Castle Rock Quotes

Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle.

Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

Across the river, a row of crystal castles glittered in the sunlight in a way that would make Walt Disney want to throw rocks at his “Magic Kingdom.

The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you ever heard it? Can you remember?

The Writer: [voiceover] I was 12 going on 13 the first time I saw a dead human being. It happened in the summer of 1959-a long time ago, but only if you measure in terms of years. I was living in a small town in Oregon called Castle Rock. There were only twelve hundred and eighty-one people. But to me, it was the whole world.

The way to begin healing the wounds of the world is to treasure the Infant Christ in us; to be not the castle but the cradle of Christ; and, in rocking that cradle to the rhythm of love, to swing the whole world back into the beat of the Music of Eternal Life.

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping arch, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

And, ah! his castle. The faery solitude of the place, with its turrets of mistly blue, its courtyard, its spiked gate, his castle that lay on the very bosom of the sea with seabirds mewing about its attics, the casements opening onto the green and purple, evanescent departures of the ocean, cut off by the tide from land for half a day . . . that castle, at home neither on the land nor on the water, a mysterious, amphibious place, contravening the materiality of both earth and waves, with the melancholy of a mermaiden who perches on her rocks and waits, endlessly, for a lover who had drowned far away, long ago. That lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place.

Castle Rock Middle School was a frowning pile of red brick standing between the Post Office and the Library, a holdover from the time when the town elders didn’t feel entirely comfortable with a school unless it looked like a reformatory.

Sorry I gave you a fright." Howl seemed more used to holding babies than Sophie was. He rocked Morgan soothingly and stared at him. Morgan stared, rather balefullt, back. "My word, he's ugly" Howl said. "Chip off the old block" "Howl!" said Sophie. But she did not sound angry.

Well," said Eilonwy, "you can't blame Rhun for being born. I mean, you could, but that wouldn't help matters. It's like kicking a rock with your bare foot.

real reason he’d gone was the one most bad decisions have in common: it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air.

I want my life to be a celebration of slowness. Walking through the sage from our front door, I am gradually drawn into the well-worn paths of deer. They lead me to Round Mountain and the bloodred side canyons below Castle Rock. Sometimes I see them, but often I don't. Deer are quiet creatures, who, when left to their own nature, move slowly. Their large black eyes absorb all shadows, especially the flash of predators. And their ears catch each word spoken. But today they walk ahead with their halting prance, one leg raised, then another, and allow me to follow them. I am learning how to not provoke fear and flight among deer. We move into a pink, sandy wash, their black-tipped tails like eagle feathers. I lose sight of them as they disappear around the bend. On the top of the ridge I can see for miles.... Inside this erosional landscape where all colors eventually bleed into the river, it is hard to desire anything but time and space. Time and space. In the desert there is space. Space is the twin sister of time. If we have open space then we have open time to breath, to dream, to dare, to play, to pray to move freely, so freely, in a world our minds have forgotten but our bodies remember. Time and space. This partnership is holy. In these redrock canyons, time creates space--an arch, an eye, this blue eye of sky. We remember why we love the desert; it is our tactile response to light, to silence, and to stillness. Hand on stone -- patience. Hand on water -- music.

An impossibly huge castle of rock and iron, floating in an endless expanse of sky. That is the entirety of this world.

She looks like a woman who just got laid . . . and had about three orgasms.

lies and love rarely went together, and never for long.

He tilted back in the decaying lawn chair, almost went over on his back, and used up some more of his screwdriver. The screwdriver was in a glass he had gotten free from a McDonald's restaurant. There was some sort of purple animal on the glass. Something called a Grimace. Gary ate a lot of his meals at the Castle Rock McDonald's, where you could still get a cheap hamburger. Hamburgers were good. But as for the Grimace... and Mayor McCheese... and Monsieur Ronald Fucking McDonald... Gary Pervier didn't give a shit for any of them.

A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from. In fact Lancre's position and climate bred a hard-headed and straightforward people who often excelled in the world down below. it had supplied the planins with many of their greatest wizards and witches and, once again, the philospher might have marveled that such a four-square people could give the world so many successful magical practitioners, being quite unaware that only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air.

It’s like my mother used to say—people have more fun than anybody, except for horses, and they can’t.

She sat there all afternoon in her hot maiden’s bedroom, thinking and dreaming in the dark circle which the splinter spread around her, a darkness which was like the hood of a cobra.

She was so desperate to love and be loved, she could sprout tender feelings toward a rock. And rocks didn’t call her “bewitching” or “temptress.” Rocks didn’t have touchable golden brown hair. But rocks and Ransom did have something in common. Neither one would love her back.

There was rock-hard, there was hard-as-steel, and then there was the solidity of Rafe’s current erection—which so thoroughly surpassed all his previous experience, he suspected it might be of interest to science.

We Built a Castle Near the Rocks, we built it out of sand. Our fortress was an ice-cream box with turret, tall and grand. Our men were twigs, our gun were straws from which we'd sipped at lunch. We had the best of wars... till someone's foot went CRUNCH! [Joan Walsh Anglund]

She stood at the edge of a glassy river lined with impossibly tall trees, fanning out their wide emerald leaves among the puffy white clouds. Across the river, a row of crystal castles glittered in the sunlight in a way that would make Walt Disney want to throw rocks at his “Magic Kingdom.” To her right, a golden path led into a sprawling city, where the elaborate domed buildings seemed to be built from brick-size jewels—each structure a different color. Snowcapped mountains surrounded the lush valley, and the crisp, cool air smelled like cinnamon and chocolate and sunshine.

He set Miss Goodnight back on her feet. As he lowered her to the floor, her body slid down his, like a raindrop easing down the surface of a rock.

A fief, the elder Hosokawa had advised, was like a castle wall built of many rocks. A rock that could not be cut to fit in comfortably with the others would weaken the whole structure, even though the rock itself might be of admirable size and quality.

Go where ye list,’ as the Good Book says. But go there alive, Trisha. Don’t be no ghost. If you turn into one of those, it might be better if you stayed away.

Lancre Castle was built on an outcrop of rock by an architect who had heard about Gormenghast but hadn’t got the budget.

He liked listening to her read. He liked it far too much. Listening to her voice was like floating along a river. Not a babbling stream, bouncing over rocks and such, but a river of wild honey with depth and a low, sweet melody. To keep afloat, he would have let her read just about anything.

Mary watched the sunset from her carriage window, realizing that such beauty could never last. Life was a golden glory that faded in the wink of an eye. Life was a village fair that only lasted for a single day. As the carriage rattled along, rocking her like a babe in arms, Mary felt very old and wise. She found that she didn't mind being taken back to the castle, to a caring captivity that was filled with comforts and kindness. And she also found that she couldn't keep her eyes open.

Metal is from the earth, he thought as he scrutinized. From below: from that realm which is the lowest, the most dense. Land of trolls and caves, dank, always dark. Yin world, in its most melancholy aspect. World of corpses, decay and collapse. Of feces. All that has died, slipping and disintegrating back down layer by layer. The daemonic world of the immutable; the time-that-was. And yet, in the sunlight, the silver triangle glittered. It reflected light. Fire, Mr. Tagomi thought. Not dank or dark object at all. Not heavy, weary, but pulsing with life. The high realm, aspect of yang: empyrean, ethereal. As befits work of art. Yes, that is artist's job: takes mineral rock from dark silent earth transforms it into shining light-reflecting form from sky. Has brought the dead to life. Corpse turned to fiery display; the past had yielded to the future.

Nobody’s garden had done doodly-squat that year, and the big displays of canning stuff in the Castle Rock Red & White were still there, gathering dust. No one had anything to put up that summer, except maybe dandelion wine.

After walking the Royal Mile, we visit Edinburgh Castle. Overlooking the city from the grassy hilltop of the Castle Rock, the fortress itself looks as though it has been carved from the very stone upon which it sits. It is powerful yet elegant, lavish yet wholly inviting to anyone fortunate enough to find themselves standing at the castle gate. These are doors and walls and windows that have seen kings and queens, saints and sinners, voyagers from all corners of the world. And now us.

Fue también el primer relato que nunca enseñé a mis padres. Hay en él demasiado Denny. Y demasiado Castle Rock. Y sobre todo, demasiado mil novecientos sesenta. La verdad siempre la identificas, porque cuanto te hieres a ti mismo o a algún otro con ella, siempre brota la sangre.

The small island of Bogoslof, since it was first observed in 1796, has altered its shape and position several times and has even disappeared completely, only to emerge again. The original island was a mass of black rock, sculptured into fantastic, tower-like shapes. Explorers and sealers coming upon it in the fog were reminded of a castle and named it Castle Rock. At the present time there remain only one or two pinnacles of the castle, a long spit of black rocks where sea lions haul out, and a cluster of higher rocks resounding with the cries of thousands of sea birds. Each time the parent volcano erupts, as it has done at least half a dozen times since men have been observing it, new masses of steaming rocks emerge from the heated waters, some to reach heights of several hundred feet before they are destroyed in fresh explosions.

A little of everything, that’s what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment . . . what a successful life is all about, for that matter . . . I don’t give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that . . . now let me see . . . somewhere

The only thing that old loudmouth bitch is any good at is telling the weather," George had been known to allow when in his cups and in the company of his cronies down at the Mellow Tiger. It was one stupid name for a bar, but since it was the only one Castle Rock could boast, it looked like they were pretty much stuck with it.

But maybe I’ll try to work myself up. I don’t know if I could do it, but I might try. Because I want to get out of Castle Rock and go to college and never see my old man or any of my brothers again. I want to go someplace where nobody knows me and I don’t have any black marks against me before I start. But I don’t know if I can do it.” “Why not?” “People. People drag you down.” “Who?” I asked, thinking he must mean the teachers, or adult monsters like Miss Simons, who had wanted a new skirt, or maybe his brother Eyeball who hung around with Ace and Billy and Charlie and the rest, or maybe his own mom and dad. But he said: “Your friends drag you down, Gordie. Don’t you know that?” He pointed at Vern and Teddy, who were standing and waiting for us to catch up. They were laughing about something; in fact, Vern was just about busting a gut. “Your friends do. They’re like drowning guys that are holding onto your legs. You can’t save them. You can only drown with them.

Wow Even the rocks in Sedona meditate!

Across the river, a row of crystal castles glittered in the sunlight in a way that would make Walt Disney want to throw rocks at his 'Magic Kingdom

We can go back to the Dark Ages! The crust of learning and good manners and tolerance is so thin! It would just take a few thousand big shells and gas bombs to wipe out all the eager young men, and all the libraries and historical archives and patent offices, all the laboratories and art galleries, all the castles and Periclean temples and Gothic cathedrals, all the cooperative stores and motor factories—every storehouse of learning. No inherent reason why Sissy's grandchildren—if anybody's grandchildren will survive at all—shouldn't be living in caves and heaving rocks at catamounts.

Breathing Under Water,” a title taken from a telling poem by Carol Bieleck, r.s.c.j., which seemed to sum up so much of the common message. I quote it here in full:   “Breathing Under Water”   I built my house by the sea. Not on the sands, mind you; not on the shifting sand. And I built it of rock. A strong house by a strong sea. And we got well acquainted, the sea and I. Good neighbors. Not that we spoke much. We met in silences. Respectful, keeping our distance, but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand. Always, the fence of sand our barrier, always, the sand between.   And then one day, —and I still don’t know how it happened— the sea came. Without warning.   Without welcome, even Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine, less like the flow of water than the flow of blood. Slow, but coming. Slow, but flowing like an open wound. And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death. And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door. And I knew then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning. That when the sea comes calling you stop being neighbors Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance, neighbors And you give your house for a coral castle, And you learn to breathe underwater.3

Blessed desire gripped her nether parts as her passion inflamed. Helen shamelessly rocked her hips from side to side. "My, you have turned me into a wanton woman." "And that's a bad thing?" His voice grew deeper with each word.

Fraserburgh Castle whose remaining tower had since been converted to a lighthouse. This, too, held a mystery, for everyone knew the legend of the laird’s daughter who threw herself from a window to the rocks below with the body of her forbidden lover in her arms.

I know how you love this place," he says to me, apologetically yet with satisfaction. And I don't tell him that I am not sure now whether I love any place, and that it seems to me it was myself I loved here - some self that I have finished with, and none too soon.

He tilted back in the decaying lawn chair, almost went over on his back, and used up some more of his screwdriver. The screwdriver was in a glass he had gotten free from a McDonald's restaurant. There was some sort of purple animal on the glass. Something called a Grimace. Gary ate a lot of his meals at the Castle Rock McDonald's, where you could still get a cheap hamburger. Hamburgers were good. But as for the Grimace...and Mayor McCheese...and Monsieur Ronald Fucking McDonald...Gary Pervier didn't give a shit for any of them.

Newt turned back to me, her eyes black as the sun slipped away. From the slump of broken castle, a rock fell. “We exist in a zoo,” she said, chilling me. “You know that, yes? I hope our funding doesn’t run out. I’d give anything for a better enclosure, one that at least hides the bars.

Nearby a wide, brackish river froths, bubbling around rock. Tall, slender saw palmettos make lonely islands of rubble and root. On a steep slope, a single wall of a five-story concrete building stands. It looks like a castle cut from construction paper, flat instead of three-dimensional.

So many ruins bear witness to good intentions which went astray, good intentions unenlightened by any glimmer of wisdom. To bring religion to the people is a fine and necessary undertaking, but this is not a situation in which the proposed end can be said to justify the means. The further people have drifted from the truth, the greater is the temptation to water down the truth, glossing over its less palatable aspects and, in short, allowing a policy of compromise to become one of adulteration. In this way it is hoped that the common man – if he can be found – will be encouraged to find a small corner in his busy life for religion without having to change his ways or to grapple with disturbing thoughts. It is a forlorn hope. Standing, as it were, at the pavement’s edge with his tray of goods, the priest reduces the price until he is offering his wares for nothing: divine judgement is a myth, hell a wicked superstition, prayer less important than decent behaviour, and God himself dispensable in the last resort; and still the passers-by go their way, sorry over having to ignore such a nice man but with more important matters demanding their attention. And yet these matters with which they are most urgently concerned are, for so many of them, quicksands in which they feel themselves trapped. Had they been offered a real alternative, a rock firm-planted from the beginning of time, they might have been prepared to pay a high price.

It saddened Cressen to remember that letter. No one had ever taught Stannis how to laugh, least of all the boy Patchface. The storm came up suddenly, howling, and Shipbreaker Bay proved the truth of its name. The lord’s two-masted galley Windproud broke up within sight of his castle. From its parapets his two eldest sons had watched as their father’s ship was smashed against the rocks and swallowed by the waters. A hundred oarsmen and sailors went down with Lord Steffon Baratheon and his lady wife, and for days thereafter every tide left a fresh crop of swollen corpses on the strand below Storm’s End.

The castle of Cair Paravel on its little hill towered up above them; before them were the sands, with rocks and little pools of salt water, and seaweed, and the smell of the sea and long miles of bluish-green waves breaking for ever and ever on the beach. And oh, the cry of the seagulls! Have you heard it? Can you remember?

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back. Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight Like a daunted witch, quitting castle when real days break. Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock; While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot, Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic: Which such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate, What ceremony of words can patch the havoc? "Conversation Among the Ruins

Oh, what the ocean did to a man. How unmatched it was. One could competitively build a giant castle made of sand or even hire architects to construct a true castle by the shore made of rocks and furnish its enormous insides with crystals. Yet plop him closer to the sea and within seconds, he will yield and feel as dumb as any other measly man lost at land.

Castles, rocks, mountains, sacred sites all have a very different kind of energy. These are places where time shifts, creating portals almost. Every so often time folds back on itself. Words, rhythms, stories echo through them across the centuries. If you start going down certain paths you start waking ghosts. Sometimes you set in motion things you have no idea about.

say the land. The mix of raw rock and vivid green. The thickness in the air when it rains, and the clean scent when the storms pass, as if it’s washed away all your sins. The tainted glory of stone castles, half-broken, climbing up from the valley, as if still battling the past. The glassy, cold surface of the lakes reflecting towering trees. The sprawl of endless horses

He put his hand on a waist-high bit of wall, and a chunk of stone immediately shook loose. It landed on his boot, crushing his great toe. Logan kicked it aside and ground out a curse. He turned in time to see Rabbie extending an open palm in Callum's direction. "I'll take my payment now." Callum resentfully dug a coin from his sporran and placed it in Rabbie's hand. Logan had had enough of their mysterious chatter. "Explain yourselves." "I'm just settling a wager with Callum," Rabbie said. "What kind of bet?" he demanded. "As to whether you bedded your wee little English bride on the wedding night." Rabbie grinned. "I said no. I won." Damn. Was his frustration that obvious? Logan thought of the way he'd just cursed at a rock. Yes, it probably was.

The Forgiveness Castle remains open all day and all night, and the best thing is that there are so many entrances, usually found where you'd never thing to look: behind potted plants, in crayon drawings, and on old birthday cards. I have it on good authority that one entrance is through a tree fort. Many of the Forgiveness Castle's entry points remain secret, which is why you hunt around, press the blue walls gently, and wait. Sometimes saying the most obvious words, 'I'm sorry', opens a hidden door right where there seemed not possibility." He looks away. "You're welcome to visit this castle to wait for a friend, to sit in one of its orange and yellow gardens, or to find your own reflection in the polished blue rock and whisper, 'Please.Come home.

Not very long ago I was driving with my husband on the back roads of Grey County, which is to the north and east of Huron County. We passed a country store standing empty at a crossroads. It had old-fashioned store windows, with long narrow panes. Out in front there was a stand for gas pumps which weren't there anymore. Close beside it was a mound of sumac trees and strangling vines, into which all kinds of junk had been thrown. The sumacs jogged my memory and I looked back at the store. It seemed to me that I had been here once, and the the scene was connected with some disappointment or dismay. I knew that I had never driven this way before in my adult life and I did not think I could have come here as a child. It was too far from home. Most of our drives out of town where to my grandparents'house in Blyth--they had retired there after they sold the farm. And once a summer we drove to the lake at Goderich. But even as I was saying this to my husband I remembered the disappointment. Ice cream. Then I remembered everything--the trip my father and I had made to Muskoka in 1941, when my mother was already there, selling furs at the Pine Tree Hotel north of Gravehurst.

They were relaxing at the top of a waterfall, in a small, still pool where the mountain waters hit an upward slope of folded granite. It was sort of a rounded bathtub, carved out of the rock throughout the centuries by the rushing river, a river so hidden that it was without a name. Just below were the falls, about a 30-foot drop into another, much larger pool of clearest water that was gathered for a respite, a compromise in the river's relentless schedule downward, between split-level decks of flat rock. Further on, the river reanimated and released into a sharp ravine, pulling westward, down through the rugged mountains and faceless forest--the Black Hills National Forest--gaining force until it joined with the rush of the Castle River, near the old Custer Trail, and was swallowed into the Deerfield Reservoir to collect and prepare for the touch of man.

According to Montagne legend, the mountain has forever been the abode of giants. Long ago a traveling pair of sorcerers, husband and wife, scaled the cliff into the valley, and the woman cured the giants’ chilblains with ointments and the gift of fire. In gratitude, the giants built Chateau de Montagne out of the living rock of Ancienne, and from that castle the couple founded the kingdom of Montagne, using their magic to shield the country and its people from harm.

A fief, the elder Hosokawa had advised, was like a castle wall built of many rocks. A rock that could not be cut to fit in comfortably with the others would weaken the whole structure, even though the rock itself might be of admirable size and quality. The daimyō of the new age left the unsuitable rocks in the mountains and fields, for there was an abundance of them. The great challenge was to find one great rock that would make an outstanding contribution to one's own wall.

Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia, Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts, That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odysseus' wanderings, Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus, Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and on Mount Moriah, The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles, and Italian collections, For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. - Song of the Exposition

Are you a chamber-music aficionado? Or do you like rock so raucous it makes your ears bleed? Whatever your pleasure, Finland has a music festival to suit. Savonlinna’s castle is the dramatic setting for a month-long opera festival; fiddlers gather at Kaustinen for full-scale folk; Pori, Espoo and Tampere attract thousands of jazz fans; Seinäjoki flashes sequins and high heels during its five-day tango festival; Turku's Ruisrock is one of several kicking rock festivals; and the Sibelius Festival in Lahti ushers in autumn with classical grace.

Sir, are you her guardian, or are you not?' she demanded. 'No,' he replied, his voice grave, but his eyes dancing. 'I am an abductor. I met her only yesterday, and that by chance, snatched her up into my curricle, and bore her off in spite of all her protests to a gloomy mansion in the heart of the country. I need scarcely tell you that she contrived to make her escape from the mansion while I slept. However, it takes a good deal to daunt a thorough-going villain, so you won't be surprised that here I am, having hunted her down remorselessly. I am now about to carry her off to my castle. This, by the way, is perched on a precipitous rock, and, besides being in an uncomfortable state of neglect and decay, is inhabited only by ghosts and sinster retainers of mine. From this fortress, after undergoing a number of extremely alarming adventures, she will, I have little doubt, be rescued by a noble youth of handsome though poverty-stricken aspect. I expect he will kill me, after which it will be found that he is the wronged heir to a vast property - probably mine - and all will end happily.

It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the right way — and it’s the regular way.  And there ain’t no other way, that ever I heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife — and not through dirt, mind you; generly it’s through solid rock.  And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever.  Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way; how long was he at it, you reckon?

When their bodies met, she gave a startled gasp. And then he moved against her, and her gasp became a low, sweet sigh. 'Yes.' "That's it." He rocked his hips against her. "Do you feel it? It's only the beginning, mo chridhe." She shut her eyes. Her dark lashes fluttered against her cheeks. "You truly must kiss me when you do that." Logan obliged her, this time pressing his lips to hers. As he sank into the lush heat of her kiss, a wildness gathered and growled within him. He wanted her. All of her. Under him. Surrounding him. Taking him into her softness and heat.

All rebel thought, as we have seen, is expressed either in rhetoric or in a closed universe. The rhetoric of ramparts in Lucretius, the convents and isolated castles of Sade, the island or the lonely rock of the romantics, the solitary heights of Nietzsche, the primeval seas of Lautreamont, the parapets of Rimbaud, the terrifying castles of the surrealists, which spring up in a storm of flowers, the prison, the nation behind barbed wire, the concentration camps, the empire of free slaves, all illustrate, after their own fashion, the same need for coherence and unity. In these sealed worlds, man can reign and have knowledge at last.

If bees make honey, you can create candy. If flowers make gardens, you can create perfumes. If plants make herbs, you can create medicine. If deserts make dunes, you can create oases. If seeds make trees, you can create forests. If clouds make rain, you can create lakes. If stars make light, you can create lamps. If stones make hills, you can create garrisons. If rocks make mountains, you can create towers. If spiders make webs, you can create fortresses. If ants make colonies, you can create houses. If bees make hives, you can create mansions. If termites make mounds, you can create palaces. If birds make nests, you can create castles.

Very carefully he put up his hands and took off his hat saying CHIEF and while everyone watched he walked slowly down the steps and over to the fire engine and set his hat down on the front seat. Then he bent down, searching thoughtfully, and finally, while everyone watched, he took up a rock. In complete silence he turned slowly and then raised his arm and smashed the rock through one of the great tall windows of our mother's drawing room. A wall of laughter rose and grew behind him and then, first the boys on the steps and then the other men and at last the women and the smaller children, they moved like a wave at our house... I heard Constance's harp go over with a musical cry, and a sound which I knew was a chair being smashed against the wall.

And God himself will have his servants, and his graces, tried and exercised by difficulties. He never intended us the reward for sitting still; nor the crown of victory, without a fight; nor a fight, without an enemy and opposition. Innocent Adam was unfit for his state of confirmation and reward, till he had been tried by temptation. therefore the martyrs have the most glorious crown, as having undergone the greatest trial. and shall we presume to murmur at the method of God? And Satan, having liberty to tempt and try us, will quickly raise up storms and waves before us, as soon as we are set to sea: which make young beginners often fear, that they shall never live to reach the haven. He will show thee the greatness of thy former sins, to persuade thee that they shall not be pardoned. he will show thee the strength of thy passions and corruption, to make thee think they will never be overcome. he will show thee the greatness of the opposition and suffering which thou art like to undergo, to make thee think thou shall never persevere. He will do his worst to poverty, losses , crosses, injuries, vexations, and cruelties, yea , and unkind dearest friends, as he did by Job, to ill of God, or of His service. If he can , he will make them thy enemies that are of thine own household. He will stir up thy own father, or mother, or husband, or wife, or brother, or sister, or children, against thee, to persuade or persecute thee from Christ: therefore Christ tells us, that if we hate not all these that is cannot forsake them, and use them as men do hated things; when they would turn us from him, we cannot be his disciples". Look for the worst that the devil can do against thee, if thou hast once lifted thyself against him, in the army of Christ, and resolvest, whatever it cost thee, to be saved. Read heb.xi. But How little cause you have to be discouraged, though earth and hell should do their worst , you may perceive by these few considerations. God is on your side, who hath all your enemies in his hand, and can rebuke them, or destroy them in a moment. O what is the breath or fury of dust or devils, against the Lord Almighty? "If God be for us, who can be against us?" read often that chapter, Rom. viii. In the day when thou didst enter into covenant with God, and he with thee, thou didst enter into the most impregnable rock and fortress, and house thyself in that castle of defense, where thought mayst (modestly)defy all adverse powers of earth or hell. If God cannot save thee, he is not God. And if he will not save thee, he must break his covenant. Indeed, he may resolve to save thee, not from affliction and persecution, but in it, and by it. But in all these sufferings you will "be more than conquerors, through Christ that loveth you;" that is, it is far more desirable and excellent, to conquer by patience, in suffering for Christ, than to conquer our persecutors in the field, by force arms. O think on the saints triumphant boastings in their God:" God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble: therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea". when his " enemies were many" and "wrested his words daily," and "fought against him, and all their thoughts were against him, " yet he saith, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. in God I will praise his word; in God I have put my trust: I will not fear what flesh can do unto me". Remember Christ's charge, " Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you , Fear him" if all the world were on they side, thou might yet have cause to fear; but to have God on thy side, is infinitely more. Practical works of Richard Baxter,Ch 2 Directions to Weak Christians for Their Establishment and Growth, page 43.

I might have flaws, live anxiously and sometimes be irritated but, I do not forget that my life if the World’s biggest company, and I can avoid it to bankrupt. To be happy is to recognize that it is worth living, besides all challenges, incomprehension’s or crisis. To be happy is not to let ourselves beat by the problems, becoming an author of our own history. To be happy is to cross deserts outrageously, but to still be able to find your own oasis in the deepest of your soul. It is thanking God each morning for the miracle of life. To be happy is not to be afraid of your own feelings. To be happy is to speak about your personality. To be happy is to have the guts to hear a “NO”. Is to have the security hearing a critique, even that it is unfair. And if I have rocks on my way, I shall keep them all. Someday, I will build up my own castle…

buildings, or he helped them in wars, or in rounding up dangerous animals. In the calm adventures, he got new things to eat and people gave him toys. He lost most of the toys as he was scrambling back home over the rocks, but he did manage to bring back the shiny shell necklace the silly ladies gave him, because he could hang it around his neck. He went to the Anywhere with the silly ladies several times. It had blue sea and white sand, perfect for digging and building in. There were ordinary people in it, but Christopher only saw them in the distance. The silly ladies came and sat on rocks out of the sea and giggled at him while he made sand castles. “Oh clistoffer!” they would coo, in lisping voices. “Tell uth what make you a clistoffer.” And they would all burst into screams of high laughter. They were the only ladies he had seen without clothes on. Their skins were greenish and

Taking the catcher’s place, he sank to his haunches and gestured to Arthur. “Throw some easy ones to begin with,” he called, and Arthur nodded, seeming to lose his apprehensiveness. “Yes, milord!” Arthur wound up and released a relaxed, straight pitch. Squinting in determination, Lilian gripped the bat hard, stepped into the swing, and turned her hips to lend more impetus to the motion. To her disgust, she missed the ball completely. Turning around, she gave Westcliff a pointed glance. “Well, your advice certainly helped,” she muttered sarcastically. “Elbows,” came his succinct reminder, and he tossed the ball to Arthur. “Try again.” Heaving a sigh, Lillian raised the bat and faced the pitcher once more. Arthur drew his arm back, and lunged forward as he delivered another fast ball. Lillian brought the bat around with a grunt of effort, finding an unexpected ease in adjusting the swing to just the right angle, and she received a jolt of visceral delight as she felt the solid connection between the bat and the leather ball. With a loud crack the ball was catapulted high into the air, over Arthur’s head, beyond the reach of those in the back field. Shrieking in triumph, Lillian dropped the bat and ran headlong toward the first sanctuary post, rounding it and heading toward second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daisy hurtling across the field to scoop up the ball, and in nearly the same motion, throwing it to the nearest boy. Increasing her pace, her feet flying beneath her skirts, Lillian rounded third, while the ball was tossed to Arthur. Before her disbelieving eyes, she saw Westcliff standing at the last post, Castle Rock, with his hands held up in readiness to catch the ball. How could he? After showing her how to hit the ball, he was now going to tag her out? “Get out of my way!” Lillian shouted, running pellmell toward the post, determined to reach it before he caught the ball. “I’m not going to stop!” “Oh, I’ll stop you,” Westcliff assured her with a grin, standing right in front of the post. He called to the pitcher. “Throw it home, Arthur!” She would go through him, if necessary. Letting out a warlike cry, Lillian slammed full-length into him, causing him to stagger backward just as his fingers closed over the ball. Though he could have fought for balance, he chose not to, collapsing backward onto the soft earth with Lillian tumbling on top of him, burying him in a heap of skirts and wayward limbs. A cloud of fine beige dust enveloped them upon their descent. Lillian lifted herself on his chest and glared down at him. At first she thought that he had been winded, but it immediately became apparent that he was choking with laughter. “You cheated!” she accused, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. She struggled for breath, drawing in huge lungfuls of air. “You’re not supposed…to stand in front…of the post…you dirty cheater!” Gasping and snorting, Westcliff handed her the ball with the ginger reverence of someone yielding a priceless artifact to a museum curator. Lillian took the ball and hurled it aside. “I was not out,” she told him, jabbing her finger into his hard chest for emphasis. It felt as if she were poking a hearthstone. “I was safe, do you…hear me?” She heard Arthur’s amused voice as he approached them. “Actually, miss—” “Never argue with a lady, Arthur,” the earl interrupted, having managed to regain his powers of speech, and the boy grinned at him. “Yes, milord.” “Are there ladies here?” Daisy asked cheerfully, coming from the field. “I don’t see any.” Still smiling, the earl looked up at Lillian.

Hullo,” he said sleepily, rubbing a hand along his jaw. He’s here in my room, right in the middle of the afternoon. Great God, there’s a boy in my bed in my room- I came to life. “Get out!” He yawned, a lazy yawn, a yawn that clearly indicated he had no intention of leaving. In the moody gray light his body seemed a mere suggestion against the covers, his hair a shaded smudge against the paler lines of his collar and face. “But I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour up here, and bloody boring it’s been, too. I’ve never known a girl who didn’t keep even mildly wicked reading material hidden somewhere in her bedchamber. I’ve had to pass the time watching the spiders crawl across your ceiling.” Voices floated up from downstairs, a maids’ conversation about rags and soapy water sounding horribly loud, and horribly close. I shut the door as gently as I could and pressed my back against it, my mind racing. No lock, no bolt, no key, no way to keep them out if they decided to come up… Armand shifted a bit, rearranging the pillows behind his shoulders. I wet my lips. “If this is about the kiss-“ “No.” He gave a slight shrug. “I mean, it wasn’t meant to be. But if you’d like-“ “You can’t be in here!” “And yet, Eleanor, here I am. You know, I remember this room from when I used to live in the castle as a boy. It was a storage chamber, I believe. All the shabby, cast-off things tossed up here where no one had to look at them.” He stretched out long and lazy again, arms overhead, his shirt pulling tight across his chest. “This mattress really isn’t very comfortable, is it? Hark as a rock. No wonder you’re so ill-tempered.” Dark power. Compel him to leave. I was desperate enough to try. “You must go,” I said. Miraculously, I felt it working. I willed it and it happened, the magic threading through my tone as sly as silk, deceptively subtle. “Now. If anyone sees you, were never here. You never saw me. Go downstairs, and do not mention my name.” Armand sat up, his gaze abruptly intent. One of the pillows plopped on the floor. “That was interesting, how your voice just changed. Got all smooth and eerie. I think I have goose bumps. Was that some sort of technique they taught you at the orphanage? Is it useful for begging?” Blast. I tipped my head back against the wood of the door and clenched my teeth. “Do you have any idea the trouble I’ll be in if they should find you here? What people will think?” “Oh, yes. It rather gives me the advantage, doesn’t it?” “Mrs. Westcliffe will expel me!” “Nonsense.” He smiled. “All right, probably she will.” “Just tell me that you want, then!” His lashes dropped; his smile grew more dry. He ran a hand slowly along a crease of quilt by his thigh. “All I want,” he said quietly, “is to talk. “Then pay a call on me later this afternoon,” I hissed. “No.” “What, you don’t have the time to tear yourself away from your precious Chloe?” I hadn’t meant to say that, and, believe me, as soon as the words left my lips I regretted them. They made me sound petty and jealous, and I was certain I was neither. Reasonably certain.

This is the story of a boy named Pete Coutinho, who had a spell put on him. Some people might have called it a curse. I don't know. It depends on a lot of things, on whether you've got gipsy blood, like old Beatriz Sousa, who learned a lot about magic from the wild gitana tribe in the mountains beyond Lisbon, and whether you're satisfied with a fisherman's life in Cabrillo. Not that a fisherman's life is a bad one, far from it. By day you go out in the boats that rock smoothly across the blue Gulf waters, and at night you can listen to music and drink wine at the Shore Haven or the Castle or any of the other taverns on Front Street. What more do you want? What more is there? And what does any sensible man, or any sensible boy, want with that sorcerous sort of glamor that can make everything incredibly bright and shining, deepening colors till they hurt, while wild music swings down from stars that have turned strange and alive? Pete shouldn't have wanted that, I suppose, but he did, and probably that's why there happened to him - what did happen. And the trouble began long before the actual magic started working. ("Before I Wake...")

Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness, the cynicism with which this dream is to be used. The Serpent that announces, "The World is a closed thing, cyclical, resonant, eternally-returning," is to be delivered into a system whose only aim is to violate the Cycle. Taking and not giving back, demanding that "productivity" and "earnings" keep on increasing with time, the System removing from the rest of the World these vast quantities of energy to keep its own tiny desperate fraction showing a profit: and not only most of humanity—most of the World, animal, vegetable, and mineral, is laid waste in the process. The System may or may not understand that it's only buying time. And that time is an artificial resource to begin with, of no value to anyone or anything but the System, which must sooner or later crash to its death, when its addiction to energy has become more than the rest of the World can supply, dragging with it innocent souls all along the chain of life. Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide . . . though he's amiable enough, keeps cracking jokes back through the loudspeaker . . . on you roll, across a countryside whose light is forever changing--castles, heaps of rock, moons of different shapes and colors come and go. There are stops at odd hours of teh mornings, for reasons that are not announced: you get out to stretch in lime-lit courtyards where the old men sit around the table under enormous eucalyptus trees you can smell in the night, shuffling the ancient decks oily and worn, throwing down swords and cups and trumps major in the tremor of light while behind them the bus is idling, waiting--"passengers will now reclaim their seats" and much as you'd like to stay, right here, learn the game, find your old age around this quiet table, it's no use: he is waiting beside the door of the bus in his pressed uniform, Lord of the Night he is checking your tickets, your ID and travel papers, and it's the wands of enterprise that dominate tonight...as he nods you by, you catch a glimpse of his face, his insane, committed eyes, and you remember then, for a terrible few heartbeats, that of course it will end for you all in blood, in shock, without dignity--but there is meanwhile this trip to be on ... over your own seat, where there ought to be an advertising plaque, is instead a quote from Rilke: "Once, only once..." One of Their favorite slogans. No return, no salvation, no Cycle--that's not what They, nor Their brilliant employee Kekule, have taken the Serpent to mean.

I hope Lily told you how happy I was by the offer to marry your commander." "She mentioned it," Ranulf grimaced. "Who knows? Maybe Rolande and I will meet and decide to stay together, forgoing the annulment." Ranulf rocked back on his feet, picking up the basin, and stood up, causing water to slosh on to the floor from the abrupt movement. She sounded so damn happy. He plopped the water bowl back on its table. And why shouldn't she be? "You will like my commander. He is as handsome as Lillabet is beautiful." Pain flashed in Bronwyn's eyes, turning them dark, almost black. If Ranulf's aim had been to hurt,he had struck true, resulting in a desire to inflict similar anguish. "As long as he doesn't lie to me and make me out the fool, I will be content." "I suspect he won't if you don't lie to him first." Bronwyn pushed herself out of the chair as a frisson of anger shot up her spine. "Maybe I won't if he doesn't order me away from my home without the courage to look me in the eye when he does so." "I never pretended to be someone else." "In that you are correct, my lord.You made it very clear from the beginning that you were a hateful man," she seethed. "Didn't seem to bother you when you used your female wiles to entice me to your bed," Ranulf hissed back. Bronwyn marched over to the door and swung it wide open. "I wonder just how my sister will deal with your barbarism. She is sweet,beautiful, and innocent,but she also knows nothing about running a castle.So preprare yourself,my lord.In a few months you will have a rundown estate and no commander either,for after I use my feminine wiles on him, I doubt we will be staying here at Hunswick.

(from Lady of the Lake) The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green, And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind’s summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain’s child. Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist’ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer’s eye could barely view The summer heaven’s delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. Onward, amid the copse ’gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck’s brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. The shaggy mounds no longer stood, Emerging from entangled wood, But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, Like castle girdled with its moat; Yet broader floods extending still Divide them from their parent hill, Till each, retiring, claims to be An islet in an inland sea. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken, Unless he climb, with footing nice A far projecting precipice. The broom’s tough roots his ladder made, The hazel saplings lent their aid; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light, And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mountains, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; A wildering forest feathered o’er His ruined sides and summit hoar, While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

Tis the middle of night by the castle clock" 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu—whit!—Tu—whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark. The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky. The moon is behind, and at the full; And yet she looks both small and dull. The night is chill, the cloud is gray: 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way. The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate? She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothèd knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away. She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak But moss and rarest mistletoe: She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, And in silence prayeth she. The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel! It moaned as near, as near can be, But what it is she cannot tell.— On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky …

thought there might not be a sky: he had an idea that the formless rock went on and on in a great arch overhead—but when he thought about it, that did not seem possible. Christopher always knew in his dream that you could get to Almost Anywhere from The Place Between. He called it Almost Anywhere because there was one place that did not want you to go to it. It was quite near, but he always found himself avoiding it. He set off sliding, scrambling, edging across bulging wet rock, and climbing up or down, until he found another valley and another path. There were hundreds of them. He called them the Anywheres. The Anywheres were mostly quite different from London. They were hotter or colder, with strange trees and stranger houses. Sometimes the people in them looked ordinary, sometimes their skin was bluish or reddish and their eyes were peculiar, but they were always very kind to Christopher. He had a new adventure every time he went on a dream. In the active adventures people helped him escape through cellars of odd buildings, or he helped them in wars, or in rounding up dangerous animals. In the calm adventures, he got new things to eat and people gave him toys. He lost most of the toys as he was scrambling back home over the rocks, but he did manage to bring back the shiny shell necklace the silly ladies gave him, because he could hang it around his neck. He went to the Anywhere with the silly ladies several times. It had blue sea and white sand, perfect for digging and building in. There were ordinary people in it, but Christopher only saw them in the distance. The silly ladies came and sat on rocks out of the sea and giggled at him while he made sand castles. “Oh clistoffer!” they would coo, in lisping voices. “Tell uth what make you a clistoffer.” And they would all burst into screams of high laughter. They were the only ladies he had seen without clothes on. Their skins were greenish and so was their hair. He was fascinated by the way the ends of them were big silvery tails that could curl and flip

We have not begun to live’, Yeats writes, ‘until we conceive life as a tragedy.’ Newman confessed that he considered most men to be irretrievably damned, although he spent his life ‘trying to make that truth less terrible to human reason’. Goethe could call his life ‘the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever’. Martin Luther told a woman who wished him a long life: ‘Madam, rather than live forty more years, I would give up my chance of paradise.’ No, the Outsider does not make light work of living; at the best, it is hard going; at the worst (to borrow a phrase from Eliot) ‘an intolerable shirt of flame’, It was this vision that made Axel declare: ‘As for living, our servants will do that for us.’ Axel was a mystic; at least, he had the makings of a mystic. For that is just what the mystic says: ‘I refuse to Uve.’ But he doesn’t intend to die. There is another way of living that involves a sort of death: ‘to die in order to Uve’. Axel would have locked himself up in his castle on the Rhine and read Hermetic philosophy. He saw men and the world as Newman saw them, as Eliot saw them in ‘Burnt Norton’: ... strained, time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind That blows before and after time But he was not willing to regard himself as hopelessly damned merely because the rest of the world seems to be. He set out to find his own salvation; and although he did it with a strong romantic bias for Gothic castles and golden-haired girls, he still set out in the right direction. And what are the clues in the search for self-expression? There are the moments of insight, the glimpses of harmony. Yeats records one such moment in his poem ‘Vacillation’: My fiftieth year had come and gone I sat, a solitary man In a crowded London shop An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness That I was blessed, and could bless It is an important experience, this moment of Yea-saying, of reconciliation with the ‘devil-ridden chaos’, for it gives the Outsider an important glimpse into the state of mind that the visionary wants to achieve permanently.

With great care, Amy opened the cellar door. With ladylike demeanor, she descended the stairs. And as her reward, she had the satisfaction of catching His Mighty Lordship sitting on the cot, his knee crooked sideways and his ankle pulled toward him, cursing at the manacle. “I got it out of your own castle,” she said. Northcliff jumped like a lad caught at a mischief. “My . . . castle?” At once he realized what she meant. “Here on the island, you mean. The old ancestral pile.” “Yes.” She strolled farther into the room. “I went down into the dungeons, crawled around in among the spider webs and the skeleton of your family’s enemies—” “Oh, come on.” He straightened his leg. “There aren’t any skeletons.” “No,” she admitted. “We had them removed years ago.” For one instant, she was shocked. So his family had been ruthless murderers! Then she realized he was smirking. The big, pompous jackass was making a jest of her labors. “If I could have found manacles that were in good shape I’d have locked both your legs to the wall.” “Why stop there? Why not my hands, too?” He moved his leg to make the chain clink loudly. “Think of your satisfaction at the image of my starving, naked body chained to the cold stone—” “Starving?” She cast a knowledgeable eye at the empty breakfast tray, then allowed her lips to curve into a sarcastic smile. “You’d love a look at my naked body, though, wouldn’t you?” He fixed his gaze on her, and for one second she thought she saw a lick of golden flame in his light brown eyes. “Isn’t that what this is all about?” “I beg your pardon.” She took a few steps closer to him—although she remained well out of range of his long arms. What are you talking about?” “I spurned you, didn’t I?” What? What What was he going on about? “You’re a girl from my past, an insignificant debutante I ignored at some cotillion or another. I didn’t dance with you.” He stretched out on the cot, the epitome of idle relaxation. “Or I did, but I didn’t talk to you. Or I forgot to offer you a lemonade, or—” “I don’t believe you.” She tottered to the rocking chair and sank down. “Are you saying you think this whole kidnapping was done because you, the almighty marquees of Northcliff, treated me like a wallflower?” “It seems unlikely I treated you as a wallflower. I have better taste than that.” He cast a critical glance up and down her workaday gown, then focused on her face. “You’re not in the common way, you must know that. With the proper gown and your hair swirled up in that style you women favor—” He twirled his fingers about his head—“you would be handsome. Perhaps even lovely.” She gripped the arms of the chair. Even his compliments sounded like insults! “We’ve never before met, my lord.” As if she had not spoken, he continued, “but I don’t remember you, so I must have ignored you and hurt your feelings—” “Damn!” Exploding out of the chair, she paced behind it, gripping the back hard enough to break the wood. His arrogance was amazing. Invulnerable! “Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said to you? Are you so conceited you can’t conceive of a woman who isn’t interested in you as a suitor?” “It’s not conceit when it’s the truth.” He sounded quite convinced.

Luxembourg was at first a castle, then a fortified city, and eventually a mighty fortress. It didn't become an open city until 1867 when the fortress was partially dismantled. A series of inner and outer walls, or line of palisades, had defended the approaches to the city. Today many of these walls, ruins of towers, and stockades still stand. Within the rock foundation of the city, a network of underground tunnels had been built.

Shuffle A Dream You cruise around in your deluxe water craft And play and picking designer shades, don't deny class And the girls that you know want it mighty bad They want your kids in a row, they'll be lining up fast to your door So make a move, castle in the sky Pick and choose if you want him Would you share? 'Cause that's the deal, girl Trickling coins, making a noise Follow it blind, follow the signs Why would you want someone so vain? Stealing your soul, looking at rain You act supreme as your fortune lit the sky But it's a shell with a crack and you're just a plain guy Play a pill 'cause the world made it easy to I see the shimmering rocks moving closer to you to your door So make a move, castle in the sky Pick and choose if you want it, girl Could you share 'cause that's the deal now If you dare, so Trickling coins, making a noise Follow it blind, follow the signs Why would you want someone so vain? Stealing your soul, looking at rain Trickling coins, making a noise Follow it blind, follow the signs Why would you want someone so vain? Stealing your soul, looking at rain Trickling coins, making a noise Follow it blind, follow the signs

Give me a moment. Sit down on that bloody rock for a minute, and let me try to explain. And listen to me as if I weren’t related. Can you make some sort of frenetic endeavour, and pretend to do that? Because in the only sense that matters, Richard, it’s true.

A valley that had some of the characteristics of a canyon yawned beneath, so deep and wide that it appeared like a blue lake, so long that he could only see the north end, which notched under a rugged mountain slope, green and black and golden and white according to the successive steps toward the heights. The height upon which he stood was the last of the ridges, for the elevation that lay directly across was a noble range of foothills, timbered, canyoned, apparently insurmountable for horses. Gray cliffs stood out of the green, crags of yellow rock mounted like castles.

Vincent closed his eyes, remembering being drunk in celebration of his betrothal and the return of King Charles. He’d foolishly indulged in his favorite hobby of climbing, and tumbled from the cliffs near his castle, his body shattered on the rocks below. A dark figure had appeared over him. He’d thought it was the angel of death. The being knelt down and whispered to him in Gaelic: “I have killed many Englishmen. I atone for it by leaving you with eternal life.” Twin daggers pierced his throat. Then all was blackness punctuated by moments of extreme pain and a savage, alien thirst. Lydia interrupted his thoughts. “What sort of accident?” “I do not know,” Vincent lied. “Only that it left the earl horribly disfigured.” He’d awakened as the tide came in. His body was perfectly healed, and with obscene strength, he climbed up the cliff, aware of nothing except a burning thirst. The gamekeeper found him, shouting in alarm at his tattered clothes. Vincent tore the man’s throat open and satisfied the hellish hunger. As the corpse dropped at his feet, he realized he’d become a monster. “The

It was good for me to be afflicted. (Psalm 119:71) It is a remarkable occurrence of nature that the most brilliant colors of plants are found on the highest mountains, in places that are the most exposed to the fiercest weather. The brightest lichens and mosses, as well as the most beautiful wildflowers, abound high upon the windswept, storm-ravaged peaks. One of the finest arrays of living color I have ever seen was just above the great Saint Bernard Hospice near the ten-thousand-foot summit of Mont Cenis in the French Alps. The entire face of one expansive rock was covered with a strikingly vivid yellow lichen, which shone in the sunshine like a golden wall protecting an enchanted castle. Amid the loneliness and barrenness of that high altitude and exposed to the fiercest winds of the sky, this lichen exhibited glorious color it has never displayed in the shelter of the valley. As I write these words, I have two specimens of the same type of lichen before me. One is from this Saint Bernard area, and the other is from the wall of a Scottish castle, which is surrounded by sycamore trees. The difference in their form and coloring is quite striking. The one grown amid the fierce storms of the mountain peak has a lovely yellow color of a primrose, a smooth texture, and a definite form and shape. But the one cultivated amid the warm air and the soft showers of the lowland valley has a dull, rusty color, a rough texture, and an indistinct and broken shape. Isn’t it the same with a Christian who is afflicted, storm-tossed, and without comfort? Until the storms and difficulties allowed by God’s providence beat upon a believer again and again, his character appears flawed and blurred. Yet the trials actually clear away the clouds and shadows, perfect the form of his character, and bestow brightness and blessing to his life. Amidst my list of blessings infinite Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled; For all I bless You, most for the severe. Hugh Macmillan

A lighthouse is the product of optimism, applied with cold rationality. Haulbowline is built on rock and the belief that technology will make our lives fuller and longer. We need not be shoved around by nature; we can build things to help us hold a place in it. I realise that, just like a castle or a fort, a lighthouse is defensive architecture. Haulbowline defends cargo against fog, fishermen from heavy weather and, in some broader way, lighthouses stand against general chaos, the violence tossed up by a world at spin. Haulbowline guards a different border than the one on the map, it holds the line between order and chaos.

In one of these Lartet and Christy began to sink a pit, beside the owner's bed, and the work was carried on to conclusion by the late Dr. Massenat. The well was driven down through successive stages of Man; deposits from the sous dropped and trampled into the earth floor by the children of the cottagers till the virgin soil was reached; and there, lying on his side, with his hands to his head for protection, and with a block of fallen rock crushing his thigh, lay the first prehistoric occupant of this shelter.

What's your problem?" "Just want to love this place again. Thought it was heaven when I first started playing. A million ways to win. Couldn't even tell what winning meant." The buckskinned explorer hangs frozen for a moment. Maybe his animus had to take out the trash or answer the phone or rock the new baby. Then his avatar does a strange little two-step resurrection. "Now it's same old crap over and over. Mine mountains, cut down woods, lay sheet metal across meadows, put up stupid castles and warehouses. Just when you have it how you want, some asshole with mercenaries blows the shit out of you. Worse than real life."p377

It was all well and good to say “no expectations,” but Izzy knew how her affection-starved heart worked. She was so desperate to love and be loved, she could sprout tender feelings toward a rock. And rocks didn’t call her “bewitching” or “temptress.” Rocks didn’t have touchable golden brown hair. But rocks and Ransom did have something in common. Neither one would love her back.

This is Northumbria, spanning Durham, Yorkshire, and Northumberland, the northernmost county in England. Here was once the frontier, the last place, where, in the second century, the Romans built their vast fortifications to hold back the Scots and the Picts: first Hadrian’s Wall, running from the banks of the Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth in the west; and later, in a fit of optimism – or arrogance – the more northerly Antonine Wall, from the Firth of Forth in the east to the Firth of Clyde in the west, before abandoning it in favor of a consolidation of the southern defenses. In time, the remains of the Antonine Wall will come to be referred to as the Devil’s Dyke, but by then the Romans will be long gone, their fortresses already falling into ruin, leaving the blood to dry, and the land to bear their scars. Because the land remembers. So the Romans depart, and chaos descends. The Angles invade from Germania, battling the natives and one another, before eventually forging two kingdoms, Northumbria and Mercia, only to see them fall to the Norsemen in the ninth century, who will themselves be defeated by the kings of Wessex. More blood, more scars. In 927 AD, Northumbria becomes part of Athelstan’s united England. In 1066 William the Conqueror lands with his Normans, and crushes the Northumbrian resistance to Norman rule. The Norman castles rise, but they, like the Romans and the Angles before, are forced to defend themselves against the Scots. They leave their dead at Alnwick and Redesdale, Tyndale and Otterburn. The land has a taste for blood now. More conflicts follow – the Wars of the Roses, the Rising in the North, the Civil War, the Jacobite rebellions – and the ground makes way for new bones, but the blood never really dries. Dig deep enough, expose the depths, and one might almost glimpse seams of red and white, like the strata of rock: blood and bone, over and over, the landscape infused by them, forever altered and forever changing. Because the killing never stops.

Nottingham Castle perched atop its hill—Castle Rock as some called it—and offered a stunning view of the countryside in every direction. Its three tiered baileys sprawled out until the castle walls stopped at the sparkling river Trent to the south, and the bulk of the city he loved to the east.

She shook her head. “That was a geography reef trip. More scientific. This one will probably have something to do with looking for material to make new hairbrushes or finding the perfect rocks to sit on the edge of.” Althea pretended to yawn as she spoke.

we flew to England again to play the outdoor Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington. This was the kind of thing you heard about other bands playing—big bands, household names, not grubby kids a year or two removed from living in a back-alley storage space and treating their venereal diseases with fucking fish food.

She was so desperate to love and be loved, she could sprout tender feelings toward a rock. And rocks didn’t call her “bewitching” or “temptress.” Rocks didn’t have touchable golden brown hair. But rocks and Ransom did have something in common.

The fact that there were more adults than children at her party didn't seem to faze Dixie. "That child is like a dandelion," Lettie said. "She could grow through concrete." Dixie's birthday party had a combination Mardi Gras/funeral wake feel to it. Mr. Bennett and Digger looped and twirled pink crepe paper streamers all around the white graveside tent until it looked like a candy-cane castle. Leo Stinson scrubbed one of his ponies and gave pony rides. Red McHenry, the florist's son, made a unicorn's horn out of flower foam wrapped with gold foil, and strapped it to the horse's head. "Had no idea that horse was white," Leo said, as they stood back and admired their work. Angela, wearing an old, satin, off-the-shoulder hoop gown she'd found in the attic, greeted each guest with strings of beads, while Dixie, wearing peach-colored fairy wings, passed out velvet jester hats. Charlotte, who never quite grasped the concept of eating while sitting on the ground, had her driver bring a rocking chair from the front porch. Mr. Nalls set the chair beside Eli's statue where Charlotte barked orders like a general. "Don't put the food table under the oak tree!" she commanded, waving her arm. "We'll have acorns in the potato salad!" Lettie kept the glasses full and between KyAnn Merriweather and Dot Wyatt there was enough food to have fed Eli's entire regiment. Potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs, bread and butter pickles, green beans, fried corn, spiced pears, apple dumplings, and one of every animal species, pork barbecue, fried chicken, beef ribs, and cold country ham as far as the eye could see.

I used to become very restless. I was continually thinking of the life I would lead. I wanted to know what life had in store for me. I was particularly restless at some moments. You know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a small waterfall there; it fell from a height on the mountain, such a tiny thread, almost perpendicular—foaming, white and splashing. Though it fell from a great height it didn’t seem so high; it was the third of a mile away, but it only looked about fifty paces. I used to like listening to the sound of it at night. At such moments I was sometimes overcome with great restlessness; sometimes too at midday I wandered on the mountains, and stood alone halfway up a mountain surrounded by great ancient resinous pine trees; on the crest of the rock an old medieval castle in ruins; our little village far, far below, scarcely visible; bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness. At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that in walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. I dreamed of some great town like Naples, full of palaces, noise, roar, life. And I dreamed of all sorts of things, indeed. But afterwards I fancied one might find a wealth of life even in prison.