Cane River Quotes

You can't tell how heavy somebody else's load is just from looking. The Lord doesn't give us more than we can carry

Reaching too deep into something not meant for you is full of pain. Figure out what you can have and work on that

Sometimes while you wait for what you think is better," Philomene said, "what is good enough slips away.

You're one of those who has to tune the world out and focus on one thing at a time. We have a word for that down here, women like you. Insiwa. Inside one. It means you live inside your head and to step out of it hurts like a caning.

Pater noster Our Father who art in heaven Stay there And we'll stay here on earth Which is sometimes so pretty With its mysteries of New York And its mysteries of Paris At least as good as that of the Trinity With its little canal at Ourcq Its great wall of China Its river at Morlaix Its candy canes With its Pacific Ocean And its two basins in the Tuileries With its good children and bad people With all the wonders of the world Which are here Simply on the earth Offered to everyone Strewn about Wondering at the wonder of themselves And daring not avow it As a naked pretty girl dares not show herself With the world's outrageous misfortunes Which are legion With legionaries With torturers With the masters of this world The masters with their priests their traitors and their troops With the seasons With the years With the pretty girls and with the old bastards With the straw of misery rotting in the steel of cannons.

This was the face of slavery. To have nothing, and still have something more to lose.

If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta.

There is nothing more satisfying than having plans.

Sometimes good came out of hurt, compensation came out of pain. He gave with one hand, and He took with the other.

Three generations of women out on the front porch, four counting little Emily, trying to put words around a past and a future that could never be explained.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation

Don’t be so eager to judge, Suzette. You can’t tell how heavy somebody else’s load is just from looking.

The sound of the rain faded away and she kissed him, letting herself be as honest as she'd wanted to be, letting her kiss speak for everything she was afraid to say with words.

We both know you can’t split a bookstore. (I don’t even share shelf space.)

She's not looking to change you. She wants you just the way you are. And loving someone isn't a crisis. It's normal. Lots of people do it. They love each other and the sky doesn't fall. The world doesn't stop turning.

A visitor to campus can find sweet, aromatic Properity, as well as Climbing Ophelia and those delicious Egyptian Roses, which give off the scent of cloves on rainy days, ensuring that a gardener's hands will smell sweet for hours after pruning the canes.

... in an even wilder part of the river's jungle of cane and gum and pin oak, there is an Indian mound. Aboriginal, it rises profoundly and darkly enigmatic, the only elevation of any kind in the wild, flat jungle of river bottom. Even to some of us - children though we were, yet we were descended to literate, town-bred people - it possessed inferences of secret and violent blood, of savage and sudden destruction, as though the yells and hatchets we associated with Indians through the hidden and seceret dime novels which we passed among ourselves were but trivial and momentary manifestations of what dark power still dwelled or lurked there, sinister, a little sardonic, like a dark and nameless beast lightly and lazily slumbering with bloody jaws...

Middling monsters died at the point of pitchforks, burned with torches, or at the butt of silver-capped canes wielded by angry, geriatric Poles. Middling people were dime-a-dozen, emptied souls, shorn sheeple, human husks. A good monster didn’t worry about what it was doing; it just did it. A true predator didn’t worry about guilt, or being popular, or anything. It just cruised along, living for the kill, surviving. A good person, well, she’d put a bullet in her head or weigh her feet down and throw herself into the Chicago River, holding her breath until she went to the sludgy, filthy bottom, and had to open wide and breathe water until she died.

You get lazy and just download a copy instead of finding the book on the shelf. And the finding is half the fun. Browsing on either side, above and below, that is the joy of it.

Guys like Gideon didn't get the girl

He's come a long way, but he's still never accepted that he's forgiven.

Henry wasn't curious in the least. She just wanted Gideon to stay close.

I prefer baseball. For future reference, for the luring.

I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I was trying to put some distance between me and-" "-the corset" He said, his dimples appearing

The two women worked easily together, but I soon sensed that, though Belle was in charge of the kitchen, Mama Mae was in charge of Belle.

She slid a look toward him, one edge of her mouth tilting up. "My Mama told me to watch out for boys like you." "Your Mama was right," his voice dropped an octave, "but I am not a boy.

Getting to know him made me take a real good look at myself. I don't like what I see. I want to be honest with him but I've spent so long lying to everyone, I don't even really know who I am anymore.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.

But, for me, being attractive is about more than just what a man's been blessed with. I like that Gideon doesn't know he's the handsomest man in town. Once, when we were on our way to the Finnemore house, a girl almost walked into a post because she wasn't paying attention. But Gideon had no idea.

It's the truth." Her voice was barely more than breath. "I believe you." He was gently kissing his way along her jaw. "You came all this way to bring me a photo." "Yes." She said. "Well, I can..this morning..here bring it." He raised his head, "What?" She glared at him, "I can't talk when you're doing that." He grinned, dimples appearing. "Sorry. Say it again.

The water murmurs in the old stone well, And, a rippling mirror, gives back the clear blue sky. The river roars, swollen with the late rains of spring. On the cool, jade green grass the golden sunshine splashes. Sometimes, at early dawn, I climb even as far as Lien Shan Temple. In the spring I plow the thirsty field, that it may drink new life. I eat a little, I work a little, each day my hair grows thinner, and it seems, I lean ever a bit more heavily on my old thornwood cane

On Friday, March 28, the writer Virginia Woolf, her depression worsened by the war and the destruction of both her house in Bloomsbury and her subsequent residence, composed a note to her husband, Leonard, and left it for him at their country home in East Sussex. “Dearest,” she wrote, “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.” Her hat and cane were found on a bank of the nearby River Ouse.

The July sun blazed in the middle of the sky and the atmosphere was gay and carefree, while in the windless air not a leaf stirred in the poplars and willows lining the banks of the river. In the distance ahead, the conspicuous bulk of Mont-Valérien loomed, rearing the ramparts of its fortifications in the glare of the sun. On the right, the gentle slopes of Louveciennes, following the curve of the river, formed a semi-circle within which could be glimpsed, through the dense and shady greenery of their spacious lawns, the white-painted walls of weekend retreats. On the land adjoining La Grenouillère strollers were sauntering under the gigantic trees which help to make this part of the island one of the most delightful parks imaginable. Busty women with peroxided hair and nipped-in waists could be seen, made up to the nines with blood red lips and black-kohled eyes. Tightly laced into their garish dresses they trailed in all their vulgar glory over the fresh green grass. They were accompanied by men whose fashion-plate accessories, light gloves, patent-leather boots, canes as slender as threads and absurd monocles made them look like complete idiots.

A spring sun was shining on the rue St. Honore, as I ran down the church steps. On one corner stood a barrow full of yellow jonquils, pale violets from the Riviera, dark Russian violets, and white Roman hyacinths in a golden cloud of mimosa. The street was full of Sunday pleasure-seekers. I swung my cane and laughed with the rest. Someone overtook and passed me. He never turned, but there was the same deadly malignity in his white profile that there had been in his eyes. I watched him as long as I could see him. His lithe back expressed the same menace; every step that carried him away from me seemed to bear him on some errand connected with my destruction. I was creeping along, my feet almost refusing to move. There began to dawn in me a sense of responsibility for something long forgotten. It began to seem as if I deserved that which he threatened: it reached a long way back - a long, long way back. It had lain dormant all these. years: it was there though, and presently it would rise and confront me. But I would try to escape; and I stumbled as best I could into the rue de Rivioli, across the Place de la Concorde and on to the Quai. I looked with sick eyes upon the sun, shining through the white foam of the fountain, pouring over the backs of the dusky bronze river-gods, on the far-away Arc, a structure of amethyst mist, on the countless vistas of grey stems and bare branches faintly green. Then I saw him again coming down one of the chestnut alleys of the Cours la Reine. ("In The Court of the Dragon")

In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies. These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly. At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat. Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals. The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth. In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them. With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green. One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom. “Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap. “I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look. “Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he. Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder. “You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites. “As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean. “Take me with you,” I said to the fox. “Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said. “Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.” “Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered. “No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.” Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me. Like it or not, she had to take me with her. We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed. “This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler. “Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I. “Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.

For some reason I could not visit him as usual the next day, but at about nine o’clock on the morning of the fourth day, I went to see him again, along with the Karumbas and the sugar cane. But he was not there. However, we knew well enough where we would find him. He would be at the ‘Big Pool’, half a mile upstream, the ‘place where the elephants come to die,’ as the Karumbas call it in their own language. And we found him there, right enough. He was dead. The weather had been dry and the pool was only four feet deep. But the tusker had deliberately lain down in it on his side and placed his head and trunk beneath the surface of the water to drown. His flank protruded above and that was how we found him. There lies the answer to the great secret: where do the elephants go, and how do they die, when they become too old to live? They drown themselves in a river. I had solved the mystery and at the same time had enjoyed a unique friendship with a full-grown wild tusker, although it was but a brief one.

Some twenty minutes later, I was back at the river, and my son and father were waiting on the far side.  Crossing the swift river with my dad was something I was really dreading.  I helped him check his bandages, and he was under the impression that his injury was a compound fracture—bone sticking through flesh.  While I didn’t get a good look at the foot itself, I noticed there were blood blisters everywhere on his lower leg.  It was a shockingly bad injury, and I worried he might lose his foot.  It was time to cross the stream.  My son took my father’s left side, where he could keep close watch on the placement of the improvised wooden cane.  I took my father’s right arm in mine and silently prayed as our feet hit the water together.  Our footing held firm on the stream’s rocky bottom, and the rushing water didn’t rise above our knees.  I was so tremendously grateful at that final step onto the rocky shore, but there was lots of work still requiring our attention before my son and I could make the final journey to the trailhead beyond Lake Pamelia.

I told him he must carry it thus. It was evident the sagacious little creature, having lost its mother, had adopted him for a father. I succeeded, at last, in quietly releasing him, and took the little orphan, which was no bigger than a cat, in my arms, pitying its helplessness. The mother appeared as tall as Fritz. I was reluctant to add another mouth to the number we had to feed; but Fritz earnestly begged to keep it, offering to divide his share of cocoa-nut milk with it till we had our cows. I consented, on condition that he took care of it, and taught it to be obedient to him. Turk, in the mean time, was feasting on the remains of the unfortunate mother. Fritz would have driven him off, but I saw we had not food sufficient to satisfy this voracious animal, and we might ourselves be in danger from his appetite. We left him, therefore, with his prey, the little orphan sitting on the shoulder of his protector, while I carried the canes. Turk soon overtook us, and was received very coldly; we reproached him with his cruelty, but he was quite unconcerned, and continued to walk after Fritz. The little monkey seemed uneasy at the sight of him, and crept into Fritz's bosom, much to his inconvenience. But a thought struck him; he tied the monkey with a cord to Turk's back, leading the dog by another cord, as he was very rebellious at first; but our threats and caresses at last induced him to submit to his burden. We proceeded slowly, and I could not help anticipating the mirth of my little ones, when they saw us approach like a pair of show-men. I advised Fritz not to correct the dogs for attacking and killing unknown animals. Heaven bestows the dog on man, as well as the horse, for a friend and protector. Fritz thought we were very fortunate, then, in having two such faithful dogs; he only regretted that our horses had died on the passage, and only left us the ass. "Let us not disdain the ass," said I; "I wish we had him here; he is of a very fine breed, and would be as useful as a horse to us." In such conversations, we arrived at the banks of our river before we were aware. Flora barked to announce our approach, and Turk answered so loudly, that the terrified little monkey leaped from his back to the shoulder of its protector, and would not come down. Turk ran off to meet his companion, and our dear family soon appeared on the opposite shore, shouting with joy at our happy return. We crossed at the same place as we had done in the morning, and embraced each other. Then began such a noise of exclamations. "A monkey! a real, live monkey! Ah! how delightful! How glad we are! How did you catch him?

David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh.” That was all Gran could muster up? “Did you not like him?” “He wasn’t a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England,” she added, as if that explained everything. “I’d been wearing Karen down about the Arcana—until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress.” “He didn’t want us to live up north?” “David planned to move there.” Her gaze went distant. “To move you—the great Empress—away from her Haven.” That must have gone over well. “In the end, I convinced them not to go.” ...... I opened up the family albums. As I scrolled through them, her eyes appeared dazed, as if she wasn’t seeing the images. Yet then she stared at a large picture of my father. I said, “I wish I could remember him.” “David used to carry you around the farm on his shoulders,” she said. “He read to you every night and took you to the river to skip stones. He drove you around to pet every baby animal born in a ten-mile radius. Lambs, kittens, puppies.” She drew a labored breath. “He brought you to the crops and the gardens. Even then, you would pet the bark of an oak and kiss a rose bloom. If the cane was sighing that day, you’d fall asleep in his arms.” I imagined it all: the sugarcane, the farm, the majestic oaks, the lazy river that always had fish jumping. My roots were there, but I knew I would never go back. Jack’s dream had been to return and rebuild Haven. A dream we’d shared. I would feel like a traitor going home without him. Plus, it’d be too painful. Everything would remind me of the love I’d lost. “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” I snapped my gaze to her. “What do you mean? He disappeared on a fishing trip in the Basin.” She frowned at me. “He did. Of course.” Chills crept up my spine. Was she lying? Why would she, unless . . .

Outside," Regulus replies. "They're making mud-pies, so prepare for the mess." "Mm, nothing we can't handle," James assures him. "We've certainly had worse." "Yes, that's true, but if either of those brats track mud into the kitchen, I'm shipping them off to Sirius and Remus without looking back," Regulus warns, eyes narrowing playfully. James snorts. "You'd miss them and go get them back after three hours, don't even try it." "At least four," Regulus counters, sliding his arms around James' shoulders, eyes sparkling with amusement. "I can entertain myself for four hours, surely." "Oh?" James raises his eyebrows. "Don't you mean I could entertain you for four hours?" Regulus' lips twitch. "No, because I'm shipping you off with them. I've earned the break. I'm done with you Potters." "You're a Potter," James reminds him, amused. "Baby, I'll always be a Black," Regulus tells him, reaching up to card his fingers through James' hair. He leans in and starts mouthing along James' jaw, which James is very pleased about, actually. "No matter my name, that doesn't change." "Dad! Dad, look, we found a frog!" comes the abrupt shriek from outside, along with more delighted screams. "Oh, for fuck's sake," Regulus groans, letting his head thunk down on James' shoulder. "Really, can't we just send them back from whence they came?" "And where is that?" "Hell." James laughs, turning his head to smack a kiss to Regulus' cheek, then down the side of his face, then the scar on the side of his neck. "It's a bit pointless to do that. You'd go through hell just to get them back, and you know it." "Dad, it peed on me!" "Shit, shit, shit," Regulus chants, jolting away from James to rush towards the door. "Put it down, you little demons! Step away from the frog right now!" He's still grumbling as he slips out the door. "Just like your father. Literal spawns of Satan himself. What did I say about staying out of tr…" James sighs softly and leans back against the bar, grabbing his cane again, eyes drifting shut as he listens to the sounds of his family, lips curled up. Then, from his pocket, there's a sudden cry that makes his eyes snap open. Ah, yes, the joys of parenthood. Frogs and squalling infants. James wouldn't change a damn thing.

The next morning, Steve took his boat out and saw what had happened. The big male had triggered the trap and was snared in the mesh--sort of. Even though the rectangular-shaped net was the biggest he had, the croc’s tail and back leg stuck out. But the black ghost had finally been caught. At Steve’s approach, the animal thrashed wildly, smashing apart mangrove trees on either side of the trap. Steve tried to top-jaw-rope the croc, but it was fighting too violently. Normally Chilli acted as a distraction, giving Steve the chance to secure the croc. But the dog wanted no part of this. She cowered on the floor of the dinghy, unwilling to face this monstrously large croc. Steve was truly on his own. He finally secured a top-jaw rope and tied the other end to a tree. With a massive “death roll”--a defensive maneuver in which the reptile spins its enormous body--the big croc smashed the tree flat and snapped it off. Steve tried again; the croc thrashed, growling and roaring in protest at the trapper in khaki, lunging again and again to tear Steve apart. Finally, the giant croc death-rolled so violently that he came off the bank and landed in the boat, which immediately sank. Chilli had jumped out and was swimming for shore as Steve worked against time. With the croc underwater, Steve lashed the croc, trap and all, in the dinghy. But moving the waterlogged boat and a ton of crocodile was simply too much. Steve sprinted several miles in the tropical heat to reach a cane farm, where he hoped to get help. The cane farmers were a bit hesitant to lend a hand, so Steve promised them a case of beer, and a deal was made. With a sturdy fishing boat secured to each side of Steve’s dinghy, they managed to tow it downriver where they could winch croc and boat onto dry land to get him into a crate. By this time, a crowd of spectators had gathered. When Steve told me the story of the capture, I got the sense that he felt sorry he had to catch the crocodile at all. “It seemed wrong to remove the king of the river,” Steve said. “That croc had lasted in his territory for decades. Here I was taking him out of it. The local people just seemed relieved, and a couple even joked about how many boots he’d make.” Steve was very clever to include the local people and soon won them over to see just how special this crocodile really was. Just as he was dragged into his crate, the old croc attempted a final act of defiance, a death roll that forced Steve to pin him again. “I whispered to him to calm him down,” Steve said. “What did you say to him?” I asked. “Please don’t die.” The black crocodile didn’t die. Steve brought him back to Beerwah, named him Acco, and gave him a beautiful big pond that Bob had prepared, with plenty of places to hide. We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong.

So, does that make me your girlfriend?” “Do you want to be?” “I’ve never liked that word, actually. It sounds so juvenile. ” He shot her a worried look. “Is there another term you’d prefer?” “I’ve always liked ‘companion of my heart’. Or ‘my better half’. Or maybe even ‘the sun in my universe’.

Bernard was afraid of loud voices. He was afraid of the dark. He was afraid of his brother, Dudley, who tried to make a man of him, and he was afraid of his sister, Joan, who threw him in the lake and held his head under the water to make him swim. When Barnard spoke to the maids, he did it quietly and he said “please” and “thank you”--and sometimes, though he was a boy and a Taverner, he cried. His father, of course, was desperate. A boy like Bernard had never happened in his family before. He sent him away to the toughest school he could find, but though the teachers caned him even more than his father had done, and the boys did interesting things to him like squeezing lemon juice into his eyes and piercing the soles of his feet with compass needles, it seemed to make no difference. Bernard went on being quiet, and he went on being terrified of his family, and he went on saying “please” and “thank you” to the maids. But there were some things Bernard was not afraid of. He was not afraid of spiders--when the servants screamed because there was a large one in the bath, it was to Bernard they went, and he would put a glass over it and let it out in the garden, admiring its furry legs and complicated eyes. He was not afraid of the adders that hissed on the moor. He liked the adders with their zigzag markings and flickering tongues. Bernard did not mind the rats in the cellars and he did not mind the horses. He minded the people on the horses--his sister, Joan, with her braying voice and his brother, Dudley, with his whip--but if he met the horses quietly in a field he got on well enough with them.

Sometimes while you wait for what you think is better,” Philomene said, “what is good enough slips away.

The women’s way was more effective. They might be ignored, abused, or dominated, but in the end the women were more practical, keeping their eye on whatever prize was within their grasp.

Munia's eighth birthday falls on the hottest day in June, with the smell of burning cane scenting the air. She forgets the heat in her excitement over the slice of cassata her father has brought all the way from Teetar Bani, the main town. Chand had ordered the precious gift from the only shop in the town that possessed a freezer, and carefully packed it in a tin pail filled with jute sacking and ice purchased from Raju Golasharbatwala's cart. The cassata melts, a puddle of bright colours. She eats it slowly, bending her head to the dented tin plate and lapping up the last delicious drops of strawberry. It is a rare taste, a flavour she has not encountered before. Her father asks, 'One more slice?' She nods, but halfway through, she holds out her plate to Chand, presses the spoon into his hand. 'You also eat. One spoon for you, one for me.' He takes tiny bites.

Buying more and more of the best land, sometimes owning multiple estates spread across several states, extended plantation families - fathers who provided sons and sons-in-law with a start - created slaveholding conglomerates that controlled hundreds and sometimes thousands of slaves. The grandees' vast wealth allowed them to introduce new hybrid cotton seeds and strains of cane, new technologies, and new forms of organization that elevated productivity and increased profitability. In some places, the higher levels of capitalization and technical mastery of the grandees reduced white yeomen to landlessness and forced smallholders to move on or else enter the wage-earning class as managers or overseers. As a result, the richest plantation areas became increasingly black, with ever-larger estates managed from afar as the planters retreated to some local country seat, one of the region's ports, or occasionally some northern metropolis. Claiming the benefits of their new standing, the grandees - characterized in various places as 'nabobs,' 'a feudal aristocracy,' or simply 'The Royal Family' - established their bona fides as a ruling class. They built great houses strategically located along broad rivers or high bluffs. They named their estates in the aristocratic manner - the Briars, Fairmont, Richmond - and made them markers on the landscape. Planters married among themselves, educated their sons in northern universities, and sent their wives and daughters on European tours, collecting the bric-a-brac of the continent to grace their mansions. Reaching out to their neighbors, they burnished their reputations for hospitality. The annual Christmas ball or the great July Fourth barbecue were private events with a public purpose. They confirmed the distance between the planters and their neighbors and allowed leadership to fall lightly and naturally on their shoulders, as governors, legislators, judges, and occasionally congressmen, senators, and presidents.

Around lunchtime on 28 March 1941, by the river Ouse, Leonard Woolf saw a walking stick. Hers. Virginia had drowned herself. She was lying on the riverbed, her pockets full of rocks. First, however, she’d planted her cane on the shore, firmly erect. As if to say, I cannot carry on, but you must. We do our best, Virginia. We do our best.

if it meant the difference between getting evicted and living in her gas-less car, or asking a state agency for help, she was glad she’d asked for help.

Redemption was an ugly, down-in-the-dirt, every single day sort of thing.

Technology was meant to be a tool, not a crutch. The entire world had become dependent on gadgets for entertainment and personal happiness.

copy instead of finding the book on the shelf. And the finding is half the fun. Browsing on either side, above and below, that is the joy of it.

I feel like this little contraption gave me back a lot of my old friends.

My greatest fear is running out of good books to read.

Here’s to your recovery, bud. It’s going to be quick and powerful.” “Hope God heard that,” Mike said, and took a long, refreshing pull. “The doc said I’d need three months to start feeling better and I’ve only given it six weeks, but...” And then she came out from the kitchen. Mike almost choked on his words. She smiled at him and said, “Hello. You must be Mike.” She went to stand next to Preacher, and he, with his eyes focused on the shine in Mike’s, dropped an arm around her shoulders, claiming her. God, Mike thought. Preacher has a woman. And what a woman. “Yeah,” Mike said slowly. She was gorgeous. Soft, light brown hair fell in silky curves to her shoulders. She had skin like creamy satin and peach-colored lips, a little line, a scar in her lower lip. He knew what that was about, he remembered better now. And warm, sexy green eyes surrounded by a lot of dark lashes and perfectly arched brows. With Preacher’s arm around her, she leaned against him. “I just don’t get it,” Mike said with a laugh. “You two somehow found the most beautiful, sexiest women in the state right here in the backwoods. Shouldn’t there be at least one of you in Los Angeles?” “Actually, we were both from Los Angeles,” Mel said. “And fortunately, both found our way to the backwoods.” No way Preacher knows what he’s holding, Mike thought. And Preacher, knowing Mike’s careless ways with women, just about anyone’s woman, might feel a little threatened at the moment, even given the crippled hand and cane. Little did he know... “Well, damn,” Mike said, lifting his glass. “To your good fortune. All of you.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees Thou shalt not kill. Ruth lay down and inched forward until she could look over the edge of the cliff to see what had happened. The force of Otter’s fall had brought snow and rock down upon him. One hand stuck out, and part of his face. But I say unto you which hear. Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you…And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other. What could Jesus have been thinking when he said that? This enemy was the murderer and slaughterer of innocent women and children. Ruth was not going to love him, she would never do anything good unto him, and certainly she was not going to offer him yet another chance to strike her in the face. She rejoiced that this enemy had no choice about living or dying, any more than her father and brother had had a choice about living or dying. She thought of her mother, giving water to the wounded French officer, and for that gesture, being left behind. She wondered how Mother felt now, alone in a world where her men had died to save her while she helped their enemies. The savage was alive, trying with that one hand to dig himself free. A rim of ice fell like knives upon him. Ruth cried out. The Indian made no sound. Ruth scuttled backward, out of his sight. She could go get help. Or let him die. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t supposed to be Ruth who had to love the enemy. That was just a verse you repeated in meeting. She was not going to take it seriously, loving her enemy. But it was the Word of the Lord. The Twenty-third Psalm moved through her mind, as warm and sure as summer wind. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. If she broke the commandment and failed to love her enemy, she would never lie down in green pastures. Not on earth, not in her heart, and not in death. Ruth worked her way through tangles of thin saplings and around boulders. She slid down rock faces. Sweating and sobbing over terrain that could not have been made by God, only by devils, she reached Otter at last. Her bad lungs sounded like sand rubbed on floors. She dug him out, not carefully. She might have to save him but she would not spare him pain. He was bleeding where ice had sliced him and by now her mittens were shredded, and their blood mingled, flecked scarlet on white snow. When he was finally on his feet, she said, “It’s not because I wanted to, you know.” Otter took a short careful step and paused in pain, Ruth thought, though pain did not show on his face. “It’s so I won’t be a killer like you,” she said. He snapped a branch in his strong hands to use as a cane. Laboriously, they made their way up the cliff, crawling part of the way. “Actually, I hate you,” said Ruth. Huge hot tears fell from her eyes and she knew that hate was not as simple as that. Nor were the commandments.

My first wife was a bear in the morning. I love me some passion, and I gotta have a woman who puts a little pepper in the gumbo, but I didn’t make that morning mistake twice.

His mama put down the bag and headed for the door, her mouth a thin line. “Wait! What are you doing? Don’t go over there and yell at her.” Paul jumped off the stool and tried to beat her to the door. “Oh, honey, I would never do that.” His mama stepped into the hallway. “I’m fixin’ to invite her for dinner.

And how many boyfriends have you had, Alice?” “Mama,” Paul growled under his breath. “Let the girl eat.” “Can you pass the biscuits?” Andy said. “These are great. So tasty. Fluffy. Just the right amount of…” He frowned at the one in his hand, “…dough.” “It’s okay,” Alice said. She loved those two for trying to run interference, but she knew Creole mamas. They found out the truth, whether you wanted them to or not.

. “Don’t be a stranger. And pray about that petition you filed.” “Mama,” Paul groaned. That was the Christian way of saying “I know you’re wrong but you won’t take my word for it, so God will have to explain it to you.

You don’t have to walk me back. I live down the hall.” She smiled up at him. “My mama didn’t raise me like that,” Paul said, opening the door. “Actually, your mama has some sense, and would say, ‘She lives twenty feet away,’ but suit yourself,” Mrs. Olivier said.

I know we sort of said goodbye, but I don’t have anyone else to tell this to and I’m going to burst with it. You know EBB’s verse: God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed For in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in it. –

Oh, right. She doesn’t know your secret identity.” Andy unzipped his sweatshirt and tossed it on a chair. “So, Meg Ryan just sent Tom Hanks a book but…” “No, Meg Ryan just sent NY152 a book, which was then overnighted to Tom Hanks, who lives above Meg Ryan and knows she’s Shopgirl, while she has no idea he’s NY152.” “I’m a little disturbed you know that movie so well.” “It was actually a remake of a 1937 play called Parfumerie by Miklós László.” Paul blew out a breath. “And it’s really not as fun as they made it sound.” “But hey, at least you can say you’ve got mail,” Andy said, chuckling.

Bitterness can get you pretty far in life. But love always takes you farther,

Middle of May,” Alice said. “I’m a May baby. We’re calm, sweet-natured people.

In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, for example, a group of fishing families had lived since 1914 on islands in the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 1998 the Usina Trapiche sugar refinery petitioned the state to take over the land. The islanders say that the refinery then followed up its petition by destroying their homes and small farms, threatening further violence to those who did not leave. When the fishing families rebuilt their homes, they were burned down. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use Usina Trapiche sugar in their products, but until Oxfam’s campaign they denied responsibility for the conduct of their suppliers. Oxfam asked all of the Big 10 food brands to show ethical leadership by requiring that their suppliers obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous and local communities before acquiring land. Nestlé was the first to support this principle fully. Then Coca-Cola declared a policy of zero tolerance for landgrabbing by its suppliers and bottlers and committed to disclosing its suppliers of sugar cane, soy, and palm oil, to conducting social, environmental, and human rights assessments, and to engaging with Usina Trapiche regarding the conflict with the people of the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 2014 PepsiCo also accepted the principle of responsibility for its suppliers. Associated British Foods, the largest sugar producer in Africa and another Big 10 food corporation, is now also committed to the same principle.12 The gains from these policy commitments are more difficult to quantify than in the example of Ghana’s oil revenues, but in the long run they too may be very substantial.

mother was under virtual sentence of death, and Vicky flew to the bedside and knelt beside her. ‘Oh, Mama,’ she whispered, stricken with guilt. ‘I should have been here.’ Juba heated rounded river stones in the open fire and wrapped them in blankets. They packed them around Robyn’s body, and then covered her with four karosses of wild fur. She fought weakly to throw off the covers, but Mungo held her down. Despite the internal heat of the fever and the external temperature of the hot stones trapped under the furs, her skin was burning dry and her eyes had the flat blind glitter of water-worn rock crystal. Then as the sun touched the tree-tops and the light in the room turned to sombre orange, the fever broke and oozed from the pores of her marble pale skin like the juice of crushed sugar cane from the press. The sweat came up in fat shining beads across her forehead and chin, each drop joining with the others until they ran in thick oily snakes back into her hair, soaking it as though she had been held under water. It ran into her eyes, faster than Mungo could wipe it away. It poured down her neck and wetted and matted the fur of the kaross. It soaked through the thin mattress and pattered like rain on the hard dry floor below. The temperature of her body plunged dramatically, and when the sweat had passed, Juba and the twins sponged her naked body. She had dehydrated and wasted, so that the rack of her ribs stood out starkly, and her pelvis formed a bony hollowed basin. They handled her with exaggerated care, for any rough movement might rupture the delicate damaged walls of the renal blood vessels and bring on the torrential haemorrhage which so often ended this disease. When

She was surrounded by those who thought they offered her the comfort of an outreached palm, unaware that they delivered a fist.

As the natives offered up gifts, and the open hand of friendship, and by implication the freedom of their islands, Columbus remarked simply on their primitive appearance and primaeval technology, and how easy they would be to overcome. He noted, “They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

Time not on the scale of the long, dragging minutes cutting cane in the hot sun. Not even on the scale of the seasons, from harvest to planting and back again. Time on the scale of generations, which could span hundreds of years.

Mother!" yelled a lad's voice, turning all their heads toward her Castle's iron gate in the wall that rose above the river Foyle. ,"Mother!" He halted, catching his breath. "They are all dead!

More than any other place in North America, Louisiana was becoming known for its brutal conditions. When slaves across the United States spoke with dread of being “sold south” or “sold down the river,” they were speaking of the slave plantations around New Orleans. Nowhere in America was slavery as exploitative, or were profits as high, as in the cane fields of Louisiana. Slaves worked longer hours, faced more brutal punishments, and lived shorter lives than any other slave society in North America.

I am the rock in your garden, Emily, and you are the bloom in mine. Count on me.

8th Moon, 17th Night: Facing the Moon The autumn moon is still round tonight. In this river village, isolate old wanderer Hoisting blinds, I return to its brilliance, And propped on a cane, follow it further: Radiance rousing hidden dragons, bright Scatters of birds aflutter. Thatched study Incandescent, I trust to this orange grove Ablaze: clear dew aching with fresh light. Tu Fu

Returning Late Past midnight, eluding tigers on the road, I return Home in mountain darkness. Family asleep inside. I watch the Northern Dipper drift low to the river, And Venus lofting huge into empty space, radiant. Holding a candle in the courtyard, I call for more Light. A gibbon in the gorge, startled, shrieks once. Old and tired, my hair white, I dance and sing out: Rickety cane, no sleep… Catch me if you can! Tu Fu

This was the grace hour when they existed in dreams as ordinary men and women, free to lie down or get up whenever they wanted. This was the hour before they rose to meet cane. To seed and weed, to cut and harvest it. The hour before some would run away or stay undermine it, withdraw their enthusiasm from it, throw words and sing battering songs, and meet in secret at night to plot bloody overthrow of it. They rode past the time, before cane, when Jamaican people planted mainly corn and cassava, hunted wild boar and coneys, and went to sea in magnificent boats they had fashioned form trees; when their artists made sacred wood carvings that would survive for hundreds of years; when their scientists discovered how to extract poison from the roots of cassava; when they played an early form of soccer and lived mostly in peace, till three leaking ships filled with lost men came towards them bearing Hard Life.

Go away! All of you! Just get the hell away from me!” I turned on my heel, the sodden folds of my nightgown clinging to my legs like wet spider webs. “Regina! Don’t be an idiot!” Konner growled, his boots and cane raggedly thumping behind me. I walked faster, lengthening my stride no matter how much my thighs screamed in protest, until a hand latched on my shoulder. “No! You don’t get to say anything!” Using my finger like a sword, I jabbed my finger in the center of his chest. Freya’s jaws snapping closed with a loud pop, barely missing my fingertip by seconds as her long neck stretched out towards my hand. “You could have avoided all this by seeing it! You have that magic, if you wouldn’t be so stupid and use it!” The seeping rain slowed, turning into a fine shower of mist straight from the heavens above, and it dripped off the tightly carved lines of his face pulled sharp with tension. He was silent, still as stone, with nothing but the slight heave of his shoulders even proof that he was alive. His eyes dropped from my face, the uneven shadow of blonde hair hiding them from my sight. Part of his neck bobbed with the effort of a heavy swallow, like he had something stuck, and the tentative flicker of something else across face made me take a step back. A flash of anger, chilled by fear, a few tiny cracks started to appear in his stoic mask. Ones that I’m not sure why, but they made a strange ache start to stab deep in my heart. “Do you love him?” So soft that it was nearly lost in the rolling thunder, I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen his lips move. “Yes. No! I don’t know!” I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t love Ivo, not like that. But I couldn’t lose him either. “He’s my friend! My best friend! Why does it matter?” “I see. It matters more than you know.” Konner drawled slowly, the thick muscles of his shoulders rolling in a shrug that sent rivers of rainwater coursing down his chest. Mixing with the streaks of bloody red and ash grey in a ghoulish highlight to his muscles, the water slowly pooled in the ruined fabric of his shirt, further pulling it down his shoulders. He led out a heavy sigh, then suddenly straightened to the full length of his imposing height. Shoulders back and spine stiff. Then he straightened, drawing himself up to his full imposing height, and clasped his right arm across his chest. With his clenched fist resting right over his heart, he slowly lowered himself down to one knee at my feet, bowing his head over until it nearly touched my thighs. “Then I’ll get him back for you. I swear it on my life!

When the cadres banned his students from singing any actual Christmas carols in a stage version of ''A Christmas Carol,'' he had them substitute patriotic Communist songs -- which actually improved Dickens: ''My favorite scene was when a furious Scrooge swung his cane at a band of merry carolers who were belting out 'The East Is Red,' singing the praises of Mao Zedong while the old man shouted, 'Humbug!

He was like a paperweight, but less mobile.

Gloria told Maria the whole story of her adoption by the time she was seven years old. She had adopted Maria after breaking up with a man---a fellow graduate student she would only ever refer to as H---who had wanted her to stand behind him at protests, and type up his dissertation, and serve him dinner and wash the dishes and bear him some children and write her own dissertation in between folding laundry. He'd seemed attracted to her in direct proportion to how well she disappeared into their backdrop. Gloria was in her midthirties then and just beginning her graduate program. She knew there were many black babies languishing in the system, unwanted. She put in a request for a healthy black infant girl. It was only a few months before she got a call from the agency saying they had one available. The baby was only a few weeks old and her name was Maria. She came from the Cane River in Louisiana. They didn't have much more information than that except that she was in the care of a Catholic orphanage now----the Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home in Maryland. Gloria dropped everything and drove eight hours to collect her child.