Finest Woman Quotes

The Genius Of The Crowd there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace those who preach peace do not have love beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock their finest art

If a woman is given only a limited amount of time to spend with the man she loves, she endures the separation by constantly recalling and reliving every moment down to the finest detail.

Eleanor's voice was below zero. 'My finest horse to whichever faerie in this room brings me that woman's left eye.' My thoughts exactly.

The clitoris not only applauds when a women flaunts her mastery; it will give a standing ovation. In the multiple orgasm, we see the finest evidence that our lady Klitoris helps those who help themselves. It may take many minutes to reach the first summit, but once there the lusty mountaineer finds wings awaiting her. She does noy need to scramble back to the ground before scaling the next peak, but can glide like a raptor on currents of joy.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique — but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby — with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker.

It occurred to Anthony that when she wasn’t arguing with him, Kate Sheffield might bloody well be the finest woman in England.

A writer, who was a celebrity in Paris, had entered her shop one day. He was not looking for a hat. He asked if she sold luminous flowers that he had heard about, flowers which shone in the dark. He wanted them, he said, for a woman who shone in the dark. He could swear that when he took her to the theatre and she sat back in the dark loges in her evening dress, her skin was as luminous as the finest of sea shells, with a pale pink glow to it. And he wanted these flowers for her to wear in her hair.

Mm-hmm. You know, lip dye isn't a crime in this state. You ought to try it." "I've been kind of busy." "You're always kind of busy. You're not using the eye gel I gave you. You can't find a minute twice a day for eye gel? You want bags and wrinkles? You got the finest piece of man-candy on and off planet, and you want him looking at your face with bags and wrinkles? What are you going to do when he dumps you for a woman who takes time to maintain her face?" "Kill him.

Most love, I've observed, is narcissism at its finest and most cunning. Love is always about how you feel but not necessarily how the other person feels. The notion that simply because you love someone they should be willing to love you in return.

Louis XI (1423-1483), the great Spider King of France, had a weakness for astrology. He kept a court astrologer whom he admired, until one day the man predicted that a lady of the court would die within eight days. When the prophecy came true, Louis was terrified, thinking that either the man had murdered the woman to prove his accuracy or that he was so versed in his science that his powers threatened Louis himself. In either case he had to be killed. One evening Louis summoned the astrologer to his room, high in the castle. Before the man arrived, the king told his servants that when he gave the signal they were to pick the astrologer up, carry him to the window, and hurl him to the ground, hundreds of feet below. The astrologer soon arrived, but before giving the signal, Louis decided to ask him one last question: “You claim to understand astrology and to know the fate of others, so tell me what your fate will be and how long you have to live.” “I shall die just three days before Your Majesty,” the astrologer replied. The king’s signal was never given. The man’s life was spared. The Spider King not only protected his astrologer for as long as he was alive, he lavished him with gifts and had him tended by the finest court doctors. The astrologer survived Louis by several years, disproving his power of prophecy but proving his mastery of power.

Happiness There's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of what was lost, and take from its place the finest garment, which you saved for an occasion you could not imagine, and you weep night and day to know that you were not abandoned, that happiness saved its most extreme form for you alone. No, happiness is the uncle you never knew about, who flies a single-engine plane onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes into town, and inquires at every door until he finds you asleep midafternoon as you so often are during the unmerciful hours of your despair. It comes to the monk in his cell. It comes to the woman sweeping the street with a birch broom, to the child whose mother has passed out from drink. It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker, and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots in the night. It even comes to the boulder in the perpetual shade of pine barrens, to rain falling on the open sea, to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Why should a little corner of the garden be so important to a woman like Susanna? A woman with a palatial home, and the finest garments. Because imagine it – if you live as she does, surrounded by endless people and their expectations, ones you cannot possibly live up to, you do not even want to live up to – that refuge might be the only place you are safe.

A woman who cleaned their homes had such a naturally fine body while they stretched themselves taut with the finest surgeons in South Florida and didn't look half as good. It wasn't fair. Money was supposed to make things fair.

Where has God promised to fulfill our every whim according to the minutia of our earthly desires? Where has He promised to keep us from suffering or disappointment? Things He did not spare His own Son? You were raised in one of the finest manors in the borough, by a man and woman who could not have loved you better. You have been given the best education, the best of everything. You are of sound mind and limb, and yet you dare to rail at God? I for one grow weary of it. Now leave off simpering like an ungrateful brat and make something of this new life you've been given.

And do stop trying to determine if I am a man or a woman. The fact is I'm a good part both and therefore neither one. I was just explaining to your Aunt Queen. I was born endowed with the finest traits of both sexes and I drift this way and that as I choose.

When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense. Arraigned to my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night--of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rapidly devoured the ideal--I pronounced judgement to this effect-- That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. "You," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You're gifted with the power of pleasing him? You're of importance to him in any way? Go!--your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference--equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to dependent and novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe! Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night? Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does no good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and if discovered and responded to, must lead into miry wilds whence there is no extrication. "Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: tomorrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own pictures, faithfully, without softening on defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.' "Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory--you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imageine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye--What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!--no sentiment!--no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution... "Whenever, in the future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them--say, "Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indignent and insignifican plebian?" "I'll do it," I resolved; and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.

Most of us have both ways that we are privileged and ways that we are discounted. I am a woman, and women have historically not owned their own lives, having once been the property of fathers and husbands, the acclaim and remuneration for their finest work given to others, and still evolving from that reality. As a white woman/mother/artist from a middle class family in the twentieth century? I have lived a life of such privilege, with so much support provided me. I have lived a life of such deprivation of opportunity and lack of recognition. Sometimes my head spins from the contradictory co-existing reality of it... How have you had privilege in your life? How can you do better for those who have not?

The finest scarf or collar made To keep a woman warm By night or day or sea or land Is still a lover's arm.

Oh, hey, Davidù, the peace that the sea brings to my soul, not even the finest ass of the finest woman on earth, I swear.

What I find most troubling is the recent expectation for sudden weight loss after pregnancy. It’s perverse that the finest compliment given to a woman who has just made a person is that she looks like she hasn’t.

That painted ship of theirs was the finest thing about them. Their faces had lines like grandfathers. Their eyes were bloodshot and dead. They flinched from my animals. “Let me guess,” I said. “You are lost? You are hungry and tired and sad?

Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Saboteur, The Big Clock . . . We lived in monochrome those nights. For me, it was a chance to revisit old friends; for Ed, it was an opportunity to make new ones. And we’d make lists. The Thin Man franchise, ranked from best (the original) to worst (Song of the Thin Man). Top movies from the bumper crop of 1944. Joseph Cotten’s finest moments. I can do lists on my own, of course. For instance: best Hitchcock films not made by Hitchcock. Here we go: Le Boucher, the early Claude Chabrol that Hitch, according to lore, wished he’d directed. Dark Passage, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall—a San Francisco valentine, all velveteen with fog, and antecedent to any movie in which a character goes under the knife to disguise himself. Niagara, starring Marilyn Monroe; Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn; Sudden Fear!, starring Joan Crawford’s eyebrows. Wait Until Dark: Hepburn again, a blind woman stranded in her basement apartment. I’d go berserk in a basement apartment.

Your daughter is the finest woman I’ve ever known, and I’ll not abide such slander. Even from you.” Jonah grinned and clapped Dan on the shoulder. “Good. ’Cause I don’t cotton to the idea of handing my little girl over to a man who ain’t willin’ to stand up for her. Even against her old man.” Dan stumbled back a step. “Oh, come on, Dan. Don’t look so shocked.” Jonah actually chuckled. “You and Etta have been pining for each other for years. Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” He’d noticed? Dan felt a bit queasy at the thought. “I ain’t as blind as I pretend to be, boy.” “Why

The Genius Of The Crowd there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace those who preach peace do not have love beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock their finest art

There are worse things than killing men, Bayard. There are worse things than being killed. Sometimes I think the finest thing that can happen to a man is to love something, a woman preferably, well, hard hard hard, then to die young because he believed what he could not help but believe and was what he could not (could not? would not) help but be.

What a mind that woman must have!" he said with admiration. It was the hushed tone of a jeweller studying the largest and finest diamond he will ever see.

It’s perverse that the finest compliment given to a woman who has just made a person is that she looks like she hasn’t.

It was raining hard the evening Holly died. One of those summer rains that seem to come from nowhere and catch all but the most compulsively weather-conscious off guard. She was beautiful, Holly, and much too good for me by a long stretch. Big soulful eyes. A beautiful face framed in a flowing mane of brunette hair that would lift along the edges at the slightest breeze. Full soft lips that conveyed warmth and sunshine when she smiled, and tender sensuality when they brushed across mine in the quiet darkness of our bedroom. It is no exaggeration to say that I worshiped the ground my wife walked on — perhaps less secretly than would have been wise had it been any woman but Holly. For whatever reason, she adored me, and ours was a mutual admiration society. She thought me the finest man who’d ever walked this earth, and could not imagine going through life with anyone other than me. I thought the world a better place for her being in it, and each time she rose from our tangled sheets to dress in the morning, I was certain birds began to sing songs of joy simply because she was awake.

My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door,—a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living. She was by trade a weaver; and by constant application to her business, she had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery. I was utterly astonished at her goodness. I scarcely knew how to behave towards her. She was entirely unlike any other white woman I had ever seen. I could not approach her as I was accustomed to approach other white ladies. My early instruction was all out of place. The crouching servility, usually so acceptable a quality in a slave, did not answer when manifested toward her. Her favor was not gained by it; she seemed to be disturbed by it. She did not deem it impudent or unmannerly for a slave to look her in the face. The meanest slave was put fully at ease in her presence, and none left without feeling better for having seen her. Her face was made of heavenly smiles, and her voice of tranquil music.

This is madness,” he whispered against her ear. But he made no move to let her go. Her reply was an incoherent, confused moan, and her body became slightly more pliant in his arms, allowing him to mold her even closer to his form. He knew he should stop, knew he damned well shouldn’t have started, but his blood was racing with need, and she felt so . . .so . . . So good. He groaned, his lips leaving hers to taste the slightly salty skin of her neck. There was something about her that suited him like no woman ever had before, as if his body had discovered something his mind utterly refused to consider. Something about her was . . . right. She felt right. She smelled right. She tasted right. And he knew that if he stripped off all of her clothes and took her there on the carpet on the floor of his study, she would fit underneath him, fit around him— just right. It occurred to Anthony that when she wasn’t arguing with him, Kate Sheffield might bloody well be the finest woman in England. Her arms, which had been imprisoned in his embrace, slowly edged up, until her hands were hesitantly resting on his back. And then her lips moved. It was a tiny thing, actually, a movement barely felt on the thin skin of his forehead, but she was definitely kissing him back. A low, triumphant growl emerged from Anthony’s mouth as he moved his mouth back to hers, kissing her fiercely, daring her to continue what she’d begun. “Oh, Kate,” he moaned, nudging her back until she was leaning against the edge of the desk. “God, you taste so good.

In the nineteenth century, The Romantics viewed Nature as benign, a glowing reflection of God's grace. Now we know better. Nature is brutal and, if it is feminine, she's not the kind of woman you can trust. Human beings may be her finest achievement yet, but when you get right down to brass tacks, we're meat. AIDS and organisms like streptococcus don't give a crap that we subdued the earth or produced a Shakespeare...

My wife and I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. I t was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea and natural distilled liqueurs made from purple plums, yellow plums or wild raspberries. Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern I talian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college. She talked all the time and at first it was about people and places. Her companion had a very pleasant voice, was small, very dark, with her hair cut like Joan of Arc in the Boutet de Monvel illustrations and had a very hooked nose. She was working on a piece of needlepoint when we first met them and she worked on this and saw to the food and drink and talked to my wife. She made one conversation and listened to two and often interrupted the one she was not making. Afterwards she explained to me that she always talked to the wives. The wives, my wife and I felt, were tolerated. But we liked Miss Stein and her friend, although the friend was frightening. The paintings and the cakes and the eau-de-vie were truly wonderful. They seemed to like us too and treated us as though we were very good, well-mannered and promising children and I felt that they forgave us for being in love and being married - time would fix that - and when my wife invited them to tea, they accepted.

One of my favourite stories is about an old woman and her husband – a man mean as Mondays, who scared her with the violence of his temper and the shifting nature of his whims. She was only able to keep him satisfied with her unparalleled cooking, to which he was a complete captive. One day, he bought her a fat liver to cook for him, and she did, using herbs and broth. But the smell of her own artistry overtook her, and a few nibbles became a few bites, and soon the liver was gone. She had no money with which to purchase a second one, and she was terrified of her husband’s reaction should he discover that his meal was gone. So she crept to the church next door, where a woman had been recently laid to rest. She approached the shrouded figure, then cut into it with a pair of kitchen shears and stole the liver from her corpse. That night, the woman’s husband dabbed his lips with a napkin and declared the meal the finest he’d ever eaten. When they went to sleep, the old woman heard the front door open, and a thin wail wafted through the rooms. Who has my liver? Whooooo has my liver? The old woman could hear the voice coming closer and closer to the bedroom. There was a hush as the door swung open. The dead woman posed her query again. The old woman flung the blanket off her husband. – He has it! She declared triumphantly. Then she saw the face of the dead woman, and recognized her own mouth and eyes. She looked down at her abdomen, remembering, now, how she carved into her own belly. Next to her, as the blood seeped into the very heart of the mattress, her husband slumbered on. That may not be the version of the story you’re familiar with. But I assure you, it’s the one you need to know.

It was all a mistake,” he pleaded, standing out of his ship, his wife slumped behind him in the deeps of the hold, like a dead woman. “I came to Mars like any honest enterprising businessman. I took some surplus material from a rocket that crashed and I built me the finest little stand you ever saw right there on that land by the crossroads—you know where it is. You’ve got to admit it’s a good job of building.” Sam laughed, staring around. “And that Martian—I know he was a friend of yours—came. His death was an accident, I assure you. All I wanted to do was have a hot-dog stand, the only one on Mars, the first and most important one. You understand how it is? I was going to serve the best darned hot dogs there, with chili and onions and orange juice.” The

To be a successful wife is a career in itself, requiring among other things, the qualities of a diplomat, a businesswoman, a good cook, a trained nurse, a schoolteacher, a politician and a glamour girl. —Emily Mudd, “Woman’s Finest Role,” Reader’s Digest, 1959

The Age Of Reason 1. ‘Well, it’s that same frankness you fuss about so much. You’re so absurdly scared of being your own dupe, my poor boy, that you would back out of the finest adventure in the world rather than risk telling yourself a lie.’ 2. “ I’m not so much interested in myself as all that’ he said simply. ‘I know’, said Marcelle. It isn’t an aim , it’s a means. It helps you to get rid of yourself; to contemplate and criticize yourself: that’s the attitude you prefer. When you look at yourself, you imagine you aren’t what you see, you imagine you are nothing. That is your ideal: you want to be nothing.’’ 3. ‘In vain he repeated the once inspiring phrase: ‘I must be free: I must be self-impelled, and able to say: ‘’I am because I will: I am my own beginning.’’ Empty, pompous words, the commonplaces of the intellectual.’ 4. ‘He had waited so long: his later years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless daily cares, he had waited…But through all that, his sole care had been to hold himself in readiness. For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence….He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from behind….’ 5. ‘ ‘It was love. This time, it was love. And Mathiue thought:’ What have I done?’ Five minutes ago this love didn’t exist; there was between them a rare and precious feeling, without a name and not expressible in gestures.’ 6. ‘ The fact is, you are beyond my comprehension: you, so prompt with your indignation when you hear of an injustice, you keep this woman for years in a humiliating position, for the sole pleasure of telling yourself that you are respecting your principles. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were true, if you really did adapt your life to your ideas. But, I must tell you once more…you like that sort of life-placid, orderly, the typical life of an official.’ ‘’That freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one’s responsibilities.’ ‘Well…perhaps I’m doing you an injustice. Perhaps you haven’t in fact reached the age of reason, it’s really a moral age…perhaps I’ve got there sooner than you have.’ 7. ‘ I have nothing to defend. I am not proud of my life and I’m penniless. My freedom? It’s a burden to me, for years past I have been free and to no purpose. I simply long to exchange it for a good sound of certainty….Besides, I agree with you that no one can be a man who has not discovered something for which he is prepared to die.’ 8. ‘‘I have led a toothless life’, he thought. ‘ A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on-and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What’s to be done? Break the shell? That’s easily said. Besides, what would remain? A little viscous gum, oozing through the dust and leaving a glistering trail behind it.’ 9.’’ A life’, thought Mathieu, ‘is formed from the future just like the bodies are compounded from the void’. He bent his head: he thought of his own life. The future had made way into his heart, where everything was in process and suspense. The far-off days of childhood, the day when he has said:’I will be free’, the day when he had said: ’I will be famous’, appeared to him even now with their individual future, like a small, circled individual sky above them all, and the future was himself, himself just as he was at present, weary and a little over-ripe, they had claims upon him across the passage of time past, they maintained their insistencies, and he was often visited by attacks of devastating remorse, because his casual, cynical present was the original future of those past days.

It was the woman his finest instincts had needed to make them valid; the woman who not only gave to him, but to whom he could give; the woman of memory, of desire, of youth, of restlessness, of completion. A dream. And here, against the softspeaking bubbling water, a reality.

He asked if she sold luminous flowers that he had heard about, flowers which shone in the dark. He wanted them, he said, for a woman who shone in the dark. He could swear that when he took her to the theater and she sat back in the dark in her evening dress, her skin was as luminous as the finest sea shell, with a pale pink glow to it. And he wanted these flowers for her to wear in her hair. Mathilde did not have them. But as soon as the man left she went to look at herself in the mirror. This was the kind of feeling she wanted to inspire. Could she?

In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry perfectly to the caterpillar while we must learn our arts. That is technology--our way to become closer to being like animals.

You've never seen my legs, Marcus. You don't know what you're talking about. And coming from a man who takes his pick of the most beautiful women in London as if he were sampling from a tin of bonbons-" "Are you implying that I'm some shallow fool who values a woman only for her appearance?" Aline was tempted to retract her charge in the interest of maintaining peace between them. But as she considered the last few women that Marcus had carried on with... "I'm sorry to say, Marcus, that each of your recent choice of companions- the last four or five, at least- displayed all the intelligence of a turnip. And yes, they were all quite beautiful, and I doubt that you were able to to have a sensible conversation with any of them for longer than five minutes." Marcus stood back and glared at her. "How does that pertain to what we were discussing?" "It illustrates the point that even you, one of the finest and most honorable men I've ever known, place great importance on physical attractiveness. And if I ever see you consort with a woman who is less than stunningly perfect, then perhaps I'll listen to your lectures on how appearance doesn't matter.

It is not perhaps a question of truthfulness; it is rather a natural incapacity to think for herself, to take cognizance of herself in her own brain, and not in the eyes and in the lips of others; even when the ingenuously write into little secret diaries, women think of the unknown god reading--perhaps--over their shoulders. With a similar nature, a woman, to be placed in the first ranks of men, would require even higher genius than that of the highest man; that is why, if the conspicuous works of men themselves, the finest works of women are always inferior to the worth of the women who produced them.

Sean wrote that he prefers a woman with little experience so that he can take the time to teach her. What’s that about? Altruism at its finest. He wants other guys to have better sex, so he teaches the new girl the ropes. That makes no sense. None of this does. There’s a disconnect between this file and the guy I know.

My wife and I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. It was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea and natural distilled liqueurs made from purple plums, yellow plums or wild raspberries. These were fragrant, colorless alcohols served from cut-glass carafes in small glasses and whether they were quetsche, mirabelle or framboise they all tasted like the fruits they came from, converted into a controlled fire on your tongue that warmed you and loosened your tongue. Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern Italian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college. She talked all the time and at first it was about people and places.

Happiness depends not on things around me, but on my attitude. Alfred Montapert The monument of a great man is not of granite or marble or bronze. It consists of his goodness, his deeds, his love and his compassion. Alfred Montapert No better words than "thank you" have yet been discovered to express the sincere gratitude of one's heart, when the two words are sincerely spoken. Alfred Montapert The man or woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the bowed frame of years, you will always see the dear face and feel the warm heart union of eternal love. Alfred Montapert The finest piece of mechanism in all the universe is the brain of man. The wise person develops his brain and opens his mind to the genius and spirit of the world's greatest ideas. He will feel inspired with the purest and noblest thoughts that have ever animated the spirit of humanity. Alfred Montapert.

i often daydream about the woman i’ll be when i leave the rush of my insecure twenties and pick up self-assurance on the way i can’t wait to make my eighteen-year-old self jealous of the hell i raise roaring into my thirties and forties my soul becoming more potent with age at fifty i’ll sit with my wrinkles and silver hair laughing about the adventures we’ve had together talking about the countless more in the decades ahead what a privilege it is to grow into the finest version of myself - aging

At this point the door of the hospital room swung open and Lieutenant Adam Burke strode into the room, followed by a couple of uniformed officers. He glared at Andy Winslow. "You left the scene of the crime, Winslow." Andy looked innocently at the cop. "I did?" "You know damned well you did. Who the hell do you think you are, letting a corpse into the house and then leaving her there on the floor to die." Andy grinned. "What corpse would that be, Lieutenant?" "This one!" Burke jabbed a thumb at the slight figure on the bed. "You mean Miss Mayhew, Lieutenant? I don't think Miss Mayhew is dead. Are you dead Miss Mayhew?" The slim woman managed a wan, tiny smile. "I don't think I'm dead. I don't even feel sick. I do have a dreadful headache, though." Andy Winslow grinned, "You're entitled to that." Then, to the cop, "It's true that Miss Mayhew was shot at Caligula Foxx's house. I though it was more important to make sure that she was all right, than to wait around for New York's Slowest -- er pardon me, I mean New York's Finest - to arrive.

I have followed the procedure of the ancient painter Zeuxis, who worked in a material temple as I propose to work in a spiritual one. As Cicero tells the story, the people of Croton asked Zeuxis to decorate a temple they held in high esteem with the finest paintings he could devise. He approached the task with care, selecting five of the town’s most beautiful women to sit beside him as he worked and model their beauty for his painting. There were several good reasons for this. Zeuxis, we know, was a master in portraying women’s beauty, which by nature is more elegant and delicate than men’s. But as Cicero makes it a point to explain, he chose several women because he did not think he could find one who was uniformly lovely in all her parts. Nature, he thought, had never conferred such beauty on a single woman that all her parts should have an equal share: nothing composed by nature is complete in all respects, as if, in bestowing all her bounties in one place, nature would have none left to bestow elsewhere. Similarly, in my depiction of the beauty of the soul

She has a great and rare virtue: she is cheerful, but she can understand the sufferings of others and also knows how to soothe them with her mindful compassion. She is, above all, an intellectual woman, a woman of refined tastes, a perfect woman, a friend who is not a burden. She takes perhaps a little too much pleasure in witticisms and clever phrases, but her arrows always have a golden point and are shot with inimitable grace. Certainly, among all the worldly ladies I have known, she is the finest; among all my friends, she is my favorite.

As they approached a puddle, he laid his hand against the small of her back to steer her around it, and her stomach flipped over. Stupid, traitorous stomach, performing acrobatics for the likes of Dom Manton. Why couldn’t it do that with Edwin? He, at least, wanted to marry her. But sadly, Edwin didn’t have smoldering eyes the exotic color of the finest jade. Or hair cropped unfashionably short, which only emphasized the carved masculine lines of his face. Or a body that looked so amazing in blue superfine it made a grown woman want to weep. She would not weep over Dom’s body, curse it!

That's richt. When we were campaignin' wi' Marlborough oor lads had mony time to sleep wi' the canon dirlin' aboot them. Ye get us'd to't, as Annalpa says aboot bein' a weedow woman. And if ye hae noticed it, Coont, there's nae people mair adapted for fechtin' under difeeculties than oor ane; that's what maks the Scots the finest sogers in the warld. It's the build o them, Lowlan' or Hielan', the breed o' them; the dour hard character o' their country and their mainner o' leevin'. We gied the English a fleg at the 'Forty-five,' didnae we? That was where the tartan cam' in: man, there's naethin' like us!

And it is only in its early stage. All those who believe they will remain untouched by its wrath are delusional. If Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament with a line to the deputy prime minister’s office, could be dragged out of his home and gashed and burned alive, what makes anyone think he or she will remain unharmed? If Aamir Khan, one of India’s biggest film stars, can be unpersoned; if Gauri Lankesh, one of its boldest journalists, can be shot dead; if Ramachandra Guha, one of its greatest historians, can be stopped from lecturing; if Naseeruddin Shah, among its finest actors, can be branded a traitor; if Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, can be labelled an agent of Pakistan by his successor; if B.H. Loya, a perfectly healthy judge, can abruptly drop dead; if a young woman can be stalked by the police machinery of the state because Modi has displayed an interest in her—what makes the rest of us think we will remain untouched and unharmed? Unless the republic is reclaimed, the time will come when all of us will be one incorrect meal, one interfaith romance, one unfortunate misstep away from being extinguished. The mobs that slaughtered ‘bad’ Muslims will eventually come for Hindus who are not ‘good’.

The long, curled hair, the dark head bent so reverently, so innocently before her, implied a pair of the finest legs that a young nobleman has ever stood upright upon; and violet eyes; and a heart of gold; and loyalty and manly charm--all qualities which the old woman loved the more the more they failed her. For she was growing old and worn and bent before her time. The sound of cannon was always in her ears. She saw always the glistening poison drop and the long stiletto. As she sat at table she listened; she heard the guns in the Channel; she dreaded--was that a curse, was that a whisper? Innocence, simplicity, were all the more dear to her for the dark background she set them against.

The trial wasn’t the finest hour of American justice as the treatment of the prisoners seemed medieval in its barbarism. Almost all of the male prisoners were dragged into the courtroom with linen masks shielding their faces and chains and heavy iron balls strapped to their ankles. With clanking irons, they shuffled in and, once seated, their hoods were removed. The military commission took testimony for seven weeks and ultimately found all eight defendants guilty, with four of them (Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt) sentenced to hang while three others (including Michael O’Laughlen) were given life imprisonment and one a six-year term. Mary Surratt, who ran a boardinghouse where Booth colluded with other conspirators, went down in historical annals as the first woman ever executed by the federal government.

In summer, most ramen restaurants in Tokyo serve hiyashi chūka, a cold ramen noodle salad topped with strips of ham, cucumber, and omelet; a tart sesame- or soy-based sauce; and sometimes other vegetables, like a tomato wedge or sheets of wakame seaweed. The vegetables are arranged in piles of parallel shreds radiating from the center to the edge of the plate like bicycle spokes, and you toss everything together before eating. It's bracing, ice-cold, addictive- summer food from the days before air conditioning. In Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyōza, a young lifestyle reporter wants to write an article about hiyashi chūka. "I'm not interested in something like hiyashi chūka," says my alter ego Yamaoka. It's a fake Chinese dish made with cheap industrial ingredients, he explains. Later, however, Yamaoka relents. "Cold noodles, cold soup, and cold toppings," he muses. "The idea of trying to make a good dish out of them is a valid one." Good point, jerk. He mills organic wheat into flour and hires a Chinese chef to make the noodles. He buys a farmyard chicken from an old woman to make the stock and seasons it with the finest Japanese vinegar, soy sauce, and sake. Yamaoka's mean old dad Kaibara Yūzan inevitably gets involved and makes an even better hiyashi chūka by substituting the finest Chinese vinegar, soy sauce, and rice wine. When I first read this, I enjoyed trying to follow the heated argument over this dish I'd never even heard of. Yamaoka and Kaibara are in total agreement that hiyashi chūka needs to be made with quality ingredients, but they disagree about what kind of dish it is: Chinese, Japanese, or somewhere in between? Unlike American food, Japanese cuisine has boundary issues.

To quote Jimmy Page, “Technique doesn’t come into it- I deal in emotions.” I copped that line a long, long time ago, and it is a coy way to deflect the question, but as I’ve gotten older and more experienced, I’ve discovered that it is a very prescient and true statement. I try to create a mood within myself, and then I convey that mood onto the page- or screen, as technology would have us have it these days- using the best word choice that I can possibly muster. What are the trappings I employ? Oh, candles, music, a bowl of Mother’s Finest- it’s like seducing a woman, if you can believe it, but it’s all in your mind, and then you need to get it out, in as unadulterated a fashion as possible. It’s no good if people see the puppet strings as you’re pulling them, and if it seems like a seduction- the lights too low, the music too slow- then she knows what you’re up to, and it’s all gonna seem false. The best seduction happens without anyone knowing that it’s happening at all.

Historically, holism had been a break from the reductionist methods of science. Holism (...) is a way of viewing the universe as a web of interactions and relationships. Whole systems (and the universe can be seen as an overarching system of systems) have properties beyond those of their parts. All things are, in some sense, alive, or a part of a living system; the real world of mind and matter, body and consciousness, cannot be understood by reducing it to pieces and parts. 'Matter is mind' – this is perhaps the holists' quintessential belief. The founding theories of holism had tried to explain how mind emerges from the material universe, how the consciousness of all things is interconnected. The first science, of course, had failed utterly to do this. The first science had resigned human beings to acting as objective observers of a mechanistic and meaningless universe. A dead universe. The human mind, according to the determinists, was merely the by-product of brain chemistry. Chemical laws, the way the elements combine and interact, were formulated as complete and immutable truths. The elements themselves were seen as indivisible lumps of matter, devoid of consciousness, untouched and unaffected by the very consciousnesses seeking to understand how living minds can be assembled from dead matter. The logical conclusion of these assumptions and conceptions was that people are like chemical robots possessing no free will. No wonder the human race, during the Holocaust Century, had fallen into insanity and despair. Holism had been an attempt to restore life to this universe and to reconnect human beings with it. To heal the split between self and other. (...) Each quantum event, each of the trillions of times reality's particles interact with each other every instant, is like a note that rings and resonates throughout the great bell of creation. And the sound of the ringing propagates instantaneously, everywhere at once, interconnecting all things. This is a truth of our universe. It is a mystical truth, that reality at its deepest level is an undivided wholeness. It has been formalized and canonized, and taught to the swarms of humanity searching for a fundamental unity. Only, human beings have learned it as a theory and a doctrine, not as an experience. A true holism should embrace not only the theory of living systems, but also the reality of the belly, of wind, hunger, and snowworms roasting over a fire on a cold winter night. A man or woman (or child) to be fully human, should always marvel at the mystery of life. We each should be able to face the universe and drink in the stream of photons shimmering across the light-distances, to listen to the ringing of the farthest galaxies, to feel the electrons of each haemoglobin molecule spinning and vibrating deep inside the blood. No one should ever feel cut off from the ocean of mind and memory surging all around; no one should ever stare up at the icy stars and feel abandoned or alone. It was partly the fault of holism that a whole civilization had suffered the abandonment of its finest senses, ten thousand trillion islands of consciousness born into the pain and promise of neverness, awaiting death with glassy eyes and murmured abstractions upon their lips, always fearing life, always longing for a deeper and truer experience of living.

laughed, it sounded as if he were in pain.” “What of his companion, the woman Selena? Did you meet her as well?” Jeod laughed. “If I had, I would not be here today. Morzan may have been a fearsome swordsman, a formidable magician, and a murderous traitor, but it was that woman of his who inspired the most terror in people. Morzan only used her for missions that were so repugnant, difficult, or secretive that no one else would agree to undertake them. She was his Black Hand, and her presence always signaled imminent death, torture, betrayal, or some other horror.” Eragon felt sick hearing his mother described thusly. “She was utterly ruthless, devoid of either pity or compassion. It was said that when she asked Morzan to enter his service, he tested her by teaching her the word for heal in the ancient language—for she was a spellcaster as well as a common fighter—and then pitting her against twelve of his finest swordsmen.” “How did she defeat them?” “She healed them of their fear and their hate and all the things that drive a man to kill. And then while they stood grinning at each other like idiot sheep, she went up to the men and cut their throats.…

He does not care for me. He brought me to the village to feed his child." "He gave you Red Star." Jesse denied its significance. "That was only so that I would not shame him." "He brought many skins for a new tepee. He brought you elk skins for a new dress." Jesse explained. "We needed those things because of the fire.All of the people needed new tepees, new clothing." "He sits with you every evening outside the tepee." "That is so I can read from the Book." Prairie Flower grew impatient. "Walks the Fire! I tell you truth.Rides the Wind wishes you to be his wife.You know nothing of Lakota ways.I will tell you!" Jesse started to protest, but Prairie Flower interrupted. "No! You listen! When a man wishes to show he wants a woman, he dresses in his finest clothing and comes to her outside her tepee.They sit and talk.He gives gifts to her parents. Not every custom is followed, because you are not a young Lakota woman. But I tell you, Rides the Wind cares for you. After the fire, when Medicine Hawk came-when you were as one dying-you did not see him. I saw him. Rides the Wind did not eat. He did not sleep.He thought only of Walks the Fire.He hunted healing herbs.He hunted the elk for your dress.He took Two Mothers to Yellow Bird's tepee so that his cries would not disturb your rest.He trusted no one but Old One, and himself, and me to care for you.

His gaze was locked on the young woman approaching beside Lady Withram. Short, no more than five feet, with a pretty face, shiny, long, wavy midnight hair and more curves than his shield. He noted all that in an instant, his eyes traveling with appreciation over each asset before settling on her eyes. They were a color he’d never seen before in eyes, a combination of pale blue and green, almost teal with a darker rim circling the unusual irises. They were absolutely beautiful . . . and presently brimming with anxiety and fear. Before he’d even realized he was going to do it, Ross found himself moving around the table to approach the girl. Taking her hand in his, he placed it on his arm and peered solemnly down into her unusual eyes before announcing, “Well worth the wait.” He was pleased to see some of her fear dissipate. Just a little, but it was something. She blushed too, ducking her head as if unused to and embarrassed by such a compliment . . . and her fingers were trembling where they rested on his arm. She did not strike him as a light-skirt, nor was she sour faced or ugly, but she had the finest eyes he’d ever seen, and he wanted to see more of them, so Ross turned and escorted her to the table. He didn’t miss the audible sighs of relief from her parents at their backs. Nor did he miss Gilly’s muttered, “Bloody hell. He’s done fer now.” Judging

In those days there were two dark elves who lived in a fortress by the sea. They did magic there, and feats of alchemy. Like all dwarfs, they built things, wonderful, remarkable things, in their workshop and their forge. But there were things they had not yet made, and making those things obsessed them. They were brothers, and were called Fjalar and Galar. When they heard that Kvasir was visiting a town nearby, they set out to meet him. Fjalar and Galar found Kvasir in the great hall, answering questions for the townsfolk, amazing all who listened. He told the people how to purify water and how to make cloth from nettles. He told one woman exactly who had stolen her knife, and why. Once he was done talking and the townsfolk had fed him, the dwarfs approached. “We have a question to ask you that you have never been asked before,” they said. “But it must be asked in private. Will you come with us?” “I will come,” said Kvasir. They walked to the fortress. The seagulls screamed, and the brooding gray clouds were the same shade as the gray of the waves. The dwarfs led Kvasir to their workshop, deep within the walls of their fortress. “What are those?” asked Kvasir. “They are vats. They are called Son and Bodn.” “I see. And what is that over there?” “How can you be so wise when you do not know these things? It is a kettle. We call it Odrerir—ecstasy-giver.” “And I see over here you have buckets of honey you have gathered. It is uncapped, and liquid.” “Indeed we do,” said Fjalar. Galar looked scornful. “If you were as wise as they say you are, you would know what our question to you would be before we asked it. And you would know what these things are for.” Kvasir nodded in a resigned way. “It seems to me,” he said, “that if you were both intelligent and evil, you might have decided to kill your visitor and let his blood flow into the vats Son and Bodn. And then you would heat his blood gently in your kettle, Odrerir. And after that you would blend uncapped honey into the mixture and let it ferment until it became mead—the finest mead, a drink that will intoxicate anyone who drinks it but also give anyone who tastes it the gift of poetry and the gift of scholarship.” “We are intelligent,” admitted Galar. “And perhaps there are those who might think us evil.” And with that he slashed Kvasir’s throat, and they hung Kvasir by his feet above the vats until the last drop of his blood was drained. They warmed the blood and the honey in the kettle called Odrerir, and did other things to it of their own devising. They put berries into it, and stirred it with a stick. It bubbled, and then it ceased bubbling, and both of them sipped it and laughed, and each of the brothers found the verse and the poetry inside himself that he had never let out.

The Riders Placencia Beach, Belize, 1996 Americans aren’t overly familiar with Tim Winton, although in my mind he is one of the best writers anywhere. This novel is set in Ireland and Greece as a man and his daughter search for their missing wife and mother. Gripping. 2. Family Happiness Miacomet Beach, Nantucket, 2001 The finest of Laurie Colwin’s novels, this is, perhaps, my favorite book in all the world. It tells the story of Polly Demarest, a Manhattan woman who is torn between her very uptown lawyer husband and her very downtown artist lover. 3. Mary and O’Neil Cottesloe Beach, Western Australia, 2009 These connected stories by Justin Cronin will leave you weeping and astonished. 4. Appointment in Samarra Nha Trang Beach, Vietnam, 2010 This classic novel was recommended to me by my local independent bookseller, Dick Burns, once he had found out how much I loved Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. John O’Hara’s novel has all the requisite elements of a page-turner—drinking, swearing, and country club adultery, although set in 1930s Pennsylvania. This may sound odd, but trust me, it’s un-put-downable! 5. Wife 22 Oppenheimer Beach, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, 2012 If you like piña coladas… you will love Melanie Gideon’s tale of marriage lost and rediscovered. 6. The Interestings Steps Beach, Nantucket, 2013 And this summer, on Steps Beach in Nantucket, I will be reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. Wolitzer is one of my favorite writers. She explores the battles between the sexes better than anyone around.

The man glared at the sphere, then a gleam entered his eye. “All right, you hunk of junk, come get me.” He sounded elated, like he was having fun. A man who had fun fighting an assassin bot? He led the bot backward, step by step. It followed him, and he laughed, one of the finest sounds Nella had ever heard. A woman could fall in love with that laugh. But any moment now, he’d fall over Nella’s hiding place, and the bot would get them both, which meant death for her. She held her breath. At the last minute, the man stepped through a narrow doorway into an empty warehouse. The bot skittered into the shadowed opening, then it stopped, confused. The man ducked out and slapped his hand against the wall. A huge metal door slammed down, carrying the startled bot with it. The heavy slab of metal smashed the bot into the floor. Plastic and metal and gold bits flew every which way, clattering against the rusting walls. Then with hiss and a pop, the pieces disintegrated. The man laughed again. “There. See how   you   like it.” But the bot was programmed to kill, no matter what. At the last moment, it released one of its darts, lightning fast, straight at Nella, programmed to seek and find her DNA signature. Nella felt the sting in her bare leg. The poison acted swiftly, and her vision blurred. Through a fog, she saw the big man standing over her, concern in the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. He pulled out the dart and stood holding it in one large hand. She heard him say, “Shit, are you all . . . ?” and then, there was nothing.

In the entire endless evening his serenity received a jolt only a few times. The first was when someone who didn’t know who he was confided that only two months ago Lady Elizabeth’s uncle had sent out invitations to all her former suitors offering her hand in marriage. Suppressing his shock and loathing for her uncle, Ian had pinned an amused smile on his face and confided, “I’m acquainted with the lady’s uncle, and I regret to say he’s a little mad. As you know, that sort of thing runs,” Ian had finished smoothly, “in our finest families.” The reference to England’s hopeless King George was unmistakable, and the man had laughed uproariously at the joke. “True,” he agreed. “Lamentably true.” Then he went off to spread the word that Elizabeth’s uncle was a confirmed loose screw. Ian’s method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven-who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him-was less subtle and even more effective. “Belhaven,” Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight. The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian’s low conversation with him. “I find your presence repugnant,” Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?” Belhaven’s mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a deathly gray. “Are-are you trying to force a-duel?” “Normally one doesn’t bother shooting a repulsive toad, but in this instance I’m prepared to make an exception, since this toad doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut!” “A duel, with you?” he gasped. “Why, it would be no contest-none at all. Everyone knows what sort of marksman you are. It would be murder.” Ian leaned close, speaking between his clenched teeth. “It’s going to be murder, you miserable little opium-eater, unless you suddenly remember very vocally that you’ve been joking about Elizabeth Cameron’s visit.” At the mention of opium the glass slid from his fingers and crashed to the floor. “I have just realized I was joking.” “Good,” Ian said, restraining the urge to strangle him. “Now start remembering it all over this ballroom!” “Now that, Thornton,” said an amused voice from Ian’s shoulder as Belhaven scurried off to begin doing as bidden, “makes me hesitate to say that he is not lying.” Still angry with Belhaven, Ian turned in surprise to see John Marchman standing there. “She was with me as well,” Marchman sad. “All aboveboard, for God’s sake, so don’t look at me like I’m Belhaven. Her aunt Berta was there every moment.” “Her what?” Ian said, caught between fury and amusement. “Her Aunt Berta. Stout little woman who doesn’t say much.” “See that you follow her example,” Ian warned darkly. John Marchman, who had been privileged to fish at Ian’s marvelous stream in Scotland, gave his friend an offended look. “I daresay you’ve no business challenging my honor. I was considering marrying Elizabeth to keep her out of Belhaven’s clutches; you were only going to shoot him. It seems to me that my sacrifice was-“ “You were what?” Ian said, feeling as if he’d walked in on a play in the middle of the second act and couldn’t seem to hold onto the thread of the plot or the identity of the players. “Her uncle turned me down. Got a better offer.” “Your life will be more peaceful, believe me,” Ian said dryly, and he left to find a footman with a tray of drinks.

Granny was the finest woman I ever met, and she lived the life of a true Christian.  Maybe she didn’t go to church like some folks do, but I can tell you right now, she did more good out of church than most any of them in church.

The tulip is the queen of flowers, as the diamond is the finest of all the gems. As the sun rules the day, so does the tulip outshine all of God’s creations.

I was actually just looking for a place to get a little rest.” For a second, the smile dropped from his face, and an expression passed across it that Cass couldn’t identify. “Sleep in a graveyard?” Cass frowned. “You can’t be serious.” Again Cass felt certain he was lying to her. Could he have had something to do with the body stashed in the contessa’s family tomb? Cass didn’t think so. He was a bit too relaxed for having just killed a woman. Behind him, in the darkness, Cass again thought she saw movement. Her breath caught in her throat, but it was just one of the stray cats, darting out in front of a crypt. If Falco noticed her look of alarm, he didn’t comment on it. “Why not? Normally it’s quiet,” he said, grinning at Cass. “No wild women running about. My roommate and I were drinking at Il Mar e la Spada and got into a fight as usual. Tonight I decided to avoid the inevitable thrashing.” He coughed. “His, not mine.” Il Mar e la Spada. San Domenico’s finest--and only--taverna. Cass had never been inside the decrepit old place. “Come on,” Falco said. “I’ll see you safely home to your fancy sheets. I’d say you need your beauty sleep, but it looks like you’ve been getting plenty.” He took Cass’s hand in one of his own, his warm touch like a bolt of lightning, causing her to jump.

Emma ripped the sticky note off the bathroom mirror and threw it in the trash. Sean didn’t have to worry about her rubbing the back of his neck again anytime soon. And he certainly didn’t have to worry about her wanting to get naked. Not with him. If they were a real couple, she’d throw his pillow onto the couch and let his feet dangle over the edge for a change. It was pathetic how fast he’d come up with a lame excuse to run away just because he’d kissed her. It was just a kiss. A great kiss, yes, but still just a kiss. She hadn’t asked him to marry her—to really marry her, of course—or told him she wanted to have his baby. A hot, steamy, toe-curling, bone-melting kiss between two single adults was nothing to run from. But now he’d made a big deal out of it and everything was going to be even more awkward than it had been for the past few days. She’d been curled up on the couch, fuming, for almost an hour when she heard Sean’s truck pull in to the driveway. It was another ten minutes before he crept into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Since she was facing the back of the couch, she didn’t have to make much of an effort to ignore him. He was in the shower so long she must have fallen asleep to the drone of running water, because the next thing Emma knew, her alarm was going off and it was time to face another day in the hell she’d created. But first she had to face Sean. She got first crack at the bathroom, and when she came out, he was sitting on the side of the bed, fully clothed. Thank goodness. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “We should talk about last night.” “How’s Kevin?” “He’s good. And I meant before that.” “You should have stayed for the end of the movie. It was good.” “Dammit, Emma, you know that’s not what I’m talking about.” “Oh, you mean the practice kiss?” She clipped her cell phone onto her front pocket. “We’re getting better at it. That was almost convincing.” “Practice kiss?” He stood, probably so he could look down at her, but she was tall enough it didn’t make much of an impact. “Almost convincing?” “Yeah,” she said, though she turned her back on him, heading toward the door to avoid eye contact, because that was no practice kiss and it could have convinced even the CIA’s finest. He was muttering when she left the room, but she shut the door on him and went downstairs. She didn’t want to talk about it. And she didn’t want to think about the fact he wasn’t happy she called it a practice kiss. That meant he considered it a real kiss. And not only a real kiss, but one that had shaken him up. The only reason kissing a woman should bother a man like him was if he was trying to fight being attracted to her. Hopefully, he’d win, she thought as she headed toward the kitchen, because she was waging that battle herself and didn’t appear to be headed for a victory. Maybe he had enough willpower and self-control for both of them.

I come for the woman,” the Comanche repeated, never taking his gaze from her. “And I bring my finest horses to console her father for his loss. Fifty, all trained to ride.” His black sidestepped and whinnied. The Indian swayed easily with his mount. “Send me the woman, and have no fear. She will come to no harm walking in my footsteps, for I am strong and swift. She will never feel hunger, for I am a fine hunter. My lodge will shelter her from the winter rain, and my buffalo robes will shield her from the cold. I have spoken it.

I come for the woman,” the Comanche repeated, never taking his gaze from her. “And I bring my finest horses to console her father for his loss. Fifty, all trained to ride.” His black sidestepped and whinnied. The Indian swayed easily with his mount. “Send me the woman, and have no fear. She will come to no harm walking in my footsteps, for I am strong and swift. She will never feel hunger, for I am a fine hunter. My lodge will shelter her from the winter rain, and my buffalo robes will shield her from the cold. I have spoken it.” Aunt Rachel crossed herself. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray--” “We don’t sell our womenfolk,” Henry called back. “You sicken my gut, tosi tivo. After you had bedded her, you would have sold her to that dirty old man.” With a sneer twisting his lips, he lifted Tom Weaver’s wool riding blanket from his horse’s withers and tossed it to the dirt. “Better you sell her to me. I am young. I will give her many fine sons. She will not wail over my death for many winters.” “I’d rather shoot her, you murdering bastard,” Henry retorted. “Then do it and make your death song.” The Comanche wheeled his horse, riding close to the window where Loretta stood. “Where is the herbi with such great courage who came out to face us once before? Does she still sleep? Will you hide behind your wooden walls and let your loved ones die? Come out, Yellow Hair, and meet your destiny.

To Tarzan of the Apes the expedition was in the nature of a holiday outing. His civilization was at best but an outward veneer which he gladly peeled off with his uncomfortable European clothes whenever any reasonable pretext presented itself. It was a woman's love which kept Tarzan even to the semblance of civilization—a condition for which familiarity had bred contempt. He hated the shams and the hypocrisies of it and with the clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetrated to the rotten core of the heart of the thing—the cowardly greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding of property rights. That the fine things of life—art, music and literature—had thriven upon such enervating ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that they had endured in spite of civilization. "Show me the fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say, "who ever originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle for survival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God as manifested in the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born all that is finest and best in the human heart and mind." And so Tarzan always came back to Nature in the

It was the finest compliment I ever received for my music.

Whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared.

is that really you, my lord? You couldn’t look more like a girl. You’re more beautiful than me… I think I’m in shock.” “Me too. I’ve never seen a girl this beautiful, even at parties here in the capital,” agreed Dia. I was cross-dressing. Being a woman better suited my plan.

This here is Miz Nellie Ward," Dane started. "Until about an hour ago, she was the owner of one of the finest brothels in Dodge City.” He smiled at the woman and continued. “The place burned to the ground and all her girls left to work for another house.” “What the hell is this about, Marshal?” Mindy said. “If you think I’m going to work for Nellie you’re crazy.” She nodded at the woman. “No offense, Nellie. It’s just that I ain’t got a hankering for spending my time flat on my back. That about killed my mama.” “None taken,” Nellie said, her lips twitching. “Although that’s not why Nellie is here, missy, you might not be so quick to dismiss a job,” the marshal said. “Stuart stopped me on the way over here so I could tell you to turn in your dress, cause you’ve been fired.” “Well, hell. Ain’t that like a man? Takes the mayor’s side in this, without even hearing what really happened.” “Forget it, girl. What I have to say to you—” his eyes swept over the other three women behind bars. “All of you—is I have a proposal.” He paused, making sure he had all their attention. “Nellie’s place burned down, and she has nowhere to go. All of you are a burr under my saddle. I can’t have women in my jail, but none of you have a job or a place to stay.” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “So, this is the deal. There’s a wagon train right now at Fort Dodge from Independence that’s headed to Santa Fe, New Mexico territory. Now I happen to know there are plenty of men down that way looking for wives.” One of the women gasped. “Marshal, surely you’re not suggesting . . .” “Yes, ma’am I am suggesting. You gals will either get on that wagon train with Nellie here as your chaperone or wait until the circuit judge comes around when he sobers up. He’ll be so blasted hung over, he’s liable to send y’all off to the state prison.” “That’s outrageous. You can’t force us to marry strangers.” Another young, pretty girl clutched the cell bars, her knuckles white. “No, ma’am, you’re probably right. I can’t do that. But what I can do is leave you sitting here until old Judge Bailey makes his appearance. Sometimes we don’t see him for six months.” “I’m willing.” The girl curled up on her cot said, her voice barely above a whisper. From Prisoners of Love: Nellie, A Christmas to Remember

There is enough treachery, hatred, violence, Absurdity in the average human being To supply any given army on any given day. AND The Best At Murder Are Those Who Preach Against It. AND The Best At Hate Are Those Who Preach LOVE AND THE BEST AT WAR —FINALLY—ARE THOSE WHO PREACH PEACE Those Who Preach GOD NEED God Those Who Preach PEACE Do Not Have Peace. THOSE WHO PREACH LOVE DO NOT HAVE LOVE BEWARE THE PREACHERS Beware The Knowers. Beware Those Who Are ALWAYS READING BOOKS Beware Those Who Either Detest Poverty Or Are Proud Of It BEWARE Those Quick To Praise For They Need PRAISE In Return BEWARE Those Quick To Censure: They Are Afraid Of What They Do Not Know Beware Those Who Seek Constant Crowds; They Are Nothing Alone Beware The Average Man The Average Woman BEWARE Their Love Their Love Is Average, Seeks Average But There Is Genius In Their Hatred There Is Enough Genius In Their Hatred To Kill You, To Kill Anybody. Not Wanting Solitude Not Understanding Solitude They Will Attempt To Destroy Anything That Differs From Their Own Not Being Able To Create Art They Will Not Understand Art They Will Consider Their Failure As Creators Only As A Failure Of The World Not Being Able To Love Fully They Will BELIEVE Your Love Incomplete AND THEN THEY WILL HATE YOU And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect Like A Shining Diamond Like A Knife Like A Mountain LIKE A TIGER LIKE Hemlock Their Finest ART

In 1782 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in Letters from an American Farmer wrote: “Whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared.

Lucien crossed the street moments before the horses reached him. He tackled Horatia, knocking her to the ground in an alley between the shops. The curricle’s wheels sliced through the snow and slush inches from his boots, soaking them with icy water. For a long moment, Lucien couldn’t move. She was alive. He’d made it. The curricle hadn’t run either of them over… Then his body seemed to realize it had a woman under it. A woman with the finest curves God had ever made to tempt a man. Her bonnet was askew, revealing long lustrous curls of deep chestnut hair. Her dark eyes, so innocent, fixed on his face in wonder. “My lord…” she murmured in a daze. Her gloved hands rested on his chest, holding him at bay. He felt the tremble of her hands all the way to his bones, and his body responded with interest. “What in blazes?” Charles rushed into the alley, gray eyes alight with fury. “Did you see who was driving that curricle?” Charles paused and took in the scene before him with a smile. “Horatia, love, how are you? Not too bruised I hope?” Charles had never in his life bothered with titles or propriety. Neither did Lucien for that matter. So it didn’t surprise Lucien that his friend treated Horatia as he did. “Oh Charles!” she exclaimed. She seemed to realize only now she was on her back in an alley just off Bond Street, with a street full of curious people peering in and Lucien on top of her. Lucien gritted his teeth. “Oh Charles!” she’d said, but Lucien was always “My lord.” It grated his nerves that she didn’t offer such intimacy to him. It was his own damned fault. He pushed her away at every opportunity, just to keep himself from tugging her into the nearest alcove and kissing her. Something about her seemed to render him into the most barbaric state possible. He had little else on his mind other than how she’d taste, how she’d moan and sigh if he could just get his hands on her. “Lucien…” Horatia stammered. His name on her lips was more erotic than a lover’s sated sigh. “What on earth just happened?” “I fear someone just tried to run me over, and you were, unfortunately, in the way,” he explained, worried by the dazed expression swallowing her dark eyes. “I say, Lucien, you might want to get off the girl, she’s turning blue,” Charles teased. “Besides, stay on top of her any longer and people are bound to talk." -Horatia, Lucien, & Charles

series of torches surrounded the curved opening of a large pit, the opening of the Abyss. The high priestess from earlier stood on the opposite side of the pit, before an entourage of twelve nymphs, all seductively alluring in translucent gowns and jewelry. The priestess wore a headdress of gems on her raven black hair. Her purple robe, made from the finest of Phoenician silks, flowed behind her like a spirit. Her eyes were large, deep brown and hypnotic. Her beauty was beguiling. When she spoke, her voice sounded like seven voices blended into one bewitching unity. “Welcome to the Gates of Hades, Son of God,” she said. “And your ass-kissing suck-upssss.” Her “esses” slid through the air like the serpents that wrapped around her arms and neck. Jesus stared her down. She faltered and visibly shivered, but regained her composure and approached him. “What is your name, woman?” “I am the Ob of Paniassss.

Arin was in the still room, trying to soothe the anxiety of a woman who was saying that she had just preserved the jams, and must all of them be used for the banquet, every last one? She didn’t think the Dacrans appreciated ilea fruit. Why serve something they wouldn’t love as much as the Herrani did? It would be best, surely, to keep at least those jars for winter. Trying to explain the politics of such lavish consumption tangled Arin up in frustrated half sentences, because it didn’t make much sense to him, either, to consume every edible thing in one night. And then he heard Roshar’s accented voice in Herrani drifting down the hall from the ktichens. “…you don’t understand. The piece of meat must be the finest, cut from the loin, seasoned with this spice, not that one…” Arin excused himself, told the woman he’d discuss jams later, and followed the prince’s voice. “…and it must be well roasted on the outside, almost charred, yet bloody inside. Bright pink. Listen. This is crucial. If anything goes wrong, the banquet will be ruined.” Arin entered the main kitchen to find the prince haranguing the head cook, who slid a half-lidded look of annoyed sufferance at Arin. “There you are.” Roshar beamed. “I need your help, Arin.” “For the preparation of meat?” “It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.” “Because of meat.” “It’s for his tiger,” said the cook. Arin palmed his face, eyes squeezed shut. “Your tiger.” “He’s very particular,” said Roshar. “You can’t bring the tiger to the banquet.” “Little Arin has missed me. I will not be parted from him.” “Would you consider changing his name?” “No.” “What if I begged?” “Not a chance.” “Roshar, the tiger has grown.” “And what a sweet big boy he is.” “You can’t bring him into a dining hall filled with hundreds of people.” “He’ll behave. He has the mien and manners of a prince.” “Oh, like you?” “I resent your tone.” “I’m not sure you can control him.” “Has he ever been aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you’ll get married, and make babies--” “Gods, Roshar, shut up.

Darcy had been punched in the gut plenty, but never had he been nearly doubled over by the sight of a woman. Malina came out of Edmund and Fran’s bedroom dressed in his mother’s finest gown, which he’d plucked from the wardrobe up at Fraineach after deciding with no small amount of self-flagellation that he’d go through with Aodhan’s plan. The gown draped her from shoulder to floor in forest-green velvet. Gold ribbon wrapped her just below her bosom in a high waistline that hid the gentle swell of her belly. Ivory silk covered her arms and graced her neckline, which was low and so tight her creamy bosom pressed at the silk as if impatient to burst free. She cleared her throat and he realized he’d been staring at that low neckline and the bounty it tried in vain to conceal. He snapped his eyes up to hers. They blazed with emerald humor. “I see I’m about the same height as your mother,” she said, poking the toe of her borrowed slipper from under the hem. Fran bustled around her, frowning at the poor gown’s straining neckline. “Aye, though ye’re a bit more—” She pressed her lips and made a motion with her hands in the general vicinity of her own bosom. “As am I, dear, as am I. ’Tis tight, but ’twill have to do. By the look on poor Darcy’s face, I dinna think he minds.” He scowled at his sister-in-law before giving Malina his full attention. “You are lovely,” he told her, his eyes catching on the heather crown perched amidst her silvery hair. “So lovely.

Why won’t you give up this silly idea of homesteading?” Gertrude went on. Her tone of voice was moderate, but her blue eyes were snapping. “I can’t help thinking you’re just being stubborn, Lily. Caleb is well able to provide for you, I assure you. He comes from one of the finest families in Pennsylvania—I’ve known the Hallidays a long time.” Lily looked down at the floor for a moment, gathering her courage. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said softly. Gertrude sighed. “Do sit down,” she told Lily kindly, taking a chair herself. “Now what is it that I would find so difficult to understand?” “I love Caleb very much,” Lily began in a shaky voice, “but I’m not the woman for him.” Mrs. Tibbet raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And why not?” Lily leaned forward in her chair and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think I may be like my mother.” “How so?” Mrs. Tibbet asked, smoothing her skirts. “She was—she drank. And there were men. Lots of men.” “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Tibbet seriously. “And you drink?” Lily swallowed. “Well—no.” “Then there are men.” “Only Caleb,” Lily said quietly. “But he can make me do and say the most shameful things. I’m so afraid it’s because I’m—er—hot-blooded.” Mrs. Tibbet looked as though she might be trying to suppress a smile. “You wouldn’t be the first girl who’d given herself to a man before marriage, Lily. It isn’t a wise course of action, but it happens often enough.” Lily drew in a deep breath. “I suppose the drinking would come later,” she said, discounting Mrs. Tibbet’s remarks as mere kindness. “And then the men. No, I’m sure I’m better off going on with my life just as I’ve planned.” There was a rap at the door, and then Velvet put her head inside. “Pardon, missus, but dinner’s ready, and the men say they’re going to eat without you if you don’t hurry.” “We’ll be there in a moment,” Mrs. Tibbet answered. “And tell the men that if they don’t wait, they’ll have me to deal with.” “Yes, ma’am,” Velvet replied with a hint of laughter in her voice. The door closed with a click. Mrs. Tibbet turned back to her guest. “If you were my own daughter, Lily, I would tell you the same thing. You couldn’t do better than Caleb Halliday if you searched the world over for a man. Don’t throw away a chance at real happiness—it might be the only one you get.” Lily pushed herself out of her chair and went to stand at the window. From there she could see the moon rising above the roof of the house next door; it looked as though it had just squeezed out of the chimney. “Sometimes I think I know what I want. I’ll decide that I want to marry Caleb and forget all about having a homestead. But then I remember what Mama was like.” “Lily, you’re not your mother.” “No,” Lily agreed sadly, turning to face Mrs. Tibbet, her hands clasped in front of her. “But Mama was young and happy once, and she must have thought she was in love with my father. She married him, she had his children. And then something changed, and she began to drink. Papa went away—I don’t even remember him—and the men started coming around, one after the other …” Gertrude came to take Lily’s hands in her own. “Things will be different for you,” she said quietly. “You’re strong, and so is Caleb. Oh, Lily, don’t be afraid to take a chance.” At that moment the colonel thundered from the hallway that he was going to have his supper right then whether the women cared to come to the table or not, and Lily smiled. “I promise I’ll think things through very carefully, Mrs. Tibbet.” “Don’t take too long,” Gertrude answered, ushering her toward the door of the study. “Fate can take the strangest twists and turns, sealing us off from someone when we least expect it.” At

In another invaluable service to the Allies, the resistance movements in every captive country helped rescue and spirit back to England thousands of British and American pilots downed behind enemy lines, as well as other Allied servicemen caught in German-held territory. In Belgium, for example, a young woman named Andrée de Jongh set up an escape route called the Comet Line through her native country and France, manned mostly by her friends, to return Britons and Americans to England. De Jongh herself escorted more than one hundred servicemen over the Pyrenees Mountains to safety in neutral Spain. As de Jongh and her colleagues knew, being active in the resistance, regardless of gender, was far more perilous than fighting on the battlefield or in the air. If captured, uniformed servicemen on the Western front were sent to prisoner of war camps, where Geneva Convention rules usually applied. When resistance members were caught, they faced torture, the horrors of a German concentration camp, and/or execution. The danger of capture was particularly great for those who sheltered British or American fighting men, most of whom did not speak the language of the country in which they were hiding and who generally stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. As one British intelligence officer observed, “It is not an easy matter to hide and feed a foreigner in your midst, especially when it happens to be a red-haired Scotsman of six feet, three inches, or a gum-chewing American from the Middle West.” James Langley, the head of a British agency that aided the European escape lines, later estimated that, for every Englishman or American rescued, at least one resistance worker lost his or her life. Andrée de Jongh managed to escape that fate. Caught in January 1943 and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany, she survived the war because, although she freely admitted to creating the Comet Line, the Germans could not believe that a young girl had devised such an intricate operation. IN

Due to falling birth rates and a desire to promote Nazi eugenics, it became evident that Germany had to implement programs to increase the population of pure Aryan children. In 1936, Heinrich Himmler built homes where women of acceptable bloodlines were to be bred with SS officers. These homes were called Homes for the Lebensborn. Women who became pregnant out of wedlock could go to one of these establishments and receive the finest of food and care during their pregnancies, with no stigma attached. In fact, they were honored because they were bearing a child for Hitler, for the Fatherland. There was only one stipulation. Once the child was born, if the father was unwilling to raise it, it must be given over to the Home for the Lebensborn. When a woman entered the home, she signed papers to this effect, and the policy forbade mothers from taking their children without marriage to an SS officer. These breeding farms were created in the hopes of repopulating the world with a perfect Aryan race once the Nazis had cleared out all of the undesirables, such as: Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, the physically or mentally handicapped, and anyone else Hitler saw fit to destroy.

Arin was in the still room, trying to soothe the anxiety of a woman who was saying that she had just preserved the jams, and must all of them be used for the banquet, every last one? She didn’t think the Dacrans appreciated ilea fruit. Why serve something they wouldn’t love as much as the Herrani did? It would be best, surely, to keep at least those jars for winter. Trying to explain the politics of such lavish consumption tangled Arin up in frustrated half sentences, because it didn’t make much sense to him, either, to consume every edible thing in one night. And then he heard Roshar’s accented voice in Herrani drifting down the hall from the ktichens. “…you don’t understand. The piece of meat must be the finest, cut from the loin, seasoned with this spice, not that one…” Arin excused himself, told the woman he’d discuss jams later, and followed the prince’s voice. “…and it must be well roasted on the outside, almost charred, yet bloody inside. Bright pink. Listen. This is crucial. If anything goes wrong, the banquet will be ruined.” Arin entered the main kitchen to find the prince haranguing the head cook, who slid a half-lidded look of annoyed sufferance at Arin. “There you are.” Roshar beamed. “I need your help, Arin.” “For the preparation of meat?” “It’s very important. You must impress this importance upon your cook here. The fate of political relations between my country and yours hangs in the balance.

Indeed, in the midst of the devastation, most Londoners demonstrated a dogged determination to live as normal a life as possible: it was their way of thumbing their nose at Hitler. Each morning, millions of people left their shelters or basements and, despite the constant disruption of the train and Underground systems, went to work as usual, many hitchhiking or walking ten or more miles a day. Their commutes, which frequently involved long detours around collapsed buildings, impassable streets, and unexploded bombs, could take hours. Of the staff at Claridge’s, Ben Robertson noted after a particularly violent raid: “Everyone was red-eyed and tired, but they were all there.” The head waiter’s house had been demolished during the night, but he had shown up, as had the woman who cleaned Robertson’s room. “She was buried three hours in the basement of her house,” another maid told Robertson. “Three hours! And she got to work this morning as usual.” FOR

Clay came in and sat on the bed beside her. “Adam and Luther said something was wrong.” Sophie couldn’t hold back a smile even though the tears didn’t quit flowing. Clay rubbed a rough thumb across one cheek. His touch was so gentle that Sophie felt as if she were made of the finest crystal. “Please don’t cry, Sophie darlin’. You know I can’t stand cryin’.” His sweetness and concern made the tears flow faster. “When you cry I feel like some kind of a monster who has hurt you or scared you half to death or. . .” Sophie lunged forward, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him hard to get him to quit talking crazy. She pulled back and smiled at his stunned expression. Softly enough to ensure privacy in the crowded house, she said, “A woman doesn’t always cry when she’s sad or hurt, Clay. I was lying here thinking that God gave me a miracle when he sent Adam, Luther, and Buff to me.

He had to admit, she was one of God’s finest creations. After watching her all morning—and all week, for that matter—he couldn’t keep from admiring the quickness of her smile, the sparkle in her eyes, and the pertness of her steps. His focus lingered on the loose curls dangling against her ear. With her head tilted back, the long expanse of her neck taunted him. The rich shade of her complexion and the smoothness of her skin reminded him he’d gone too long without the affection of a woman.

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” —Isaiah 41:13 (NIV) One day I was standing in line at the store, when a woman tapped me on the arm. “Remember me?” she asked. It was Margo, a girl I’d gone to middle school with. We did the usual those-were-the-days banter and then she said, “A while back I picked your mom up one night on Lahser Road.” My mother was fighting the onset of Alzheimer’s, and she used to get up in the middle of the night, don her Sunday finest, and walk three miles to church in the freezing Michigan dark. I started to thank Margo, but she stopped me. “I thought my life was crumbling,” she said, “that I’d wasted years for nothing. I couldn’t lie in bed crying anymore, so I just threw something on and went driving. I didn’t know what I was going to do. That’s when I saw her.” “Mom?” “We had the most incredible conversation. She said she knew how I felt, that things may seem dark now, but they will get better because God is always near. And she was right. They did. Your mom was such a kind soul and good listener. I will never, ever forget that night.” Mom’s been gone now for a few years. I sometimes wonder about her need to get to church when the hour was darkest. I think she knew what she was about more than we might have suspected and maybe not quite as lost as we assumed. She was searching for something in that cold dark, something she knew was there. My old school friend said she’d never forget that night. Neither will I. Lord, I search for You when the hour is darkest and I am most lost. Direct my steps to You. —Edward Grinnan Digging Deeper: Pss 73:28, 139:7–8; Jn 1:5

As the story goes, during LaGuardia’s stint as judge, a little old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread for her starving grandchildren was brought into court. The fine was either ten dollars (a considerable sum in those post-Depression days) or ten days in jail. Surmising the woman’s destitute situation, Mayor LaGuardia reached into his pocket and paid the fine himself, and then passed a hat around, stating, “I’m fining everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a city where a person has to steal bread in order to eat.” The old woman went home with $47.50 in her purse and hope shining in her eyes. Mayor LaGuardia demonstrated compassion at its finest in that courtroom. Compassion is empathetic willingness to enter someone else’s distress. To not only share their suffering, but take it one step further in attempting to alleviate it.

In a small town in southern England, another convoy of American tanks and trucks came to a brief stop in front of a row of houses, watched by a crowd of townspeople. Suddenly, a woman emerged from a house carrying bowls of strawberries and cream. She handed one to a young lieutenant named Bob Sheehan, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “Good luck. Come back safe.” Galvanized by her gesture of kindness, other townspeople disappeared into their houses and moments later brought out tea and lemonade for the hot, thirsty GIs.

You’ll be no good to that pretty watchmaker if you are dead on your feet. That shirt smells. Go change while I pack this last batch up.” Zack wolfed down another dumpling, drained the glass of milk in one draw, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I am already late, and I’m not changing my shirt.” He grinned as he imagined the expression on Mollie’s face when she tasted her first homemade pierogi. Someday he wanted to drape her in pearls and fill her evenings with music and dancing, but for now, the best thing was to fill her with a decent meal. “Zachariasz, I am not having that girl think I raised a son who does not put on a starched shirt to court a woman. Go change, and I will pack this up.” “Mama, the people in that church live in squalor and sleep on the ground. They don’t care if my shirt isn’t starched.” It was the wrong thing to say to a woman who carried the fate of Polish cultural identity on her shoulders. “I care,” she said. She hustled up the staircase to his bedroom, muttering over her shoulder. “My son went to Yale and works for the finest merchant in the city. He won’t call on a girl stinking like a laborer.” There was no help for it. Zack vaulted up the stairs, tearing his shirt open and shrugging out of it as he went. He tossed it on the bed and grabbed a gleaming white shirt from his mother’s outstretched hands. She beamed with pride as she handed him a pair of cuff links. “I swear, old woman, you would try a saint’s patience,” he muttered as he fastened the onyx cuff link. “This shirt is going to be covered with a layer of soot by the time I get back.” “Bring the watchmaker back with you. We have plenty of room, and it is foolish for her to be sleeping with all those strangers in the church.

........................................To a man without a country, He appeared a joint sojourner. To Joshua armed but afraid, He came a valiant warrior. To Moses raised up on the mount, He was the One yet higher. To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He was the fourth man in the fire. To Elijah who stood as one for God, he was never less alone. For Noah's faithful family, He made an ark their home. To Ezekiel He appeared to be the light cast over the dark. To King David running from the throne, He was the true Monarch. To Daniel at the bite of death, He was the lock upon their jaws. To King Solomon who'd had it all, He was the only worthy cause. To a sinking fisherman, He was life upon the water. To a grieving Jairus, He was life unto his daughter. To a woman at the well, He was complete acceptance. To a doubting Thomas, He was the proof for his reluctance. To a dozen throwbacks from the world, He unleashed His awesome power. From a greedy grave of several days burst forth his finest hour. ........................................

To a man without a country, He appeared a joint sojourner. To Joshua armed but afraid, He came a valiant warrior. To Moses raised up on the mount, He was the One yet higher. To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He was the fourth man in the fire. To Elijah who stood as one for God, he was never less alone. For Noah's faithful family, He made an ark their home. To Ezekiel He appeared to be the light cast over the dark. To King David running from the throne, He was the true Monarch. To Daniel at the bite of death, He was the lock upon their jaws. To King Solomon who'd had it all, He was the only worthy cause. To a sinking fisherman, He was life upon the water. To a grieving Jairus, He was life unto his daughter. To a woman at the well, He was complete acceptance. To a doubting Thomas, He was the proof for his reluctance. To a dozen throwbacks from the world, He unleashed His awesome power. From a greedy grave of several days burst forth his finest hour." ~Things pondered

In 1782 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in Letters from an American Farmer wrote:            “Whence came all these people? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes... What, then, is the American, this new man? He is neither a European nor the descendant of a European; hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared.

The bride, the beautiful princess, a royal daughter is glorious. She waits within her chamber, dressed in a gown woven with gold. Wearing the finest garments, she is brought to the King. Her friends, her companions, follow her into the royal palace. What a joyful, enthusiastic, excited procession as they enter the palace! She comes before her King, who is wild for her! -OLD TESTAMENT, PSALM 45

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Outrageous grace is God’s goodness that comes looking for you when you have nothing but a middle finger flipped in the face of God to offer in return. It’s a farmer paying a full day’s wages to a crew of deadbeat day laborers with only a single hour punched on their time cards (Matthew 20:1 – 16). It’s a man marrying an abandoned woman and then refusing to forsake his covenant with her when she turns out to be a whore (Ezekiel 16:8 – 63; Hosea 1:1 — 3:5). It’s the insanity of a shepherd who puts ninety-nine sheep at risk to rescue the single lamb that’s too stupid to stay with the flock (Luke 15:1 – 7). It’s the love of a father who hands over his finest rings and robes to a young man who has squandered his inheritance on drunken binges with his fair-weather friends (Luke 15:11 – 32). It’s God’s choice to save a slave trader knowing full well that it would take a decade for this man to recognize the wretchedness of his ways. It’s one-way love that calls you into the kingdom not because you’ve been good but because God has chosen you and made you his own. And now he is chasing you to the ends of the earth to keep you as his child, and nothing in heaven or hell can ever stop him.

Come out, White-Eyes,” the voice called. “I bring gifts, not bloodshed.” Henry, wearing nothing but his pants and the bandages Aunt Rachel had wrapped around his chest the night before, hopped on one foot as he dragged on a boot. By the time he reached the window, he had both boots on, laces flapping. Rachel gave him a rifle. He threw open the shutter and jerked down the skin, shoving the barrel out the opening. “What brings you here?” “The woman. I bring many horses in trade.” Loretta ran to the left window, throwing back the shutters and unfastening the membrane to peek out. The Comanche turned to meet her gaze, his dark eyes expressionless, penetrating, all the more luminous from the black graphite that outlined them. Her hands tightened on the rough sill, nails digging the wood. He looked magnificent. Even she had to admit that. Savage, frightening…but strangely beautiful. Eagle feathers waved from the crown of his head, the painted tips pointed downward, the quills fastened in the slender braid that hung in front of his left ear. His cream-colored hunting shirt enhanced the breadth of his shoulders, the chest decorated with intricate beadwork, painted animal claws, and white strips of fur. He wore two necklaces, one of bear claws, the other a flat stone medallion, both strung on strips of rawhide. His buckskin breeches were tucked into knee-high moccasins. Her gaze shifted to the strings of riderless ponies behind him. She couldn’t believe their number. Thirty? Possibly forty? Beyond the animals were at least sixty half-naked warriors on horseback. Loretta wondered why Hunter had come fully clothed in all his finery with wolf rings painted around his eyes. The others wore no shirts or feathers, and their faces were bare. “I come for the woman,” the Comanche repeated, never taking his gaze from her. “And I bring my finest horses to console her father for his loss. Fifty, all trained to ride.” His black sidestepped and whinnied. The Indian swayed easily with his mount. “Send me the woman, and have no fear. She will come to no harm walking in my footsteps, for I am strong and swift. She will never feel hunger, for I am a fine hunter. My lodge will shelter her from the winter rain, and my buffalo robes will shield her from the cold. I have spoken it.

Three bricklayers were working on the same building. When asked what they were doing, the first answered grumpily, “I’m laying bricks.” The second replied with a bit more vision, “I’m putting up a wall.” The third bricklayer’s response was different. He replied enthusiastically and with pride, “I’m building a beautiful cathedral. It will be the finest building in town, and it will be a place of peace and comfort for everyone who walks by it!” What a difference knowing why makes. When you know why you do it, even the most mundane work can become meaningful.

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