a terrible anger and escaping from the forgotten attic of his mangled heart. Think of what happens when immense love turns into immense hate. An anger so intense it cannot be controlled. What he would give up to avenge the boy he once was, paper-boned, standing on the docks, broken without a single person to love him, simply all alone. A hand is a small price to pay for a magical ship that will take him to Neverland, a place that lives on a star. Becoming a villain called Captain Hook is a small exchange to show Peter Pan that you cannot throw away love and think you will get away unscarred.

The Handsome Monkey King had enjoyed this insouciant existence for three or four hundred years when one day, while feasting with the rest of the monkeys, he suddenly grew sad and shed a few tears. Alarmed, the monkeys surrounding him bowed down and asked, “What is disturbing the Great King?” The Monkey King replied, “Though I am very happy at the moment, I am a little concerned about the future. Hence I’m distressed.” The monkeys all laughed and said, “The Great King indeed does not know contentment! Here we daily have a banquet on an immortal mountain in a blessed land, in an ancient cave on a divine continent. We are not subject to the unicorn or the phoenix, nor are we governed by the rulers of mankind. Such independence and comfort are immeasurable blessings. Why, then, does he worry about the future?” The Monkey King said, “Though we are not subject to the laws of man today, nor need we be threatened by the rule of any bird or beast, old age and physical decay in the future will disclose the secret sovereignty of Yama, King of the Underworld. If we die, shall we not have lived in vain, not being able to rank forever among the Heavenly beings?

Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom.

The sky was white and the earth was black, like at the beginning of time before the first sunrise.

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stirred at half past eight to the sound of rain on the eaves. With a half-opened eye, he pulled back his covers and climbed from bed. He donned his robe and slipped on his slippers. He took up the tin from the bureau, spooned a spoonful of beans into the Apparatus, and began to crank the crank. Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things.

You’re not running again,” he growled before pouncing up onto the table. I shrieked, stumbling backwards as he leapt towards me. I threw my shoes at him and they bounced off of his chest making him pause in surprise. He barked a laugh then lunged at me, faster than was humanly possible. He caught my waist and I squealed as he pushed me back against a heavy bookcase which stood along the wall. My hands landed on his shoulders like I was going to push him off of me but I didn’t. “Cheat,” I breathed as my heart pounded. “Only a little,” he admitted. Before I could say anything else, he leaned forward and kissed me. My heart leapt, my skin tingled and my traitorous body gave in to his demand. I was supposed to hate him. I was supposed to be shoving him off of me and slapping him and telling him to stay the hell away from me. I definitely shouldn’t have been pulling him closer, my hands fisting in the material of his shirt, my lips parting to admit his tongue. I could still taste blood from where I’d bitten my lip and he obviously could too, a groan of desire escaping him as I felt a soft tug on my magic from the welt on my lip. Why am I always a sucker for the bad guys? And why does it always feel so good? The heat of his kiss lit me up and I gave up on any thoughts of pushing him away. It wasn’t like I was giving him my heart anyway. Just a kiss... or maybe two... Caleb’s hands slid into my hair and I arched my back, pressing my body against his. His grip tightened in my hair and he dragged my head backwards, breaking our kiss as he moved his mouth down my neck, teasing with the idea of biting me, his fangs flirting with my flesh. My body was alight with his proximity and I moaned, urging him on. I didn’t want this to stop even if I really should have. Caleb withdrew just enough to look into my eyes and the heat I saw in his gaze made my toes curl. “You wanna play another game, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice deep. “What do I get if I win?” I breathed. “I think this game will have two winners,” he promised. My gaze roamed over his face hungrily but then I glanced at the open door. This really wasn’t the best place for us to be making out... or doing anything else either. “I can sort that,” he said, taking one hand off of me and casting magic at the door. A long vine curled across the carpet before pushing the door closed and winding itself around the handle to lock it. An orb of orange light flickered into existence overhead as we were plunged into darkness, casting shadows over his stunning features. He aimed his palm at the ceiling next and I felt a wave of magic wash over me. “Silencing bubble, so we don’t have to hold back,” he explained. I looked into his eyes, wondering if I was really going to do this with him. Heat was curling its way through my body, lighting me up with desire for this beast before me and I decided to act on it before I had the chance to question my decision. (tory)

The concept of a nation is a pure construct. It serves to hold up our reality, we need it for government et cetera, but it is neither self-evident nor natural, and becomes more meaningless when you think of it in historical context. For all of human history, nations have been destroyed, absorbed into others, reborn, or forgotten, and that makes no difference to the well-being of the posterity.

The world pulled at her, irresistible and real like the first hot day of summer.

What we’re seeing is progressive derangement. God-fearing, land-starved, profit-seeking Welsh and English and Scottish and Irish second sons, jilted by primogeniture, sexually repressed , passion denying, furtively engaging the favours of native women, girls, and boys, all unfolding in the midst of septic heat, rain, disease, squalor, and savage beasts, while being waited on, cooked for, fanned, massaged by servants a thousand times more loyal, submissive, and poorly paid than any in the world, in the middle of the biggest real estate boom, jewel auction and drug emporium of the past five hundred years. No wonder they went a little crazy.

Some people you love deeply will turn into a stranger in an instant, if the inyeon has run its course. And sometimes people will be attached to you forever despite all likelihood.

Trenton groaned once the beast had finally stilled, and gingerly sat up. He cradled his arm to his side. “I just got these ribs healed.”   Shea shifted next to him, wincing as her palms stung. Blood dotted the skin and tiny specks of dirt and rock decorated them. Her muscles protested as she scrabbled to her feet, her sleeve torn and ripped, along with the knee in her pants.   “I can’t believe that worked,” Wilhelm said as he climbed to his feet next to her.   Neither could Shea.   “You know, when you first assigned me to her care, I thought you were punishing me for some unknown transgression,” Trenton told Fallon as he staggered upright, his face a mask of pain. “Little did I know you were giving me the most dangerous assignment in your army.” “Neither did I,” Fallon said in a rueful voice as he sat up. The bashe’s final convulsion had knocked them all off their feet.   Wilhelm’s smile was faint as he looked at what they’d done. “They’re going to tell stories about this. Our children’s children will speak of this battle one day.

You shall serve Yahweh your God, and I shall bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness from your midst. 23:25 None shall miscarry their young, nor be barren in your land, and I will give you the full measure of your days. 23:26 I will send fear of me before you, and I will destroy all the people to whom you come. I will make your enemies turn their backs to you. 23:27 I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hittite, from before you. 23:28 I will not drive them out in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field multiply against you. 23:29 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until your numbers increase, and you inherit the land. 23:30 I will set your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river. And I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out. 23:31 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 23:32 They must not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, they will surely ensnare

For the first time in my life, I'm nervously happy. Usually I'm neither nervous nor happy because I have no expectations about anything. Now I have something I want and suddenly all my decisions matter more.

But he thought that his father and mother were up there somewhere, that he didn't come into this world alone, and so was reminded why he must keep surviving as best he can...

Jade felt that they each would have only half a life, a single wing, which would not be truly complete unless they stood together side by side.

The tyrant-father of Heaven, the one who created, hated and drove out the first woman, yoked men with a horrible curse, far worse than any imagined to have been handed down to Eve. Men were told they were masters of this world, of their mates, of the beasts and fish, of the land and sea and sky. How ridiculous! That’s like telling a little boy he’s in charge of the house when his da is gone. It’s silly! “And like that little boy, men have tried to live up to the unreasonable demands of their mute, wayward, celestial father. They have enslaved and dominated, conquered and killed, all in the name of shepherding, of protecting, of ruling the world. They spend their lives trying to do what they think is right, what their father on high would want of them. The bastard.

Fredericksburgh, whence there is a railway to Richmond. The tract of country through which it takes its course was once productive; but the soil has been exhausted by the system of employing a great amount of slave labour in forcing crops, without strengthening the land: and it is now little better than a sandy desert overgrown with trees. Dreary and uninteresting as its aspect is, I was glad to the heart to find anything on which one of the curses of this horrible institution has fallen; and had greater pleasure in contemplating the withered ground, than the richest and most thriving cultivation in the same place could possibly have afforded me. In this district, as in all others where slavery sits brooding, (I have frequently heard this admitted, even by those who are its warmest advocates:) there is an air of ruin and decay abroad, which is inseparable from the system. The barns and outhouses are mouldering away; the sheds are patched and half roofless; the log cabins (built in Virginia with external chimneys made of clay or wood) are squalid in the last degree. There is no look of decent comfort anywhere. The miserable stations by the railway side, the great wild wood-yards, whence the engine is supplied with fuel; the negro children rolling on the ground before the cabin doors, with dogs and pigs; the biped beasts of burden slinking past: gloom and dejection are upon them all.

I rule not like Nitocris over beasts of burden, as are the effeminate nations of the East, nor like Semiramis, over tradesmen and traffickers, nor like the man-woman, Nero, over slaves and eunuchs-such is the precious knowledge foreigners introduce among us-but I rule over Britons, little versed, indeed in craft and diplomacy, but born and trained to the game of war; men who in the cause of liberty stake down their lives, the lives of their wives and children, their lands and property. Queen of such a race I implore your aid for freedom, for victory over enemies infamous for the wantonness of the wrongs they inflict, for their perversions of justice, for their insatiable greed; a people that revel in unmanly pleasures, whose affections are more to be dreaded and abhored than their emnity. Never let a foreigner bear rule over me or over my countrymen; never let slavery reign in the island!

Endurance also itself forces its way to the divine likeness, reaping as its fruit impassibility through patience, if what is related of Ananias be kept in mind; who belonged to a number, of whom Daniel the prophet, filled with divine faith, was one. Daniel dwelt at Babylon, as Lot at Sodom, and Abraham, who a little after became the friend of God, in the land of Chaldea. The king of the Babylonians let Daniel down into a pit full of wild beasts; the King of all, the faithful Lord, took him up unharmed. Such patience will the Gnostic, as a Gnostic, possess. He will bless when under trial, like the noble Job; like Jonas, when swallowed up by the whale, he will pray, and faith will restore him to prophesy to the Ninevites ; and though shut up with lions, he will tame the wild beasts; though cast into the fire, he will be besprinkled with dew, but not consumed. He will give his testimony by night; he will testify by day; by word, by life, by conduct, he will testify. Dwelling with the Lord, 1 he will continue his familiar friend, sharing the same hearth according to the Spirit; pure in the flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word. " The world," it is said, " is crucified to him, and he to the world." He, bearing about the cross of the Saviour, will follow the Lord's footsteps, as God, having become holy of holies.

Even as he turned the little handle round and round, the room remained under the tenuous authority of sleep. As yet unchallenged, somnolence continued to cast its shadow over sights and sensations, over forms and formulations, over what has been said and what must be done, lending each the insubstantiality of its domain. But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists—the aroma of freshly ground coffee. In that instant, darkness was separated from light, the waters from the lands, and the heavens from the earth. The trees bore fruit and the woods rustled with the movement of birds and beasts and all manner of creeping things. While closer at hand, a patient pigeon scuffed its feet on the flashing.

The king was silent. 'Ents!' he said at length. 'Out of the shadows of legend I begin a little to understand the marvel of the trees, I think. I have lived to see strange days. Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of strange places, and walk visible under the Sun.

Just before they entered the Promised Land, the Lord told the Israelites that He would drive out their enemies before them “little by little” (Deuteronomy 7:22), lest the beasts of the field increase among them. I believe pride is one of the “beasts” that will consume us if we receive too much freedom too quickly, and the best way to gain lasting freedom and wholeness is to be liberated one area at a time. That way, we appreciate our freedom more; we realize it is truly a gift from God and not something we can make happen in our own strength. If it seems that freedom is slow in coming to any area of your life, remember that true progress often happens little by little.

IN THE WAGON where the bread had landed, a battle had ensued. Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling each other. Beasts of prey unleashed, animal hate in their eyes. An extraordinary vitality possessed them, sharpening their teeth and nails. A crowd of workmen and curious passersby had formed all along the train. They had undoubtedly never seen a train with this kind of cargo. Soon, pieces of bread were falling into the wagons from all sides. And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread. A piece fell into our wagon. I decided not to move. Anyway, I knew that I would not be strong enough to fight off dozens of violent men! I saw, not far from me, an old man dragging himself on all fours. He had just detached himself from the struggling mob. He was holding one hand to his heart. At first I thought he had received a blow to his chest. Then I understood: he was hiding a piece of bread under his shirt. With lightning speed he pulled it out and put it to his mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile, like a grimace, illuminated his ashen face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had lain down beside him. And this shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old man was crying: “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me … You’re killing your father … I have bread … for you too … for you too …” He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it. He didn’t get far. Two men had been watching him. They jumped him. Others joined in. When they withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and the son. I was sixteen.