Jar Of Smiles Quotes

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

Do you know what a poem is, Esther?' No, what?' I would say. A piece of dust.' Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.' And of course Buddy wouldn't have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn't see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick or couldn't sleep.

He smiled like he couldn't help it. She couldn't believe it. He was actally smiling, teeth and all. Had she ever seen him smile before? No, she realized, because right now, it was such a jarring thing to witness that for a moment it felt as though she was sharing the car with a stranger.

He grinned at her, his smile sudden and jarring as a thunderclap, his eyes the near-black of bitter coffee. "We'll be kings and queens, Inej. Kings and Queens.

I don’t have the money to buy you all the flowers you deserve yet,” he said, sounding so solemn and formal I couldn’t help but smile at the contrast between his tone and the jar of colorful paper flowers in his hands. “So I made them instead.

Did you see that guy in the back, from the radio station?’ His smile is a jar full of fireflies. ‘Crazy Girl,’ he says. ‘All I saw was you.

My mother smiled. "I know my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?" "Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you'd decide to be all right again.

I had been so mad at him when I left, I'd given them back. All except for the one that stuck to the bottom of the jar. He smiled. "They're at home, waiting." "For what?" His eyes glittered. "That, I cannot say.

My mother smiled. "I knew my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?" "Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you'd decide to be all right again.

I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over - dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was.

I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past.

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?

Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying, ‘Do you know what a poem is, Esther?’ ‘No, what?’ I would say. ‘A piece of dust.’ Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, ‘So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.’ And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.

We’ll take up where we left off, Esther’, she had said, with her sweet martyr’s smile. ‘We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.’ A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream. A bad dream. I remembered everything.

I've been wondering. . . I mean, I thought you might be able to tell me something." Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a photographer's bulb, his face was grave, even tentative -- the face of a man who often does not get what he wants.

It always seems to be the bloody perverts who seem happiest of all. Smile at the world as if there's never anything gnawing away at their bloody consciences.

Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? Was it, once more, the deceptiveness of beauty, so that all one’s perceptions, half-way to truth, were tangled in a golden mesh? Or did she lock up within her some secret which certainly Lily Briscoe believed people must have for the world to go on at all? Every one could not be as helter skelter, hand to mouth as she was. But if they knew, could they tell one what they knew? Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was, physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay’s knee.

Do you know what a poem is, Esther?' 'No, what?' I would say. 'A piece of dust.' Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, 'So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you're curing. They're dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

A note from Annabeth.” Piper shook her head in amazement. “I don’t see how that’s possible, but if it is—” “She’s alive,” Leo said. “Thank the gods and pass the hot sauce.” Frank frowned. “What does that mean?” Leo wiped the chip crumbs off his face. “It means pass the hot sauce, Zhang. I’m still hungry.” Frank slid over a jar of salsa. “I can’t believe Reyna would try to find us. It’s taboo, coming to the ancient lands. She’ll be stripped of her praetorship.” “If she lives,” Hazel said. “It was hard enough for us to make it this far with seven demigods and a warship.” “And me.” Coach Hedge belched. “Don’t forget, cupcake, you got the satyr advantage.” Jason had to smile. Coach Hedge could be pretty ridiculous, but Jason was glad he’d come along. He thought about the satyr he’d seen in his dream—Grover Underwood. He couldn’t imagine a satyr more different from Coach Hedge, but they both seemed brave in their own way.

I served everyone automatically, keeping a big smile on my face, but inside I felt like a jar lid that's been twisted on too tight.

He kept smiling, as if the corners of his mouth were strung up on invisible wire.

I don’t have the money to buy you all the flowers you deserve yet,” he said, sounding so solemn and formal I couldn’t help but smile at the contrast between his tone and the jar of colorful paper flowers in his hands. “So I made them instead.” My breath caught in my throat. “Dom…” There must’ve been hundreds of flowers in there. I didn’t want to think about how long it took him to make them. “Happy birthday, amor.” His mouth lingered on mine in a long, sweet kiss. “One day, I’ll buy you a thousand real roses. I promise.” He’d kept that promise, but he’d broken a thousand more since.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people’s eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs Ramsay’s knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was, physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored?

Poppy shifted where she sat, then asked curiously, “Have you ever regretted never finding someone else to love, Rune? Have you ever regretted, in all this time, never kissing anyone else but me? Never loving anyone else? Never filling the jar I gave you?” “No,” I replied honestly. “And I have loved, baby. I love my family. I love my work. I love my friends and all the people that I’ve met on my adventures. I have a good and happy life, Poppymin. And I love, and I have loved with a full heart … you, baby. I’ve never stopped loving you. You were enough to last a lifetime.” I sighed. “And my jar was filled … it was filled along with yours. There were no more kisses to be collected.” Turning Poppy’s face to look at me, my hand under her chin, I said, “These lips are yours, Poppymin. I promised them to you years ago; nothing’s changed.” Poppy’s face broke into a contented smile and she whispered, “Just as these lips are yours, Rune. They were always yours and yours alone.

I went to Luc’s without much enthusiasm and even with some trepidation: I was going to have to chat, be friendly and project an image of myself to them. I would have preferred to have lunch on my own, twirl a jar of mustard round between my fingers, and be vague, vague, completely vague . . .

Maybe he used to like me, but I doubt he does anymore, now that I’ve insulted his bird fetish.” Peter smiled.   “He’s not going to stop liking you over one little argument.   I don’t think he’s the type to just fall for someone and then hate them the next day.   We don’t live in that kind of world anymore, anyway.” “What do you mean?”   “Well, when there were thousands of possible mates to choose from, it was like being a huge candy store with a billion types of sugary things to choose from.   You could sample one of everything and not worry about whether you’d like it much or whatever, because there was always another jar of candy nearby.   But now, there’s no candy store.   There’s a single jawbreaker that you found in the gutter.   And there are no more jawbreaker factories.   No more candy stores.   No more refined sugar.   That one jawbreaker you found could be the only one you’ll ever have again.   You aren’t going to just eat it and say goodbye.” His analogy wasn’t perfect but I saw where he was going with it.   “So I’m like a jawbreaker.   A dirty one you find in the gutter.” “Yeah.   And he likes that candy.   It’s his favorite.   So he doesn’t care that it has smelly feet.” I scowled at him.   “How do you know he likes jawbreakers so much?” “I just know.   I can tell a good match when I see one.   He needs someone spunky and tough, someone different than other girls.   That’s you.” I smiled, liking how Peter had described me.   “But what if he just decides to eat it real quick and then move on?   I mean, there are other jawbreakers out there.   They’re just more rare.” “That’s not how he is.   He’s methodical.   A thinking person.   He’s not rash. And he knows his odds of finding a jawbreaker of this flavor?   Are pretty slim.” “I’ve seen him do some stupid, rash things … like going after the candy at the Cracker Barrel.” “That was all a very carefully-crafted way of making sure he had a good grip on his jawbreaker.   He wants to keep the candy happy.   Keep it sweet.” I rolled my eyes.   “Ugh.   Your analogy is making me want to eye gouge you right now.

But tonight, Cupcake smiles at me. Her pink-​and-​white face lights up. “Samantha, hi!” As if she’s actually delighted to see me. I’m a jewel-​colored cardigan. I’m a first edition of The Bell Jar. I’m a marzipan squirrel. I’m a hairdresser who knows exactly, exactly, how to handle her carefully undertucked bob of golden hair.

We’ll take up where we left off, Esther,” she had said, with her sweet, martyr’s smile. “We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.

I tried to smile, but my skin had gone stiff like parchment.

They were all smiling with bright, artificial smiles.

Remember how you asked me where I like to live best, the country or the city?”                 “And you said...”                 “And I said I wanted to live in the country and in the city both?”                 Buddy nodded.                 “And you,” I continued with a sudden force, “laughed and said I had the perfect setup of a true neurotic and that that question came from some questionnaire you’d had in psychology class that week?”                 Buddy’s smile dimmed.                 “Well, you were right. I am neurotic. I could never settle down in either the country or the city.”                 “You could live between them,” Buddy suggested helpfully. “Then you could go to the city sometimes and to the country sometimes.”                 “Well, what’s so neurotic about that?”                 Buddy didn’t answer.                 “Well?” I rapped out, thinking, You can’t coddle these sick people, it’s the worst thing for them, it’ll spoil them to bits.                 “Nothing,” Buddy said in a pale, still voice.                 “Neurotic, ha!” I let out a scornful laugh. “If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.

We’ll take up where we left off, Esther’, she had said, with her sweet martyr’s smile. ‘We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.’ A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream. A bad dream. I remembered everything. ... Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But they were a part of me. They were my landscape.

I've been wondering... I mean, I thought you might be able to tell me something." Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a photographer's bulb, his face was grave, even tentative -- the face of a man who often does not get what he wants. "I'll tell you if I can, Buddy." "Do you think there's something in me that drives women crazy?

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow. There was a shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases and shadow under houses and trees and stones and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles

She had just smiled and said what a merciful thing it was for him he had died, because if he had lived he would have been crippled and an invalid for life, and he couldn’t have stood that, he would rather have died than had that happen.

A daughter in an asylum! I had done that to her. Still, she had obviously decided to forgive me.                 “We’ll take up where we left off, Esther,” she had said, with her sweet, martyr’s smile. “We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.”                 A bad dream.                 To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.                 A bad dream.                 I remembered everything.                 I remembered the cadavers and Doreen and the story of the fig tree and Marco’s diamond and the sailor on the Common and Doctor Gordon’s wall-eyed nurse and the broken thermometers and the Negro with his two kinds of beans and the twenty pounds I gained on insulin and the rock that bulged between sky and sea like a gray skull.                 Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them.                 But they were part of me. They were my landscape.

You thirsty?" Zero asked. "No," said Stanley. "Because you have three full jars of water," said Zero. "I thought maybe it was getting too heavy for you. If you drink some, it will lighten your load." "I'm not thirsty," said Stanley. "But if you want a drink, I'll give you some." "I'm not thirsty," said Zero. "I was just worried about you." Stanley smiled. "I'm a camel," he said. [...] When they did finally take a drink, they agreed to do it at the same time. [...] "You know I'm not thirsty," Stanley said, as he unscrewed the lid. "I'm just drinking so you will." "I'm just drinking so you will," said Zero. They clinked the jars together and, each watching the other, poured the water into their stubborn mouths.

We'll take up where we left off, Esther,' she had said, with her sweet, martyr's smile. 'We'll act as if all this were a bad dream.' A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.

My mother hadn’t cried either. She had just smiled and said what a merciful thing it was for him he had died, because if he had lived he would have been crippled and an invalid for life, and he couldn’t have stood that, he would rather have died than had that happen.

He advised her against it, thought the jar too great; but no, he reasoned and talked in vain, she smiled and said, “I am determined I will:” he put out his hands; she was too precipitate by half a second, she fell on the pavement on the Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless!

I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery – air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’ I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past

I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery -- air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "this is what it is to be happy." I plummeted dow past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromise, into my own past.

We’ll take up where we left off, Esther,” she had said, with her sweet, martyr’s smile. “We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.” A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream. A bad dream. I remembered everything.

—so much more opportunity now." Her voice trails off. "Hurrah for women's lib, eh?" "The lib?" Impatiently she leans forward and tugs the serape straight. "Oh, that's doomed." The apocalyptic word jars my attention. "What do you mean, doomed?" She glances at me as if I weren't hanging straight either and says vaguely, "Oh …" "Come on, why doomed? Didn't they get that equal rights bill?" Long hesitation. When she speaks again her voice is different. "Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like—like that smoke. We'll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You'll see." Now all this is delivered in a gray tone of total conviction. The last time I heard that tone, the speaker was explaining why he had to keep his file drawers full of dead pigeons. "Oh, come on. You and your friends are the backbone of the system; if you quit, the country would come to a screeching halt before lunch." No answering smile. "That's fantasy." Her voice is still quiet. "Women don't work that way. We're a—a toothless world." She looks around as if she wanted to stop talking. "What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine." "Sounds like a guerrilla operation." I'm not really joking, here in the 'gator den. In fact, I'm wondering if I spent too much thought on mahogany logs. "Guerrillas have something to hope for." Suddenly she switches on a jolly smile. "Think of us as opossums, Don. Did you know there are opossums living all over? Even in New York City." I smile back with my neck prickling. I thought I was the paranoid one. "Men and women aren't different species, Ruth. Women do everything men do." "Do they?" Our eyes meet, but she seems to be seeing ghosts between us in the rain. She mutters something that could be "My Lai" and looks away. "All the endless wars …" Her voice is a whisper. "All the huge authoritarian organizations for doing unreal things. Men live to struggle against each other; we're just part of the battlefield. It'll never change unless you change the whole world. I dream sometimes of—of going away—" She checks and abruptly changes voice. "Forgive me, Don, it's so stupid saying all this." "Men hate wars too, Ruth," I say as gently as I can. "I know." She shrugs and climbs to her feet. "But that's your problem, isn't it?" End of communication. Mrs. Ruth Parsons isn't even living in the same world with me.

Candy loved to shop and she couldn't seem to shop smiling. They'd gone out the front door of The Cookie Jar and into the next building over. There were party dresses on the mannequins in the windows, and Hannah has said they were going to buy something for her to wear to the party tomorrow night.

Naomi’s smile brightens. “Aww, thanks, Wiley! I’ve been working on a cherry batch I think you’ll like if you like that one.” Wiley smiles, his eyes tight. “I can’t wait,” he says, tipping his mason jar to her. To me, he scowls. “You devil.” He pinches me on the ass, and I giggle. “Cool it, cowboy.

Rough language, drinking, spitting, or smoking will not be tolerated in the drawing room when ladies are present, and will be fined one pence per word. We've a jar, you see." "A jar." He said this with every evidence of fascination. "But we also have a withdrawing room for gentlemen, in which they can unleash their baser impulses in case the effort of restraint becomes too much to bear." Lady Derring was very dry. "What a relief to hear. Tethering instincts wears a devil out." He was rewarded with a smile, one of delightful, slow, crooked affairs, as if she just couldn't help herself, and he, for a moment, could not have formed words for admiring it.

Finn stood, his narrow body unhinging at the waist. He handed the jar to Cat and smiled, but Cat grabbed the jar and pushed through the door, out into the cool, dampening night. The fireflies glowed again. She could hear them knocking against the glass. "How lovely," said Cat's father. "Lovely," repeated Finn, as though the meaning of the word alluded him.

A few days later, I found myself back in the cellar. But this time, I was involved in an activity way more fun than cataloging magic junk. “What happened to the promise of making out in castles?” I asked as Archer and I pulled back for a breather. I was leaning back against one of the shelves, my hands clutching Archer’s waist. Over his shoulder, there was a jar of eyeballs staring at me, and I nodded toward it. “Because, see, things like that? Kind of a mood killer.” He glanced at the jar and then turned back to me, waggling his eyebrows. “Really? I find it has the opposite effect.” Giggling, I elbowed him in the stomach and pushed myself off the shelf. “You’re sick.” He smiled and ducked his head to kiss me again, but I skirted around him. “Come on, Cross, we came down here for a reason, and it wasn’t fooling around.” Smirking, Archer folded his arms over his chest. “May not have been your reason, but-“ I cut him off. “No. Don’t distract me with your sexy talk. We need to search this place, and that spell Elodie did will only last so long.” Elodie had swooped into my body at the cellar door, doing a quick spell to unlock it. She hadn’t even looked at Archer, much less said anything. And the second the lock clicked open, she’d vanished. The smirk disappeared from Archer’s face, and he actually looked kind of sullen. “Are you honestly that bummed about not hooking up right now?” I teased. But he was deadly serious when he shook his head and said, “It’s not that. It’s Elodie.” “What about her?” Archer rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, Mercer. Maybe it’s that I’m not completely crazy about the ghost of my ex-girlfriend occasionally inhabiting the body of my current girlfriend.” I backed up another step and ran into another shelf. Something fell off and thunked against the dirt floor. “Whoa, I’m your girlfriend now?” Archer shrugged. “We’ve tried to kill each other, fought ghouls, and kissed a lot. I’m pretty sure we’re married in some cultures.” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Whatever. Look, the fact of the matter is, I don’t have any magic right now. Elodie does. If her occasionally using me as her puppet means that I have powers again, then I’m fine with it. And you should be, too. My body, my ghost, and all that.

A smile spread over Dr. Blockhead's face. 'But where are my manners?' he said. 'What a bad host I am. Let me offer you a little refreshment.' He picked up a jar, opened it, and held it out to Scully. 'Is that what I think it is?' she asked. 'The finest assortment of living crickets money can buy,' said Dr. Blockhead. 'And all quite recently captured. If you don't believe me, read the expiration date on the label.' 'I believe you,' said Scully, still peering at the contents. She reached in and picked out her cricket. Then she put it in her mouth and crunched down. She smiled at Dr. Blockhead. 'Thank you so much for the treat,' she said. Then she gave him a dazzling smile and walked away. 'That Scully,' said Mulder, shaking his head. 'She's just full of surprises.

Instead, as the crystal splinters entered Hornwrack's brain, he experienced two curious dreams of the Low City, coming so quickly one after the other that they seemed simultaneous. In the first, long shadows moved across the ceiling frescoes of the Bistro Californium, beneath which Lord Mooncarrot's clique awaited his return to make a fourth at dice. Footsteps sounded on the threshold. The women hooded their eyes and smiled, or else stifled a yawn, raising dove-grey gloves to their blue, phthisic lips. Viriconium, with all her narcissistic intimacies and equivocal invitations welcomed him again. He had hated that city, yet now it was his past and it was he had to regret...The second of these visions was of the Rue Sepile. It was dawn, in summer. Horse-chestnut flowers bobbed like white wax candles above the deserted pavements. An oblique light struck into the street - so that its long and normally profitless perspective seemed to lead straight into the heart of a younger, more ingenuous city - and fell across the fronts of the houses where he had once lived, warming up the rotten brick and imparting to it a not unpleasant pinkish colour. Up at the second-floor casement window a boy was busy with the bright red geraniums arranged along the outer still in lumpen terra-cotta pots. He looked down at Hornwrack and smiled. Before Hornwrack could speak he drew down the lower casement and turned away. The glass which no separated them reflected the morning sunlight in a silent explosion; and Hornwrack, dazzled mistaking the light for the smile, suddenly imagined an incandescence which would melt all those old streets! Rue Sepile; the Avenue of Children; Margery Fry Court: all melted down! All the shabby dependencies of the Plaza of Unrealized Time! All slumped, sank into themselves, eroded away until nothing was left in his field of vision but an unbearable white sky above and the bright clustered points of the chestnut leaves below - and then only a depthless opacity, behind which he could detect the beat of his own blood, the vitreous humour of the eye. He imagined the old encrusted brick flowing, the glass cracking and melting from its frames even as they shrivelled awake, the sheds of paints flaring green and gold, the geraniums toppling in flames to nothing, not even white ash, under this weight of light! All had winked away like reflections in a jar of water glass, and only the medium remained, bright, viscid, vacant. He had a sense of the intolerable briefness of matter, its desperate signalling and touching, its fall; and simultaneously one of its unendurable durability He thought, Something lies behind all the realities of the universe and is replacing them here, something less solid and more permanent. Then the world stopped haunting him forever.

Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?” “No, what?” I would say. “A piece of dust.” Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.

For a moment, he seems so young and boyish. It makes me want to wrap my arms around him and never let go. The thought is jarring. Permanent. Unyielding. God is becoming worse than any addiction a person could have. He’s a sickness. An infection. And as I watch him effortlessly start a fire, his beautiful smile in place, I realize I want to lick him, inhale him, make love to him. Whatever sickness he is, I want to make it mine.

The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool - to save my skin and take off my skis and walk down, camouflaged by the scrub pines bordering the slope - fled like a disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower...I aimed straight down...A small, answering point in my own body flew towrds it [the sun]. I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery - air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy." I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromised, into my own past. People and trees receded on either hand like the dark sides of a tunnel as I hurtled on to the still, bring point at the end of it, the pebble at the bottom of the well, the white sweet baby cradled in its mother's belly.

Oh, what riches live in a sunny soul! Take joy with you; cling to her, no matter where you go or what you do. It is your lubricating oil which would prevent the jars, the discords, and shut out the sorrows of life. What a heritage is a smiling face,—to be able to fling out sunshine everywhere one goes, to scatter the shadows and to lighten sorrowing hearts; to have the power to send cheer into despairing souls through a sunny and radiant disposition!

The people cast themselves down by the fuming boards while servants cut the roast, mixed jars of wine and water, and all the gods flew past like the night-breaths of spring. The chattering female flocks sat down by farther tables, their fresh prismatic garments gleaming in the moon as though a crowd of haughty peacocks played in moonlight. The queen’s throne softly spread with white furs of fox gaped desolate and bare, for Penelope felt ashamed to come before her guests after so much murder. Though all the guests were ravenous, they still refrained, turning their eyes upon their silent watchful lord till he should spill wine in libation for the Immortals. The king then filled a brimming cup, stood up and raised it high till in the moon the embossed adornments gleamed: Athena, dwarfed and slender, wrought in purest gold, pursued around the cup with double-pointed spear dark lowering herds of angry gods and hairy demons; she smiled and the sad tenderness of her lean face, and her embittered fearless glance, seemed almost human. Star-eyed Odysseus raised Athena’s goblet high and greeted all, but spoke in a beclouded mood: “In all my wandering voyages and torturous strife, the earth, the seas, the winds fought me with frenzied rage; I was in danger often, both through joy and grief, of losing priceless goodness, man’s most worthy face. I raised my arms to the high heavens and cried for help, but on my head gods hurled their lightning bolts, and laughed. I then clasped Mother Earth, but she changed many shapes, and whether as earthquake, beast, or woman, rushed to eat me; then like a child I gave my hopes to the sea in trust, piled on my ship my stubbornness, my cares, my virtues, the poor remaining plunder of god-fighting man, and then set sail; but suddenly a wild storm burst, and when I raised my eyes, the sea was strewn with wreckage. As I swam on, alone between sea and sky, with but my crooked heart for dog and company, I heard my mind, upon the crumpling battlements about my head, yelling with flailing crimson spear. Earth, sea, and sky rushed backward; I remained alone with a horned bow slung down my shoulder, shorn of gods and hopes, a free man standing in the wilderness. Old comrades, O young men, my island’s newest sprouts, I drink not to the gods but to man’s dauntless mind.” All shuddered, for the daring toast seemed sacrilege, and suddenly the hungry people shrank in spirit; They did not fully understand the impious words but saw flames lick like red curls about his savage head. The smell of roast was overpowering, choice meats steamed, and his bold speech was soon forgotten in hunger’s pangs; all fell to eating ravenously till their brains reeled. Under his lowering eyebrows Odysseus watched them sharply: "This is my people, a mess of bellies and stinking breath! These are my own minds, hands, and thighs, my loins and necks!" He muttered in his thorny beard, held back his hunger far from the feast and licked none of the steaming food.

I lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin's rough blanket, waiting for the miraculous change to make itself felt. But all I felt was a sharp, startlingly bad pain. […] Then the stories of blood-stained bridal sheets and capsules of red ink bestowed on already deflowered brides floated back to me. I wondered how much I would bleed, and lay down, nursing the towel. It occurred to me that the blood was my answer. I couldn't possibly be a virgin any more. I smiled into the dark. I felt part of a great tradition.

For some reason the most important thing to me was actually seeing the baby come out of you yourself and making sure it was yours. I thought if you had to have all that pain anyway you might just as well stay awake. I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over—dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was.

Sitting on the floor with her arm round Mrs. Ramsay's knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman who was, physically, touching her, were stood, like treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out, would teach one everything; but they would never be offered openly, never made public. What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? What device for becoming, like waters poured into one jar, inextricably the same, one with the object one adored? Could the body achieve, or the mind, subtly mingling in the intricate passages of the brain? or the heart? Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsay's knee.

Maura was so still he could barely hear her breathe. He spooned whipped cream into her mouth, a cherry varenyk, another sprinkle of salt. He watched the flavors marry as she chewed, saw that smile, spread across her face. He wanted to kiss her, to taste what she tasted. "There it is," she whispered. Fleur de sel," he said, holding up the little jar. "Flowers of salt." She opened her eyes. "That's beautiful." "You're beautiful. It's just salt." He felt his face burn as soon as he said it. He wasn't good at this part. "And I, apparently, am mostly cheese." "I like cheese.

I looked at the baby in the lap of the woman opposite. I had no idea how old it was, I never did, with babies - for all I knew it could talk a blue streak and has twenty teeth behind its pursed, pink lips. It held its little wobbly head up on its shoulders - it didn’t seem to have a neck - and observed me with a wise, Platonic expression. The baby’s mother smiled and smiled, holding that baby as if it were the first wonder of the world. I watched the mother and the baby for some clue to their mutual satisfaction, but before I had discovered anything, the doctor called me in.

The table was set for two, as usual, with one exception. Right smack in the middle was an old chipped crock cookie jar. Glazing cracks started at the bottom and wove their way in different directions, some on the sides, with others winding their way around in circles. "Are we having cookies with our waffles?" Jill asked. "Look at it closely," Sawyer grinned, "Pay especially close attention to the lid." "Daisies," She smiled. "I would have gone out into the pasture and picked some wild ones for you, but it's the wrong time of year. That's all I could find with a daisy on it," Sawyer said

Hi, Auntie Sam,” Hope greets her with a smile. “I was hopin’ you’d be here. Me and Mama created a special auntie pie we’re gonna make just for you.” “You did?” Sam asks excitedly and carries Hope over to where Grace stands so she can hug her, too. “Yeah, it’s called Pain In The Ass Pie,” I say with a smirk, earning a glare from her. My mom smacks my shoulder. “Watch your mouth. Especially in front of the kids.” “Don’t worry, Grandma. We’ve heard him say much worse,” Parker tells her, throwing me under the bus. “Yeah,” Hope joins in. “We make a lot of money in the swear jar ’cause of him. Ain’t that right, Mama?

Greta's cedar hope chest Is full of pamphlets Glass shelves of romantic vignettes A journal laced with sedimentary prose Norma gathers and collects vintage photoplays Hair combs valentines Lillian allows the animals to scratch And the leather crack And the mail collect in the box as coatings peel Agnes veiled cathedral dweller Smiles with benevolent pain But it's Katrina's fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits and mannerists All others dissipate Marguerite vigilant She dwells upon frigid casements Sarah's thoughts in high velocity Accusations always pierce and pass Clara abandons her passions for distastes A Miss Lenora P. Sinclair Early for coffee in the pool "I'm resituating all your words" Capital Space Colon Paragraph Sylvia keeps beasts in jars labeled by Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species But it's Katrina's fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits and mannerists All others dissipate Down the way a silk design This face is mine Tis I, Katrina! Katrina, I.

Maryrose smiled good-humouredly, and remained in the circle of his arm, but as if she detached herself from him and every other man. Very many as it were professionally pretty girls have this gift of allowing themselves to be touched, kissed, held, as if this were a fee they have to pay to Providence for being born beautiful. There is a tolerant smile which goes with a submission to the hands of men, like a yawn or a patient sigh. But there was more to it, in Maryrose’s case. “Maryrose,” said Ted, bluffly, looking down at the gleaming little head at rest on his shoulder, “why don’t you love any of us, why don’t you let any of us love you?” Maryrose merely smiled, and even in this broken light, branch-and-leaf-stippled, her brown eyes showed enormous and shone softly. “Maryrose has a broken heart,” observed Willi above my head. “Broken hearts belong to old-fashioned novels,” said Paul. “They don’t go with the time we live in.” “On the contrary,” said Ted. “There are more broken hearts than there have ever been, just because of the times we live in. In fact I’m sure any heart we are ever likely to meet is so cracked and jarred and split it’s just a mass of scar tissue.” Maryrose smiled up at Ted, shyly, but gratefully, and said seriously: “Yes, of course that’s true.

Do you want some help?" said Anouk, watching me bring out the big glass jars of raisins and cherries and sprinkles and nuts to decorate the mendiants. I smiled. "Of course. My favorites." It has been a long time since Anouk wanted to help me make chocolates. Now she does, as a child might play with her favorite toys for one last time before putting them aside for ever. Almonds, candied lemon peel, fat black cherries, green cardamom, and a sprinkle of edible gold to highlight the rich dark chocolate. Once sold by travelers door-to-door, these are kings and queens of the road, gilded, glossy and glorious. "I made mine into faces," she said. I smiled at her. "You always did.

After all, a kiss between real lovers is not some type of contract, a neatly defined moment of pleasure, something obtained by greedy conquest, or any kind of clear saying of how it is. It is a grief-drenched hatching of two hearts into some ecstatic never-before-seen bird whose new uncategorizable form, unrecognized by the status quo, gives the slip to Death's sure rational deal. For love is a delicious and always messy extension of life that unfrantically outgrows mortality's rigid insistence on precise and efficient definition. Having all the answers means you haven't really ecstatically kissed or lived, thereby declaring the world defined and already finished. Loving all the questions on the other hand is a vitality that makes any length of life worth living. Loving doesn't mean you know all the notes and that you have to play all the notes, it just means you have to play the few notes you have long and beautifully. Like the sight of a truly beautiful young woman, smooth and gliding, melting hearts at even a distant glimpse, that no words, no matter how capable, can truly describe; a woman whose beauty is only really known by those who take a perch on the vista of time to watch the years of life speak out their long ornate sentences of grooves as they slowly stretch into her smoothness, wrinkling her as she glides struggling, decade by decade, her gait mitigated by a long trail of heavy loads, joys, losses, and suffering whose joint-aching years of traveling into a mastery of her own artistry of living, becomes even more than beauty something about which though we are even now no more capable of addressing than before, our admiration as original Earth-loving human beings should nonetheless never remain silent. And for that beauty we should never sing about, but only sing directly to it. Straightforward, cold, and inornate description in the presence of such living evidence of the flowering speech of the Holy in the Seed would be death of both the beauty and the speaker. Even if we always fail when we speak, we must be willing to fail magnificently, for even an eloquent failure, if in the service of life, feeds the Divine. Is it not a magical thing, this life, when just a little ash, cinder, and unclear water can arrange themselves into a beautiful old woman who sways, lifts, kisses, loves, sickens, argues, loses, bears up under it all, and, wrinkling, still lives under all that and yet feeds the Holy in Nature by just the way she moves barefoot down a path? If we can find the hearts, tongues, and brightness of our original souls, broken or not, then no matter from what mess we might have sprung today, we would be like those old-time speakers of life; every one of us would have it in our nature to feel obligated by such true living beauty as to know we have to say something in its presence if only for our utter feeling of awe. For, finally learning to approach something respectfully with love, slowly with the courtesy of an ornate indirectness, not describing what we see but praising the magnificence of her half-smiles of grief and persistent radiance rolling up from the weight-bearing thumping of her fine, well-oiled dusty old feet shuffling toward the dawn reeds at the edge of her part of the lake to fetch a head-balanced little clay jar of water to cook the family breakfast, we would know why the powerful Father Sun himself hurries to get his daily glimpse of her, only rising early because she does.

It was the first one we found. As it turned out, he’d left love notes for her everywhere. Inside the left shoe of her prettiest pair of high heels, at the back of the pantry weighed down by jars, behind the books on the living room shelf. Slotted between their favorite records. Some of them had song lyrics, some had jokes, some had pleas to remember him. My mother collected them all and put them in a Mason jar on her dressing table. Every time we found a new one, she would smile in a way I hadn’t seen her smile without him. When I discovered one in the bottom drawer of my bedside table, I kept it hidden so I could make her smile when we ran out of new notes to find. Or when the telegram came.

Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn't, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another. I thought a spectacular change would come over me the day I crossed the boundary line. I thought it would be the way I'd feel if I ever visited Europe. I'd come home, and if I looked closely into the mirror I'd be able to make out a little white Alp at the back of my eye. Now I thought that if I looked into the mirror tomorrow I'd see a doll-size Constantin sitting in my eye and smiling out at me.

For first-time Soviet travelers to the West a visit to a supermarket produced the biggest effect. The contrast between half-empty, gloomy Soviet food stores and glittering Western palaces with an abundant selection of food was mind-boggling. Not a single Soviet visitor was prepared for the sight of pyramids of oranges, pineapples, tomatoes, bananas; endless varieties of fresh fish and meat, in lieu of a butcher cutting chunks from bluish hulks from a freezer; efficient cashiers with a smiling attitude, instead of rude saleswomen doling out greasy cans and jars to a long line of desperately hungry customers. And then actually to be allowed to touch, to smell, to savor! A severe aftershock awaited Soviet visitors upon their subsequent return to the Soviet Union, and to scenes of misery. This experience changed Soviet travelers forever. Western standards, unimaginable before, immediately became the new norm. Soviet realities, part of everyday habit, suddenly became “abnormal” and therefore revolting, unbearable.

Hennessy carefully patted the blood away to reveal the tattoo. It was difficult to not be overwhelmed by the realness of it, the permanence of it. Part of him expected her to just wipe the blood and ink away to reveal bare skin, but instead, his entire left arm was patterned darkly from shoulder to wrist with something like chain mail. No, like snakeskin. Each scale was a pure dark green, and the only place his skin showed through was in a narrow line to indicate the edge of each interlocking scale. It felt like a lifetime ago he and Hennessy had held a snake in the abandoned museum. Bryde had ordered them to look at the reptile, to study it, take in its details in case they wanted to dream it later. They had. But Hennessy had been wide awake, not dreaming, when she’d painted these scales up and down his skin. “Fuck you,” he told her. “This is so good.” She gave him the ghost of a smile. “Welcome back, Ronan Lynch.” It was still jarring to be Ronan Lynch. Time behaved so differently here; it was important here. One did not have endless dark moments to fill; human lives were so short, so urgent— “Where’s Adam?” Hennessy asked, “What?” “Adam. My Adam. Adam!

You’ve got spirit, I’ll give you that,” Ezmia said. “Perhaps this will humble you.” Ezmia placed the glass jar she had been carrying on a small table close to Charlotte’s cage. Charlotte was horrifed to see a miniature ghostly version of the Fairy Godmother trapped inside. “That’s my… my… grandmother!” Charlotte said, almost forgetting she was still pretending to be her own daughter. “What have you done to her?” A smile appeared on Ezmia’s face, matching the satisfaction in her eyes. “I captured her soul,” she said. The thought almost made Charlotte sick. She’d had no idea such a thing was possible, even in the fairy-tale world. “What do you want with her soul?” Charlotte asked. “It’s a bit of a hobby of mine, actually,” Ezmia said and walked to her fireplace. Displayed proudly on the mantel were five other turquoise jars, each containing a ghostly substance. “You’re a soul collector?” Charlotte asked. “Is it to make up for being soulless?” “What a clever play on words,” Ezmia said mockingly. “You know that phrase forgive and forget? Well, I always disagreed with it—I found it impossible, actually. People would do me wrong and then forget about me, as if their actions didn’t matter—because I didn’t matter. How was I supposed to forgive people like that?” “So you imprisoned their souls instead of forgiving?” Charlotte said. “Precisely,” Ezmia said. “I found taking away their life force to be much more appealing than simply forgiving. To forgive would be to allow them to continue living their lives, free of consequence. But by taking their souls and preventing them from all future happiness, I could heal and find peace.” Charlotte couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Do you honestly expect anyone to sympathize with that?” Charlotte asked her. Ezmia stared into the fire at the burning skulls, almost in a trance. “I don’t want the world to understand; I want it to grovel,” she said. The confession made Charlotte’s heart heavier. She wondered if she would ever escape the clutches of a person who thought like this. But thinking about her children, Bob, and the life she had been stolen from gave Charlotte the strength to survive the Enchantress’s imprisonment. “I find it hard to believe that the Fairy Godmother, who is known for her generosity, would harm you in any way,” Charlotte said. “Sometimes help can be just as destructive as harm,” Ezmia said. “But I imagine someone who helps for a

Melinda Pratt rides city bus number twelve to her cello lesson, wearing her mother's jean jacket and only one sock. Hallo, world, says Minna. Minna often addresses the world, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. Bus number twelve is her favorite place for watching, inside and out. The bus passes cars and bicycles and people walking dogs. It passes store windows, and every so often Minna sees her face reflection, two dark eyes in a face as pale as a winter dawn. There are fourteen people on the bus today. Minna stands up to count them. She likes to count people, telephone poles, hats, umbrellas, and, lately, earrings. One girl, sitting directly in front of Minna, has seven earrings, five in one ear. She has wisps of dyed green hair that lie like forsythia buds against her neck. There are, Minna knows, a king, a past president of the United States, and a beauty queen on the bus. Minna can tell by looking. The king yawns and scratches his ear with his little finger. Scratches, not picks. The beauty queen sleeps, her mouth open, her hair the color of tomatoes not yet ripe. The past preside of the United States reads Teen Love and Body Builder's Annual. Next to Minna, leaning against the seat, is her cello in its zippered canvas case. Next to her cello is her younger brother, McGrew, who is humming. McGrew always hums. Sometimes he hums sentences, though most often it comes out like singing. McGrew's teachers do not enjoy McGrew answering questions in hums or song. Neither does the school principal, Mr. Ripley. McGrew spends lots of time sitting on the bench outside Mr. Ripley's office, humming. Today McGrew is humming the newspaper. First the headlines, then the sports section, then the comics. McGrew only laughs at the headlines. Minna smiles at her brother. He is small and stocky and compact like a suitcase. Minna loves him. McGrew always tells the truth, even when he shouldn't. He is kind. And he lends Minna money from the coffee jar he keeps beneath his mattress. Minna looks out the bus window and thinks about her life. Her one life. She likes artichokes and blue fingernail polish and Mozart played too fast. She loves baseball, and the month of March because no one else much likes March, and every shade of brown she has ever seen. But this is only one life. Someday, she knows, she will have another life. A better one. McGrew knows this, too. McGrew is ten years old. He knows nearly everything. He knows, for instance, that his older sister, Minna Pratt, age eleven, is sitting patiently next to her cello waiting to be a woman.

The jar her hand had chosen—and it was an odd old wooden jar, a recognizable crooked shape under her fingers, a reject because it would not sit straight on a shelf, the only empty jar she could find when at the last minute she’d decided to take a little more honey on her journey, a little of the mysterious honey, the honey that seemed to suggest laughter and joy and a long bright horizon, the strong-tasting honey whose distinguishing source she could not identify. She’d almost laughed when she decanted it because the bigger crock it lived in was also very crooked, not merely a reject but so lopsided that her mother had kept trying to throw it out, and her father kept rescuing it; and when her father died her mother kept it after all, for those memories of him. Mirasol had thought, as she carefully poured, that perhaps this honey had an affinity for those who do not sit securely, who do not rest peacefully, who limp instead of walk. She hadn’t quite been able to laugh, but she’d been smiling when she tucked it into its corner of a saddlebag, and the smile had been as refreshing as cold water Ron a hot day. This was the honey that had given her energy in the sennight past when she had none, the honey she had put last into the cup for her last-of-all stop on the pavilion hill.

And what of all these spices? They're worth a pretty fortune." She waves a juddering arm across the table, at the tins and glass jars and earthenware pots. All at once a shaft of thin northern light swoops over them, jolting them into luminous life: bubbled glass jars of briny green peppercorns, salted capers, gleaming vanilla pods, rusted cinnamon sticks, all leaping and glinting. The sudden startling beauty of it, the palette of hues--ocher, terra-cotta, shades of earth and sand and grass---the pale trembling light. All thoughts of running a boardinghouse vanish. I reach for a jar, lift its cork lid. The scent of bark, earth, roots, sky. And for a second I am somewhere else. "The mysterious scent of a secret kingdom," I murmur. The jar contains little pellets, brown, spherical, unexotic. How marvelous that something so plain can have such an enthralling perfume, I think. "Oh, Miss Eliza. Always the poetess! It's only allspice." Cook gives a wan smile and gestures at the ceiling, where long bunches of herbs hang from a rack. Rosemary, tansy, sage, nettles, woodruff. "And what of these? All summer I was collecting these and they still ain't properly dry." "May I lower it?" Not waiting for an answer I wind down the rack until the drying herbs are directly in front of me---a farmyard sweetness, a woody sappy scent, the smell of bruised apples and ripe earth and crushed ferns.

If we were still eighteen I should say “What’s wrong with Jack Aubrey?” ’ ‘And perhaps I should reply “Everything, since he has a command and I have not,” ’ said James, smiling. ‘But come, now, I can hardly criticize your friend to your face.’ ‘Oh, he has faults, sure. I know he is intensely ambitious where his profession is at issue and impatient of any restraint. My concern was to know just what it was that offended you in him. Or is it merely non amo te, Sabidi?’ ‘Perhaps so: it is hard to say. He can be a very agreeable companion, of course, but there are times when he shows that particular beefy arrogant English insensibility … and there is certainly one thing that jars on me – his great eagerness for prizes. The sloop’s discipline and training is more like that of a starving privateer than a King’s ship. When we were chasing that miserable polacre he could not bring himself to leave the deck all night long – anyone would have thought we were after a man-of-war, with some honour at the end of the chase. And this prize here was scarcely clear of the Sophie before he was exercising the great guns again, roaring away with both broadsides.’ ‘Is a privateer a discreditable thing? I ask in pure ignorance.’ ‘Well, a privateer is there for a different motive altogether. A privateer does not fight for honour, but for gain. It is a mercenary. Profit is its raison d’être.’ ‘May not the exercising of the great guns have a more honourable end in view?’ ‘Oh, certainly. I may very well be unjust – jealous – wanting in generosity. I beg your pardon if I have offended you. And I willingly confess he is an excellent seaman.’ ‘Lord, James, we have known one another

Darwin concluded that language ability is “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art,” a design that is not peculiar to humans but seen in other species such as song-learning birds. A language instinct may seem jarring to those who think of language as the zenith of the human intellect and who think of instincts as brute impulses that compel furry or feathered zombies to build a dam or up and fly south. But one of Darwin’s followers, William James, noted that an instinct possessor need not act as a “fatal automaton.” He argued that we have all the instincts that animals do, and many more besides; our flexible intelligence comes from the interplay of many instincts competing. Indeed, the instinctive nature of human thought is just what makes it so hard for us to see that it is an instinct: It takes…a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside-down? The common man can only say, “Of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made for all eternity to be loved!” And so, probably, does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects…. To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.

Behind her, where Tony had been standing, shadows moved, then a hand gently grasped Elizabeth’s elbow, and a deep, husky voice said near her ear, “Dance with me, Elizabeth.” Shock stiffened her body, slamming against the barricade of numbness that Elizabeth was trying to keep intact. Still gazing straight ahead, she said very calmly and politely, “Would you do me a great service?” “Anything,” he agreed. “Go away. And stay away.” “Anything,” he amended with a solemn smile in his voice, “but that.” She felt him move closer behind her, and the nervous quaking she’d conquered hours before jarred through her again, awakening her senses from their blissful anesthesia. His fingers lightly caressed her arm, and he bent his head closer to hers. “Dance with me.” In the arbor two years ago, when he had spoken those words, Elizabeth had let him take her in his arms. Tonight, despite the fact that she was no longer being totally ostracized, she was still teetering on the edge of scandal, and she shook her head. “I don’t think that would be wise.” “Nothing we’ve ever done has been wise. Let’s not spoil our score.” Elizabeth shook her head, refusing to turn, but the pressure on her elbow increased until she had no choice. “I insist.” Reluctantly she turned and looked at him. “Why?” “Because,” he said, smiling tenderly into his eyes, “I’ve already danced seven dances, all of them with ugly women of unimpeachable reputations, so that I’d be able to ask you, without causing more gossip to hurt you.” The words, as well as his softness, made her wary. “What do you mean by the last part of that?” “I know what happened to you after the weekend we were together,” he said gently. “Your Lucinda laid it all out for Duncan. Don’t look so hurt-the only thing she did wrong was to tell Duncan rather than me.” The Ian Thornton who was talking to her tonight was almost achingly familiar; he was the man she’d met two years ago. “Come inside with me,” he urged, increasing the pressure on her elbow, “and I’ll begin making it up to you.

Maybe they’d give her everything she wanted. All it would cost was her secrets. Charlie pasted a smile on her face. Glanced at the old “fear less” tattoo looping across the skin of her inner arm. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “In that case, I’d like to confess.” “Confess?” Vicereine echoed, puzzled. “Do you remember when Brayan Araya had his secrets written with a laser on grains of rice and kept them in a glass jar under his pillow? I snatched that like I was the tooth fairy. Or remember when Eshe Goodwin got that book with all the detailed illustrations and no one could make head or tail of it? The secrets were written in the artwork, so I cut those pages straight out. I’m not sure she’s opened it up to know they’re missing. I took Owain Cadwallader’s eighteenth-century memoir and discovered a whole pile of notes stitched into the interior binding of another book—I forget the title, but it had these cool metal catches on the side—and took those without letting anyone be the wiser. Oh, and I grabbed Jaden Coffey’s whole collection of seventies shadow magic zines. Want me to go on? I’ve been doing this for years.” She felt giddy, like she was sliding down a hill, no way to stop now. All the exultation of finally admitting to something. “You cut out pages from Eshe’s book?” Vicereine sounded pissed. “I’m a bad person.” Charlie reached into the pocket of her jeans, took something out, and threw it to Malik. Startled, he caught it. When he looked at what was in his hands, his brows drew together. “I also grabbed your wallet when I brushed by you. Sorry.” “You are making some very dangerous enemies,” Vicereine told her. “What’s this all about?” Malik was tight-jawed. “What are you doing?” “Punish me,” Charlie said. “I’m loads worse than Adeline.” “You want it tied to you?” Bellamy asked. The idea of someone inside her head, someone she couldn’t hide her worst thoughts from, someone she loved, made her feel a little queasy. “Yes. Reward or punishment, give him to me. I’ll be the Hierophant.

While the indecisive customer hovered over an array of perfumes that Nettle had brought out for her, the American girls browsed among the shelves of perfumes, colognes, pomades, waxes, creams, soaps, and other items intended for beauty care. There were bath oils in stoppered crystal bottles, , and tins of herbal unguents, and tiny boxes of violet pastilles to freshen the breath. Lower shelves held treasure troves of scented candles and inks, sachets filled with clove-saturated smelling salts, potpourri bowls, and jars of pastes and balms. Nettle noticed, however, that while the younger girl, Daisy, viewed the assortment with only mild interest, the older one, Lillian, had stopped before a row of oils and extracts that contained pure scent. Rose, frangipani, jasmine, bergamot, and so forth. Lifting the amber glass bottles, she opened them carefully and inhaled with visible appreciation. Eventually the blond woman made her choice, purchased a flacon of perfume, and left the shop, a small bell ringing cheerfully as the door closed. Lillian, who had turned to glance at the departing woman, murmured thoughtfully, "I wonder why it is that so many light-haired women smell of amber..." "You mean amber perfume?" Daisy asked. "No- their skin itself. Amber, and sometimes honey..." "What on earth do you mean?" the younger girl asked with a bemused laugh. "People don't smell like anything, except when they need to wash." The pair regarded each other with what appeared to be mutual surprise. "Yes, they do," Lillian said. "Everyone has a smell... don't say you've never noticed? The way some people's skin is like bitter almond, or violet, while others..." "Others have a scent like plum, or palm sap, or fresh hay," Nettle commented. Lillian glanced at him with a satisfied smile. "Yes, exactly!" Nettle removed his spectacles and polished them with care, while his mind swarmed with questions. Could it be? Was it possible that this girl could actually detect a person's intrinsic scent? He himself could- but it was a rare gift, and not one that he had ever known a woman to have.

How may I help, Bea?” Poppy asked, approaching her. Her younger sister handed her a length of heavy silk cord. “Tie this ’round the neck of the jar, please. Your knots are always much better than mine.” “A clove hitch?” Poppy suggested, taking the twine. “Yes, perfect.” Jake Valentine regarded the two intent young women dubiously, and looked at Harry. “Mr. Rutledge—” Harry gestured for him to be silent and allow the Hathaway sisters to proceed. Whether or not their attempt actually worked, he was enjoying this too much to stop them. “Could you make some kind of loop for a handle at the other end?” Beatrix asked. Poppy frowned. “An overhand knot, perhaps? I’m not sure I remember how.” “Allow me,” Harry volunteered, stepping forward. Poppy surrendered the end of the cord to him, her eyes twinkling. Harry tied the end of the cord into an elaborate rope ball, first wrapping it several times around his fingers, then passing the free end back and forth. Not above a bit of showmanship, he tightened the whole thing with a deft flourish. “Nicely done,” Poppy said. “What knot is that?” “Ironically,” Harry replied, “it is known as the ‘Monkey’s Fist.’ ” Poppy smiled. “Is it really? No, you’re teasing.” “I never tease about knots. A good knot is a thing of beauty.” Harry gave the rope end to Beatrix, and watched as she placed the jar atop the frame of the food lift cab. Then he realized what her plan was. “Clever,” he murmured. “It may not work,” Beatrix said. “It depends on whether the monkey is more intelligent than we are.” “I’m rather afraid of the answer,” Harry replied dryly. Reaching inside the food lift shaft, he pulled the rope slowly, sending the jar up to the macaque, while Beatrix kept hold of the silk cord. All was quiet. The group held their breath en masse as they waited. Thump. The monkey had descended to the top of the cab. A few inquiring hoots and grunts echoed through the shaft. A rattle, a silence, and then a sharp tug at the line. Offended screams filled the air, and heavy thumps shook the food lift. “We caught him,” Beatrix exclaimed.

Now,” Hunt said, ignoring the tumult, “if I may have a look at that remaining handcuff, I may be able to do something about it.” “You can’t,” Lillian said with weary certainty. “The key is in St. Vincent’s pocket, and I’ve run out of hairpins.” Sitting beside her, Hunt took her manacled wrist, regarded it thoughtfully, and said with what she thought was rather inappropriate satisfaction, “How fortunate. A pair of Higby-Dumfries number thirty.” Lillian gave him a sardonic glance. “I take it you are a handcuff enthusiast?” His lips twitched. “No, but I do have a friend or two in law enforcement. And these were once given as standard issue to the New Police, until a design flaw was discovered. Now one may find a dozen pair of Higby-Dumfries in any London pawnshop.” “What design flaw?” For answer, Hunt adjusted the locked cuff on her wrist, with the hinge and lock facing downward. He paused at the sound of more furniture breaking from upstairs, and grinned at Lillian’s gathering scowl. “I’ll go,” he said mildly. “But first…” He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket with one hand, inserting it between her wrist and the steel cuff as a makeshift inner padding. “There. That may help to cushion the force of the blow.” “Blow? What blow?” “Hold still.” Lillian squeaked in dismay as she felt him lift her manacled wrist high over the desk and bring it down sharply on the bottom of the hinge. The whack served to jar the lever mechanism inside the lock, and the cuff snapped open as if by magic. Stunned, Lillian regarded Hunt with a half smile as she rubbed her bare wrist. “Thank you. I—” There was another crashing sound, this time coming from directly overhead, and a chorus of excited bellows from the onlookers caused the walls to tremble. Above it all, the innkeeper could be heard complaining shrilly that his building would soon be reduced to matchsticks. “Mr. Hunt,” Lillian exclaimed, “I do wish that you would try to be of some use to Lord Westcliff!” Hunt’s brows lifted into mocking crescents. “You don’t actually fear that St. Vincent is getting the better of him?” “The question is not whether I have sufficient confidence in Lord Westcliff’s fighting ability,” Lillian replied impatiently. “The fact is, I have too much confidence in it. And I would rather not have to bear witness at a murder trial on top of everything else.” “You have a point.” Standing, Hunt refolded his handkerchief and placed it in his coat pocket. He headed to the stairs with a short sigh, grumbling, “I’ve spent most of the day trying to stop him from killing people.

Conjure skillets sat on the stove; the family altar blazed bright with tall candles and portraits of smiling ancestors. Shelves full of glass jars boasted twilight stars. The garden crept along the wall as if it too had to say goodbye.

The scene at Moscow’s Khodynka Aerodrome that day was striking. Along the runway, swastikas fluttered alongside the ubiquitous hammer and sickle banners of the Soviet Union. The swastikas had been requisitioned, as Roger Moorhouse notes in The Devils’ Alliance, from “local film studios, where they had recently been used for anti-Nazi propaganda films.” No less jarring was the musical accompaniment, with a Soviet military band serenading Ribbentrop with “Deutschland über alles,” before switching over to the socialist “Internationale.” More ominous were the handshakes of secret policemen. As one German diplomat observed, “Look how the Gestapo officers are shaking hands with their counterparts of the NKVD and how they are all smiling at each other. They’re obviously delighted finally to be able to collaborate. But watch out! This will be disastrous, especially when they start exchanging files.”27 The

I smile at Margaret as she picks up the small jar from the counter and tucks it discreetly into her handbag. Not that she has any need to hide the innocuous-looking lotion. It’s labelled ‘Vanilla Moisturiser’ and the ingredients listed on it are all organic. It’s the spell that’s been cast over it that makes it something more. Okay, I’ll be honest. It’s a love potion. But not the kind that takes away the object’s free will. That would be unethical. No, this is a concoction that makes observers see the wearer’s good qualities in stark relief. Like turning up the volume on your best physical features and most endearing personality traits. If the object of your desire falls in love with you because of it, then all the better, but there are no guarantees, as I tell all of my customers.

Walt had arrived. He ripped through the enemy line with his bare hands—throwing one rebel magician down the hallway with inhuman strength, touching another and instantly encasing the man in mummy linen. He grabbed the staff of a third rebel, and it crumbled to dust. Finally he swept his hand toward the remaining enemies, and they shrank to the size of dolls. Canopic jars—the sort used to bury a mummy’s internal organs—sprang up around each of the tiny magicians, sealing them in with lids shaped like animal heads. The poor magicians yelled desperately, banging on the clay containers and wobbling about like a line of very unhappy bowling pins. Walt turned to our friends. “Is everyone all right?” He looked like normal old Walt—tall and muscular with a confident face, soft brown eyes, and strong hands. But his clothes had changed. He wore jeans, a dark Dead Weather T-shirt, and a black leather jacket—Anubis’s outfit, sized up to fit Walt’s physique. All I had to do was lower my vision into the Duat, just a bit, and I saw Anubis standing there in all his usual annoying gorgeousness. Both of them—occupying the same space. “Get ready,” Walt told our troops. “They’ve sealed the doors, but I can—” Then he noticed me, and his voice faltered. “Sadie,” he said. “I—” “Something about opening the doors?” I demanded. He nodded mutely. “Amos is in there?” I asked. “Fighting Kwai and Jacobi and who knows what else?” He nodded again. “Then stop staring at me and open the doors, you annoying boy!” I was talking to both of them. It felt quite natural. And it felt good to let my anger out. I’d deal with those two—that one—whatever he was—later. Right now, my uncle needed me. Walt/Anubis had the nerve to smile. He put his hand on the doors. Gray ash spread across the surface. The bronze crumbled to dust.

Mummy gasps. Papa laughs. I suck in my lips, trapping a smile in my cheeks like a firefly in a jar.

Harper: I swear, if I hear the phrase “you should smile more” one more time, I’m going to start throwing things. Just letting you know that the tip jar is going to empty cause I’ll need it to make bail.

I don’t have the money to buy you all the flowers you deserve yet,” he said, sounding so solemn and formal I couldn’t help but smile at the contrast between his tone and the jar of colorful paper flowers in his hands. “So I made them instead.” My breath caught in my throat. “Dom…” There must’ve been hundreds of flowers in there. I didn’t want to think about how long it took him to make them. “Happy birthday, amor.” His mouth lingered on mine in a long, sweet kiss. “One day, I’ll buy you a thousand real roses. I promise.

What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling a lot like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “I was heading to the bait shop and happened to see a little blonde thief sitting at a bus stop.” “Well, hey now—” “It’s okay,” I cut Simon off, placing my hand on top of his. “He’s a grump, but he’s my grump.” Simon glances at me before settling back on Enzo’s fierce expression. I face said grump, and show him my wrist, a bright smile on my face once more, though inside, I’m battering with Satan not to let this man piss off my only friend. “Simon gave me another tattoo. It’s a cactus.

I felt guilty about leaving Meyer alone for so long. I had no way of knowing Willy was going to make ZsaZsa sound like a mute. I always feel guilty when I keep Meyer waiting. And there is never any need for it. He never paces up and down, checking the time. He has those places to go, inside his head. He looks as if he was sitting and dozing, fingers laced across his middle. Actually he has walked back into his head, where there are libraries, concert halls, work rooms, experimental laboratories, game rooms. He can listen to a fine string quartet, solve chess problems, write an essay on Chilean inflation under Allende, or compose haiku. He had a fine time back in there. If you could put his head in a jar of nutrient and keep him alive forever, he would wear forever that gentle, contented little smile.

What the fuck happened between you two?” Logan asks as soon as the door closes. I shrug. Logan is famous for his shrugs. He should accept mine. But he doesn’t. Instead, he punches me in the shoulder. Shit, that hurt. “What the fuck?” I ask. “What happened?” he asks. He looks straight into my eyes. “Nothing,” I say. I shake my head. “Not a fucking thing.” “Dude, you had a pillow shoved in your lap, and you were getting off her bed when we walked in. Something happened.” He shoves my shoulder, almost knocking me over. Logan’s a big boy. A little bigger than me, and I’m a big guy. “Not to mention that she looked like she’d just been fucked.” I stop and turn to face him. I lay both lands flat on his chest and shove him as hard as I can. “Don’t ever fucking talk about her like that again,” I warn. Logan takes a few steps back. Then he grins. “It’s about fucking time,” he says. He holds up a hand to high five me. “Fuck you,” I say instead, and I keep walking toward my dorm. I can’t get there fast enough. “Did you kiss her?” he asks. He grins at me again, and I feel a smile tugging at my own lips. But it doesn’t last for more than a minute. His joviality isn’t contagious. “I was about to…. Then you guys busted in,” I admit. “She wants you, man. She’s got it as bad as you do. Trust me.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t.” “She does.” He claps a hand on my shoulder. “She told Emily. Emily told me.” He pauses and then says, “You’re welcome.” “What did she say?” I ask. I probably don’t want to know. “She said she wants to have your babies.” He jumps back when I go to punch him, and he laughs. “Shut up,” I say. “This is serious.” “Why’s it so serious all of a sudden?” Logan asks.  “This shit’s been going on between you two for a long time. Why does it suddenly matter so much?” “The contest is today. They’re raffling off a kiss from her.” I heave a sigh. “One lucky winner is going to get to kiss the woman I love. In front of everybody.” “Oh, fuck,” Logan breathes. “That’s shit.” “I asked her not to go,” I confess. “So, go buy all the tickets,” he says with a shrug, as though he just solved world poverty or AIDS. “It doesn’t work like that. You have to guess the number of jelly beans in her jar. If you get the wrong number, you don’t get anything. If you get the right number, you get to kiss her.” “So, we need to figure out how many jelly beans are in her jar,” he says simply. He looks at me. “Did you see the jar?” I nod. “It’s a pickle jar.” I hold out my hands to show him the size. “The big kind.” “So we need a jar that size, and we need to fill it with jelly beans and then count them. At least then you can get close, right?” I scrub a hand down my face. “This is stupid. I’ll never get it. Every guess costs a dollar.” I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. It’s nearly empty. “You’re just going to let somebody else kiss her?” “If I’m not there, I won’t see it.” I shrug my shoulders, trying to hide the fact that I feel as if I’m being gutted. He stares at me. He doesn’t say anything. “If it were Emily, I’d buy every fucking pickle and every damn jelly bean in the state of New York. There’s no way my girl would kiss some asshole.” “You’re right,” I say. “We need to go to the store.” Hope swells inside me. Do I have a chance? I won’t know until I try, I guess. Logan

Luke Sheppard, bold and brash with wispy curls, football-built shoulders, and that squinty-eyed smile. Oh, any of us could’ve told her to stay away from him. She wouldn’t have listened, of course. What did the church mothers know anyway? Not how Luke held her hand while they slept or played with her hair when they cuddled or how after she’d told him about the pregnancy test, he cradled her bare feet in his lap. A man who laced his fingers through yours all night and held your feet when you were sad had to love you, at least a little bit. Besides, what did a bunch of old ladies know? We would’ve told her that all together, we got centuries on her. If we laid all our lives toes to heel, we were born before the Depression, the Civil War, even America itself. In all that living, we have known men. Oh girl, we have known littlebit love. That littlebit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. We have run tongues over teeth to savor that last littlebit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more. —

She shrugged her shoulders, then shifted her attention to the hand-labeled glass jars of honey. "Which one do you want to use?" "Something mild to go with the cheese." "The milkweed blossom?" Isabel nodded. "We're probably the only ones who'll notice." "The different flavors of honey have always been obvious to me," Jamie said. "Not to me. I've had to train my palate. Same with wines. But I'm not a natural, but I love the alchemy of pairing flowers. If you were twenty-one and not pregnant, I'd give you a taste of this nice new sauvignon blanc from Angel Creek. It's going to go perfectly with the appetizers." She turned off the heat under the fried marcona almonds and gave the pan a shake. "One sip," Jamie insisted, nibbling a bit of the goat cheese and honey on a cracker. "One, young lady." Isabel poured a bit of the chilled white wine in a goblet and held it out to her. Jamie savored a tiny sip, and smiled blissfully. "You're right. It's delicious." Isabel took back the goblet. "Look at me, corrupting a minor.

Eden hid her smile in my hand and leaned down and kissed me. I took her face in my hand, her velvety skin like energy against my fingertips. Her love for her family and for people who were hurting all collided with her stunning beauty and made her irresistible. I kissed her forehead, her cheek, her neck, and her chin. Our noses touched, and she drew a shaky breath. Her hair hung around my face, creating a veil that hid us from the world.

George Malcolm: half white, half black, with messy tousled hair, rumpled and tugged between kind of curly and extremely curly. Once, a year or so before, he'd been at our house and he'd pulled out a lock of his hair and used it to teach me about eddies and helixes. It's a circular current into a central station, he'd explained, giving me one to hold. I pulled on the spring. Nature is full of the same shapes, he said, taking me to the bathroom sink and spinning on the top and pointing out the way the water swirled down the drain. Taking me to the bookshelf and flipping open a book on weather and showing me a cyclone. Then a spiral galaxy. Pulling me back to the bathroom sink, to my glass jar of collected seashells, and pointing out the same curl in a miniature conch. See? he said, holding the seashell up to his hair. Yes! I clapped. His eyes were warm with teaching pleasure. It's galactic hair, he said, smiling. At school, George was legendary already. He was so natural at physics that one afternoon the eighth-grade science teacher had asked him to do a preview of the basics of relativity, really fast, for the class. George had stood up and done such a fine job, using a paperweight and a yardstick and the standard-issue school clock, that the teacher had pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. I'd like to be the first person to pay you for your clarity of mind, the teacher had said. George used the cash to order pizza for the class. Double pepperoni, he told me later, when I'd asked.

She sat down in front of her open pantry and breathed deeply. She reached forward and patted the large clear jar of dried flageolet beans. She pawed the ten-pound bag of basmati rice, sweet and fragrant. She kissed the chickpeas, haricot beans, dried wild mushrooms. Ah, yes, even the dried cèpes. Oh, she felt better. And look, her vinegars, balsamic, sherry, white and red wine, cider, raspberry. And the oils. So many oils. And so many marinated vegetables. She marinated them herself, picking the freshest, finest baby vegetables, adding extra-virgin olive oil, and enclosing them in beautiful jars. Ah, and look, she smiled. Walnut oil peeked from behind a linen bag of fresh walnuts. She could make a goat cheese salad at any moment. She took a deep, restorative breath. She fingered the labels of the canned smoked oysters, the mussels, the herring, and the boneless skinned sardines in olive oil. She could make a sardine pâté in seconds. And best of all were her vacuum-packed French-style crêpes, which she kept in case of emergencies. A flip of the wrist and she could sit down to a feast of crêpes oozing with fruit syrup and slathered in whipped cream.

My choices are nothing alcoholic, nothing alcoholic and nothing alcoholic, so who cares, honey. Just give me something wet,” Susan answered, coming to stand close to Stellan and her son. “She’s pregnant,” Harry explained to Simone. “Wow. Congrats,” Simone said to Susan with another smile. “I cried three times before getting in the car to come over here just thinking about hearing Stellan call you ‘darling’ again. In other words, like the last one, it’s gonna be a rough ride.” “Crying?” Simone asked. “Crying all the time, and my nipples were hard and hurt like heck for seven months straight, and I actually broke a window when I threw a jar of jelly through it that I couldn’t open, and that was in month five. It went downhill from there.