Cobb Quotes

COBB: You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter... Mal looks at his across the railroad tracks. Replies- MAL: Because you'll always be together.

That's what war is," Cobb told me. "A bunch of sorry, desperate fools on both sides, just trying to stay alive. That's the part that those stories you love leave out, isn't it? It's always more convenient when you can fight a dragon. Something you don't have to worry you'll start caring about.

Pilots are never ‘peachy,’ girl. We’re spirited.” “Or,” I added, “briskly energized by the prospect of dealing death to the coming enemies.” “Or that,” Cobb said. “If you’re psychotic.

Mr Cobb was my escort. Such a nice escort, Mr Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten - when Larry Cobb was sober.

So if Cobb wanted me to turn, I’d turn. I’d turn until my fingers bled—until I rubbed the flesh from my hands and withered away to a skeleton. A skeleton who could turn really, really well.

COBB: Our dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake we realize things were strange. Ariadne gestures around them- ARIADNE: But all the textures of real life-the stone, the fabric... cars... people... your mind can't create all this. COBB: It does. Every time you dream. Let me ask you a question: You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what's going on. ARIADNE: I guess. COBB: So... how did we end up at this restaurant?

I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee said quickly. That's not the answer to every problem in interpersonal relations," Cobb said, hopping out.

ARTHUR: What happened? ARIADNE: Cobb stayed. ARTHUR: With Mal? ARIADNE: No. To find Saito. Arthur looks out at the water below the bridge. ARTHUR: He'll be lost... ARIADNE: No. He'll be alright.

MAL: You killed me. Cobb looks at Mal. Whispers- COBB: I was trying to save you-I'm sorry. Mal comes in close to Cobb. Looks him over. MAL: You infected my mind. You betrayed me. But you can make amends. You can still keep your promise. We can still be together... right here. In our world. The world we built together.

Few names have left a firmer imprint upon the pages of the history of American times than has that of Ty Cobb... he seems to have understood that in the competition of baseball, just as in war, defensive strategy never has produced ultimate victory.

Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober.

I used to think Romeo and Juliet was the greatest love story ever written. But now that I’m middle-aged, I know better. Oh, Romeo certainly thinks he loves his Juliet. Driven by hormones, he unquestionably lusts for her. But if he loves her, it’s a shallow love. You want proof?” Cagney didn’t wait for Dr. Victor to say yay or nay. “Soon after meeting her for the first time, he realizes he forgot to ask her for her name. Can true love be founded upon such shallow acquaintance? I don’t think so. And at the end, when he thinks she’s dead, he finds no comfort in living out the remainder of his life within the paradigm of his love, at least keeping alive the memory of what they had briefly shared, even if it was no more than illusion, or more accurately, hormonal. “Those of us watching events unfold from the darkness know she merely lies in slumber. But does he seek the reason for her life-like appearance? No. Instead he accuses Death of amorousness, convinced that the ‘lean abhorred monster’ endeavors to keep Juliet in her present state, her cheeks flushed, so that she might cater to his own dissolute desires. But does Romeo hold her in his arms one last time and feel the warmth of her blood still coursing through her veins? Does he pinch her to see if she might awaken? Hold a mirror to her nose to see if her breath fogs it? Once, twice, three times a ‘no.’” Cagney sighed, listened to the leather creak as he shifted his weight in his chair. “No,” he repeated. “His alleged love is so superficial and selfish that he seeks to escape the pain of loss by taking his own life. That’s not love, but obsessive infatuation. Had they wed—Juliet bearing many children, bonding, growing together, the masks of the star-struck teens they once were long ago cast away, basking in the comforting campfire of a love born of a lifetime together, not devoured by the raging forest fire of youth that consumes everything and leaves behind nothing—and she died of natural causes, would Romeo have been so moved to take his own life, or would he have grieved properly, for her loss and not just his own?

ARIADNE: Why are they looking at me? COBB: Because you're changing things. My subconscious feels that someone else is creating the world. The more you change things, the quicker the projections converge on you. ARIADNE: Converge? COBB: They feel the foreign nature of the dreamer, and attack-like white blood cells fighting an infection. ARIADNE: They're going to attack us? COBB: Just you, actually.

ARTHUR: It'd have to be a 747. COBB: Why? ARTHUR: On a 747 the pilots are up above, first class is in the nose so nobody walks through the cabin. We'd have to buy out the whole cabin, and the first class flight attendant- SAITO: We bought the airline. Everyone turns to Saito. SAITO: It seemed... neater.

There are always exceptions to every generalization. [A Christian Epilogue]

Everybody loves to hate a sinner; reading stories about them makes people feel better about themselves.

Who said anything about justice? There's no such thing. But injustice is as much a part of life as the weather.

Well done, Spin," Cobb said over a private line. "You have the passion. Now you're showing restraint.

EAMES: Try this... "MY FATHER ACCEPTS THAT I WANT TO CREATE FOR MYSELF, NOT FOLLOW IN HIS FOOTSTEPS." COBB: That might work. ARTHUR: Might? We'll have to do better than that. EAMES: Thanks for the contribution, Arthur. ARTHUR: Forgive me for wanting a little specificity, Eames.

If your brother can't 'old 'is own against a bunch of orphans, 'e'd best leave off playing 'azard altogether!

When I began playing the game, baseball was as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch.

To wheel about in one's chair to address the footman would be completely outside the pale.

The northern star changes its position every ten thousand years, but friendships can last for all eternity. — RJPeters

Spensa,” M-Bot said. “Both Jorgen and Cobb have called to complain. I know you said to keep them distracted, but—” “Keep them distracted.” “Resigned sigh.” I looped us after an enemy ship. “Did you just say the words resigned sigh?” “I find human nonlinguistic communications to be too easily misinterpreted,” he said. “So I’m experimenting with ways to make them more explicit.” “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” “Obviously not. Dismissive eye-roll.

That,” Cobb said, “was somehow the most embarrassing and inspiring display I’ve ever seen out of cadets! You should be ashamed. And proud.

In a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat,' I said. 'That's what Mary used to say to explain the odds of us meeting. And you have to be born in roughly the same period. Those are the odds. And probably you need to speak the same language.'-- Cobb

Miss Grantham ordered me to my room and told me no man would ever wish to marry me if I did not learn to behave like a lady. But Miss Grantham always behaves like a lady, and no man has ever wished to marry her, either, so if it really makes no difference in the end, I don’t see why I shouldn’t at least have fun!

Cobb," I said, stepping closer. "Those aren't bloodthirsty monsters out there; they're just people. Normal people, with lives, and loves, and families." "And what did you think we've been fighting against all these years?" Cobb asked.

Down our way we're always had a theory that the Civil War was not brought on by Secession of Slavery or the State's Rights issue. These matters contributed to the quarrel, but there is a deeper reason. It was bought on by some Yankee coming down south and putting nutmeg in a julep. So our folks up and left the Union flat.

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

COBB: What do you want from us? SAITO: Inception. Arthur raises his eyebrows. Cobb is poker-faced. SAITO: Is it possible? ARTHUR: Of course not. SAITO: If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one there instead? ARTHUR: Okay, here's planting an idea: I say to you, "Don't think about elephants." (Saito nods) What are you thinking about? SAITO: Elephants. ARTHUR: Right. But it's not your idea because you know I gave it to you. SAITO: You could plant it subconsciously- ARTHUR: The subject's mind can always trace the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake. COBB: No, it isn't. SAITO: Can you do it? COBB: I won't do it. SAITO: In exchange, I'll give you the information you were paid to steal. COBB: Are you giving me a choice? Because I can find my own way to square things with Cobol. SAITO: Then you do have a choice. COBB: And I choose to leave.

Tell me, Theodore, were you playing against orphans, by any chance?

...too weary and dazed by unfinished sleep even to swear. There comes a degree of numbness in fatigue and exasperation which can be expressed only by a sullen silence.

My great panacea for making society at once better and more enjoyable would be to cultivate greater sincerity.

Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

ARTHUR: He's out. ARIADNE: Wait, Cobb-I'm lost. Whose subconscious are we going into? COBB: Fischer's. I told him it was Browning's so he'd come with us as part of our team. ARTHUR: (impressed) He's going to help us break into his own subconscious. COBB: That's the idea. He'll think that his security is Browning's and fight them to learn the truth about his father.

If you're wondering what's wrong with Fenway Park in the first place, you're not the only one. Fenway is special precisely because it has what modern stadiums lack: seats that, while often cramped, offer the best views in baseball; and the sense that, if you squint, that could be Smoky Joe Wood pitching to Ty Cobb out there instead of Jeff Fassero and Bobby Higginson.

That’s what war is,” Cobb told me. “A bunch of sorry, desperate fools on both sides, just trying to stay alive. That’s the part that those stories you love leave out, isn’t it? It’s always more convenient when you can fight a dragon. Something you don’t have to worry you’ll start caring about.

ARTHUR: How do we get out once we've made the plant? (to Cobb) I hope you've got something a little more elegant than shooting me in the head like last time. Arthur tilts back in his chair. Yusuf turns to Cobb. COBB: A kick. ARIADNE: What's a kick? Eames slips his foot under Arthur's chair leg. TIPS it- Arthur's legs SHOOT UP INSTINCTIVELY for balance- EAMES: That, Ariadne, would be a kick. COBB: That feeling of falling which snaps you awake. We use that to jolt ourselves awake once we're done.

SAITO: Care for a lift, Mr. Cobb? COBB: (jumping in) What brings you to Mombasa, Mr. Saito? SAITO: I have to protect my investment. Eames stands on pavement. The car pulls up. Cobb beckons from the rear window. Eames looks at Saito. Back to Cobb. EAMES: This your idea of losing a tail? COBB: (shrugs) Different tail.

He thought of smart as a circle. Go too far towards smart, and you find yourself back at dumb.

I've got to be first all the time — in everything.

Good motives butter no parsnips, and hell is paved with buttered parsnips.

Mr. Brundy," she said with a nod, making the most perfunctory of curtsies to her father's guest. He made no move to take her hand, but merely bowed and responded in kind. "Lady 'elen." "My name is Helen, Mr. Brundy," she said coldly. "Very well- 'elen," said Mr. Brundy, surprised and gratified at being given permission, and on such short acquaintance, to dispense with the use of her courtesy title.

Take it!" he snarled, hurling the diamond necklace across the table at his opponent. "And may you rot in hell with it!" "I should not dream of intruding upon you there," replied Mr Brundy, bowing deeply from the waist.

The word toxic had been anointed, and now could not go back to being a regular word. It was like a person becoming famous. They would never have a normal lunch again, would never eat a Cobb salad outdoors without tasting the full awareness of what they were. Toxic. Labor. Discourse. Normalize.

Mr. Cobb was my escort,” she said. “Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober.

until it reached an Asante village. There, it disappeared, becoming one with the night. Effia’s father, Cobbe Otcher, left his first wife, Baaba, with the new baby so that he might survey the damage to his yams, that most precious crop known far and wide to sustain families. Cobbe had lost seven yams, and he felt each loss

We might get that kind of unilateral support and screw the budget if Cobbe was just your average international contract killer, but we sure as hell have it because he wants to add you to his four hundred and forty-three kills. So don’t bitch to me about bleeding cops. Because they would. Every goddamn one of them would bleed for you

Mr Cobb would acquaint him, that when he was his age, his father thought no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box on the ears, or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of that sort, than he did of any other ordinary duty of life; and he would further remark, with looks of great significance, that but for this judicious bringing up, he might have never been the man he was at that present speaking; which was probable enough, as he was, beyond all question, the dullest dog of the party.

To be born in Kentucky is a heritage; to brag about it is a habit; to appreciate it is a virtue.

Germany Schaefer, trying to send a subtle hint to umpire Billy Evans that the game ought to be called, appeared at second base wearing a yellow rain slicker,

I’d never wish to be part of a country that tolerates mob rule. There’s no greater threat to liberty than a crowd with torches.

Sister loyalty was Newton's first law. Fidelity to family and parents was the second.

Even though there is so much to be unhappy about in this world, we should try to create something amazing and beautiful and interesting despite all of the problems.

I'm not out of touch with reality; I've just got my eyes on eternity.

I had to fight all my life to survive. They were all against me… but I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.

Rarely," said Dax to himself, "does a soldier see with naked eyes. He is nearly always looking through lenses, lenses which are made of the insignia of his rank.

Free schools were an invention of the Devil or the Yankees, which amounted to practically the same thing.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.” Voltaire, 1694–1778

Oh dear thought Cobb. Never mind Father Yule, he sounds more like Ebenezer Scrimge from Charles Pickens’ book “A Yuletide Song”.

There’s no such thing as a noble death, Cobb ... there’s just death.

Look,’ said Cobb, ‘I live in the city. The only wildlife I ever get to see is rats. If I want to catch a rabbit I go to the butchers!

Rufus Cobb was having one of those days. You know … one of those days. You know the ones, the sort of day where you just want to go home and be cruel to a small animal.

I’m sorry, I thought you were together.’ ‘Why, do I look like an organ grinder?’ said Cobb.

Each note Cobb wrote contained a rave review of his abilities over a fictitious signature. “Ty Cobb is really tearing up the horsehide in the Tennessee-Alabama League—Jack Smith.” Instead of sending off these pieces right away, Ty would drop them in mailboxes at various points along the Steelers’ circuit, the better to create the impression of a grassroots movement.

Schalk, a catcher for the White Sox for seventeen years, no doubt got more than a few chances to use his favorite line about Cobb: “When Ty started to steal second, I would throw to third.

On his next return to this world, Duncan Cobb, oldest son, faithless cousin, cautious lover, and pal of killers, awoke infused with the lucidity born of no escape, and a mortal dose of honesty.

EAMES: There's a man here. Yusuf. He formulates his own versions of the compound. COBB: Let's go see him. EAMES: Once you've lost your tail. (Cobb reacts) Back by the bar, blue tie. Came in about two minutes after we did. COBB: Cobol Engineering? EAMES: They pretty much own Mombasa. Cobb glances over the balcony. COBB: Run interference. We'll meet downstairs in half an hour. EAMES: Back here? COBB: Last place they'd expect. Eames downs his drink. Rises. Walks over to the Businessman. EAMES: Freddy! The Businessman looks up, awkward. EAMES: Freddy Simmonds, it is you! Cobb nonchalantly SLIPS over the balcony DROPPING HARD into the midst of the crowd on the street below. EAMES: (looks harder) Oh. No, it isn't. The Businessman looks past Eames but Cobb has vanished.

Julia could form no opinion of Robert, the bespectacled middle child, for he passed the entire journey with his nose stuck in a book, returning only monosyllabic answers to any questions put to him

Harlequin groaned. ‘Cobb, you’ve got to get me out of here, it’s cold and damp, there’s rats, the food is terrible, they keep interrogating me … and I’ve been wearing the same underpants for six weeks!

Simply put: because nonviolence worked so well as a tactic for effecting change and was demonstrably improving their lives, some black people chose to use weapons to defend the nonviolent Freedom Movement.

Brains, unlike any machine, have not been designed. They are organs that have evolved for over five hundred million years, so there is little or no reason to expect they truly function like the machines we create.

What you must realise Cobb, is that sometimes the answer to a question is actually irrelevant; it is the search for that answer that is important. To quest and to strive for knowledge brings its own growth and understanding.

I sometimes find myself lost in the paradoxes of place, race, and religion. Oklahoma seems to embody Walt Whitman's famous lines: 'Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.

EAMES: Word is, you're not welcome in these parts. COBB: Yeah? EAMES: There's a price on your head from Cobol Engineering. Pretty big one, actually. COBB: You wouldn't sell me out. Eames looks at Cobb, offended. EAMES: 'Course I would. COBB: (smiles) Not when you hear what I'm selling. A ramshackle balcony overlooking a busy street. Eames pours. COBB: Inception. Eames' glass stops halfway to his mouth. COBB: Don't bother telling me it's impossible. EAMES: It's perfectly possible. Just bloody difficult. COBB: That's what I keep saying to Arthur. EAMES: Arthur? You're still working with that stick-in-the-mud? COBB: He's a good point man. EAMES: The best. But he has no imagination. If you're going to perform inception, you need imagination. COBB: You've done it before? EAMES: Yes and no. We tried it. Got the idea in place, but it didn't take. COBB: You didn't plant it deep enough? EAMES: It's not just about depth. You need the simplest version of the idea-the one that will grow naturally in the subject's mind. Subtle art.

SHINE JESUS - I have found, the more we point others to Jesus... the more His radiance shines through us. "Those who are wise will shine like the brightest of heavens, and those who turn many to righteousness will shine like stars forever and ever." Daniel 12:3

Mr. Brundy, you are no doubt as well acquainted with my circumstances as I am with yours, so let us not beat about the bush. I have a fondness for the finer things in life, and I suppose I always will. As a result, I am frightfully expensive to maintain. I have already bankrupted my father, and have no doubt I should do the same to you, should you be so foolhardy as to persist in the desire for such a union. Furthermore, I have a shrewish disposition and a sharp tongue. My father, having despaired of seeing me wed to a gentleman of my own class, has ordered me to either accept your suit or seek employment. If I married you, it would be only for your wealth, and only because I find the prospect of marriage to you preferable –but only slightly!- to the life of a governess or a paid companion. If, knowing this, you still wish to marry me, why, you have only to name the day.” Having delivered herself of this speech, Lady Helen waited expectantly for Mr. Brundy’s stammering retraction. Her suitor pondered her words for a long moment, then made his response. “’ow about Thursday?

Silly," Dax thought, "but the mere issuing of a command always inspires confidence. It doesn'tt matter whether it is a necessary command, or even a correct one.: Then , a little later, an afterthought came to him: "It inspires self-confidence even in the man who issues it.

Flesh, bodies, nerves, legs… things were getting all mixed up in his mind. It seemed to be filled with flesh, cloyed with the sweetish smell of flesh that is torn open and over which blood is pouring. It was his flesh, their flesh, lying about still alive, but dying, dying so slowly, dying so fast…

Many black women also kept guns within easy reach. But it is important to mention that women & their use of guns present the historian of the southern Freedom Movement with a particular problem. Many of the women from this era (like the men) have passed away & cannot be interviewed. And although a few of the men have written or been extensively interviewed about their role in self-defense, the women have publicly left little record & have generally been ignored in the discussion & debate over armed self-defense...For the most part, we do not know what many women who were active in the movement were thinking, or whether & how they organized for self-defense. Historians are therefore dependent on males for portrays & interpretations of women's thoughts & actions.

you may not care about marriage now, Betsey, but you'll change your mind someday. Someday you will. And if you've given no thought to how to choose a man you can live with, you're going to end up with someone ugly or poor. Or worse, dull" "If I ever marry I don't want a husband I can live with. I want one I cannot live without.

He saw the delicate blades of grass which the bodies of his comrades had fertilized; he saw the little shoots on the shell-shocked trees. He saw the smoke-puffs of shrapnel being blown about by light breezes. He saw birds making love in the wire that a short while before had been ringing with flying metal. He heard the pleasant sounds of larks up there, near the zenith of the trajectories. He smiled a little. There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd.

Reelfoot is, and has always been, a lake of mystery. In places it is bottomless. Other places the skeletons of the cypress-trees that went down when the earth sank, still stand upright so that if the sun shines from the right quarter, and the water is less muddy than common, a man, peering face downward into its depths, sees, or thinks he sees, down below him the bare top-limbs upstretching like drowned men's fingers, all coated with the mud of years and bandaged with pennons of the green lake slime.

That spot on the road was the place where he had ceased to be a boy.

I'm sure your feelings do you credit, John, but by Jove, you can't marry a female in a fit of philantropy!

Love may fade, but it will never die.

Silly…but the mere issuing of a command always inspires confidence. It doesn't matter whether it is a necessary command, or even a correct one…it inspires self-confidence even in the man who issues it.

resolve and commitment. As a feminist, I wish the pope had addressed the ways that patriarchy, power-over relationships, and the church’s history of misogyny have all contributed to our ecological crisis. We have

One day in the spring of 1894 or so, Amanda Cobb looked out her kitchen window and saw Tyrus and a bunch of Negro boys merrily hauling a cart laden with scrap metal, broken furniture, and other things they’d found in backyards and vacant lots around town. They were headed toward the junkyard to try to make a few dollars, and Mrs. Cobb knew for what. “He was always thinking up ways of earning money to buy baseball supplies,” she would tell a writer for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Sunday Union and Republican in 1928. “He was always playing when he was a child. In fact, we had a hard time getting him to go to school. I remember that the first money he earned he spent for a mitt. He couldn’t have been more than six years old when a neighbor asked him to take his cow to the pasture and gave Ty some change for doing it. Ty didn’t buy candy or ice cream. He knew what he wanted, and he got it—a baseball glove.

Michelle: Phone. That had to be my phone waking me up. My hand swept across the nightstand until it found the vibrating hunk of silicone. "Hello." "Michelle, It's Gordon from the Cobb County Sheriff's Office. We need you to deal with some illegally bred magical creatures." The sound of barking and shouting followed his voice. "What are they?" "We don't know. I can tell you what they look like. Henri was one of the responding and he's never heard of these things. I think they're new." Blech. I rolled out of bed to start getting dressed. Henri was an old vampire. I'm not sure how old. But old enough to take his word on something like this. "Gordon, tell me what these things look like." "I'd say someone found the stupidest chihuahua in the city and then did something to give it wings and magic." "Great! How do I get there?" I wrote down the address and a few directions. "That's the mayor's place, isn't it? "Yep and he's not happy.

As noted in 1964 by Robert P. “Bob” Moses, director of the Mississippi project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): “It’s not contradictory for a farmer to say he’s nonviolent and also pledge to shoot a marauder’s head off.

And out in the rural, when Mrs. Laura McGhee--who if she thought it necessary, sat on the porch with her Winchester rifle--permitted movement workers to use her farm outside Greenwood for a rally, the sheriff came to warn her against holding it. She told him that *he* was on *her* property, that *he* was trespassing and hadn't ever offered any protection from the terrorists who kept threatening to shoot up her farms, and that he therefore had nothing to offer her now and had better leave, get off her land. And the sheriff left.

They have twenty-four one-hour sittings every day with only one table per sitting." Sam groaned as he closed his laptop. "I'd better grab some sandwiches on the way. It sounds like the kind of place you only get two peas and a sliver of asparagus on a piece of butter lettuce that was grown on the highest mountain peak of Nepal and watered with the tears of angels." "Not a fan of haute cuisine?" She followed him down the stairs and out into the bright sunshine. "I like food. Lots of it." He stopped at the nearest café and ordered three Reuben sandwiches, two Cobb salads, and three bottles of water. "Would you like anything?" he asked after he placed his order. Layla looked longingly as the server handed over his feast. "I don't want to ruin my appetite." She pointed to the baked-goods counter. "You forgot dessert." "I don't eat sugar." "Then the meal is wasted." She held open her handbag to reveal her secret stash. "I keep emergency desserts with me at all times- gummy bears, salted caramel chocolate, jelly beans, chocolate-glazed donuts- at least I think that's what they were, and this morning I managed to grab a small container of besan laddu and some gulab jamun.

Listening to the faint heartbeat of the dying Rabbi is a powerful stimulus to the recovery of passion. It is a sound like no other. The Crucified says, “Confess your sin so that I may reveal Myself to you as lover, teacher, and friend, that fear may depart and your heart can stir once again with passion.” His word is addressed both to those filled with a sense of self-importance and to those crushed with a sense of self-worthlessness. Both are preoccupied with themselves. Both claim a godlike status, because their full attention is riveted either on their prominence or their insignificance. They are isolated and alienated in their self-absorption. The release from chronic egocentricity starts with letting Christ love them where they are. Consider John Cobb’s words: The spiritual man can love only . . . when he knows himself already loved in his self-preoccupation. Only if man finds that he is already accepted in his sin and sickness, can he accept his own self-preoccupation as it is; and only then can his psychic economy be opened toward others, to accept them as they are—not in order to save himself, but because he doesn’t need to save himself. We love only because we are first loved.[9]

Having never had dealings with Bow Street, Lady Fieldhurst was not quite certain what to expect: perhaps a stout fellow past his prime, befuddled with sleep or spirits, with a bulbous red nose—the same sort as might be found in any number of watchmen’s boxes across the metropolis. The individual who entered the room in [the footman's] wake, however, was very nearly her own age. To be sure, his nose was somewhat crooked, as if it had been broken at some point, but it was far from bulbous, and it was certainly not red. He was quite tall, almost gangly, with curling brown hair tied at the nape of his neck in an outmoded queue. He wore an unfashionably shallow-crowned hat and a black swallow-tailed coat of good cloth but indifferent cut; indeed, his only claim to fashion lay in the quizzing glass which hung round his neck from a black ribbon, and which he now raised, the resulting magnification revealing his eyes to be a warm brown. Julia might have been much reassured as to his competence, had it not been for the fact that his mouth hung open as from a rusty hinge.

Daylight would have shown a wilderness weathered and blowzy, a wanton that had lived her summer too fast and too greedily. It would have shown the white birches pale and shivering in a sudden ague, and here and there an ash or a sumac burning red, like a hectic spot, where the first frosts already had set the marks of their galloping consumption on the cheek of the forest, giving warning of the time when the white plague of the winter would make a massacre of all this present glory and turn the trees to naked skeletons and stretch a bony bare cadaver on every steeper hillside to bleach there until the snows covered things up. But now the kindly nighttime had all signs and threats of approaching death, so that each shriveled speckled leaf, as revealed and traced in the waning light, seemed flawless — a perfect part of a perfect tapestry.

By now the moon was well down. Over the tree tops they had seen her cruise across the heavens to strike on a reef of jagged clouds, and now she foundered among them in the semblance of a ruined galleon, the sails lost overboard, the belly-shaped hull punctured; and just above her there swung a single red star, like a riding light set on an invisible spar to mark the wreck. But the moon had come up, not as a ship but as a tipsy tile-layer. First, across her contract, she flung a long stepladder of celestial gold; then so wrought that the waves all turned to silver scallops with a separate bright rime for each separate tessellation. But the job was done only to be undone. As the wind went down with her, the water was smoothing out; the checkers were vanishing, the paved surface, between the shores, changing and tarnishing to a duller metal. Catching tone from this, the woodland grew denser and darker. Open spaces which ten minutes before had been glades for the fairies to dance in were mysteries for witchcraft now.

Ironically, one concession Davis did make concerned the explosive question of turning slaves into Confederate soldiers. After dismissing as “too controversial” the entreaty by General Patrick Cleburne that slaves be armed and enlisted to fight for the South, Davis finally embraced the notion very late in the game. The Confederate Congress began debating the issue in the early months of 1865, creating a star-burst of vituperation in Richmond. The bombastic old General How-ell Cobb of Georgia roared, “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong!” Davis rebuked him this way: “If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, ‘Died of a Theory.’ ” In the end, less than a month before Lee’s surrender, the Confederate Congress approved a bill providing for the partial emancipation and enlistment of slaves in the Confederate armies. The lawyer in Cleburne might have found the debate interesting had he lived to see it, which he did not. He was slain leading his division during Hood’s charge on Franklin, Tennessee, in November 1864.