Regal Man Quotes

You make me tremendously happy to hold me undivided - to let me be the artist, as it were, and yet not forgo the man, the animal, the hungry, insatiable lover. No woman has ever granted me all the privileges I need - and you, why you sing out so blithely, so boldly, with a laugh even - yes, you invite me to go ahead, be myself, benture anything. I adore you for that. That is where you are truly regal, a woman extraordinary. What a woman you are! I laugh to myself now when I think of you. I have no fear of your femaleness.

And at midnight there came an apparition in hell. A handsome dark-eyed man with a dagger-like beard, in a tailcoat, stepped onto the veranda and cast a regal glance over his domain. They used to say, the mystics used to say, that there was a time when the handsome man wore not a tailcoat but a wide leather belt with pistol butts sticking out from it, and his raven hair was tied with scarlet silk, and under his command a brig sailed the Caribbean under a black death flag with a skull and crossbones. But no, no! The seductive mystics are lying, there are no Caribbean Seas in the world, no desperate freebooters to sail them, no corvette chases after them, no cannon smoke drifts across the waves. There is nothing, and there was nothing! There is that sickly linden over there, there is the cast-iron fence, and the boulevard beyond it…And the ice is melting in the bowl, and at the next table you see someone’s bloodshot, bovine eyes, and you’re afraid, afraid…Oh, gods, my gods, poison, bring me poison!...

Als ob es darauf ankäme, dass man alle diese Bücher, die hier stehen, gelesen hat. Nein, man will sie irgendwann lesen. Man hat sie, damit man in einer bestimmten Stunde einfach an das Regal treten kann, das Buch herauszieht und zu lesen beginnt.

Her eyes narrowed, and her lips parted around a knowing laugh. "Oh. It's you." "Pardon?" He was taken aback. "Do we know each other, lass?" He was quite certain they didn't; he could never have forgotten this woman. The enticing manner in which her lips were currently pursed would have been seared into his memory. "The answer is no. I don't know you. But every other woman in this room does. Duncan Douglas, isn't it?" she said dryly. Duncan studied her face. Although she was young-perhaps no more than twenty-she had a regal bearing beyond her years. "I do have some reputation with the lasses," he conceded, downplaying his prowess, confident of her impending maidenly swoon. The look she gave him was far from admiring. He did a double take when he realized her gaze was downright disparaging. "Not something I care for in a man," she said coolly. "Thank you for your offer, but I'd sooner dance with last week's rushes. They would be less used. Who wants what everyone else has already had?" The words were delivered in a cool, modulated tone, shaped by an odd accent he couldn't place. Quite finished with him, she presented her back and resumed talking to her companion. Duncan was immobilized by shock.

She tried to imagine him as an elder Kai man, with hair turned silvery white instead of its current sloe darkness. He’d still be as handsome and regal as he was now. She chuckled under her breath, amused at the idea that she once thought him hideous. One yellow eye peered up at her. “What amuses you, wife?” The question fell away to a moan as she rubbed his scalp. “I was just thinking you are far too handsome for your own good.” “It’s the scars,” he said. “They give me a certain air.

The Warrior knows that no man is an island. He cannot fight alone; whatever his plan, he depends on other people. He needs to discuss his strategy, to ask for help, and, in moments of relaxation, to have someone with whom he can sit by the fire, someone he can regale with tales of battle.

So, whether you are an introvert or extrovert, a woman-loving woman, or a man-loving woman, or a God-loving woman, or all of the above: Whether you are possessed of a simple heart or the ambitions of an Amazon, whether you are trying to make it to the top or just make it to tomorrow, whether you be spicy or somber, regal or roughshod - the wild woman belongs to you.

If there's anything that still connects me to God, it's color. I've yet to find a man-made color that wasn't first displayed in creation. From the deep fuchsia of a bougainvillea to the shocking chartreuse of the moss that clings to the rocks and trees in the damp coastal mountain range, all are unique to God's imagination. I've seen starfish donning brilliant neon orange and regal purple and wildflowers in every hue of the color wheel. We cannot out create Him.

This was the thing about religious types she hated so much. They never missed a chance to proselytize. No tragedy was sacred, no setback off-limits. They would solemnly enter your private space, regal and pompous as crows, full is righteous self-importance. Then, when she was at her weakest, they would tell her why the unacceptable was acceptable, why it was okay that she'd lost the love of her life because an invisible man in the sly (and it was always a man, wasn't it?) had willed it.

Fuck pirates.” Another man stands tall and looks exceptionally regal. “Can you make my dick look like King Henry the Eighth?

Anorexia is regal, in control, all powerful. Bulimia is out of control, chaotic, pathetic, poor mans anorexia. I have friends with anorexia and I can tell they pity me.

I am simply a wounded and dying man. Who can be more regal than a dying man?

She was regal as a queen. Eager as a child. Proud as a cat. And she was like none of those things. Nothing like them. Not in the least little bit.

Felix was his favorite part of the day. He felt like he was holding his breath until Felix sauntered in like he owned the place in whatever insane get-up he’d put together, dropping his stuff on his desk, ignoring the stares, regal as a fucking prince.

I am woman and woman is beautiful. We are expected to be beautiful, so I will be what people don’t expect. They don’t expect intelligence, they don’t expect grace. I am strong, and even when others have the ability to physically overpower me, mentally, I am stronger. I am a queen on a throne, and a place next to me must be earned. When I find my king, his power doesn’t erase my own. My crown is not a man’s to repossess. I was born in regality. I am kind, but naivety does not dwell within me. I am woman. I am the origin. Everything begins and ends with me. No man is worthy of my worth. I cannot be bought. I will not sell myself short. I do not give discounts. I am woman. I demand respect. I respect my dignity. My presence is a revocable gift, rented with effort and good intention. I am woman.

Warmth stole into Murdoch's voice at the memory, and Farah's heart clenched at the picture of her Dougan not yet a man, and yet not a boy, regaling a room full of hardened prisoners about the graveyard capers and bog adventures of a ten-year-old girl in the Scottish Highlands. "He described ye so many times, I feel as though any of us would have recognized ye had we seen ye on the streets. He told us of yer kindness, yer innocence, yer gentle ways and boundless curiosity. Ye became something of a patron saint to us all. Our daughter. Our sister. Our... Fairy. Without even knowing it, ye gave us- him- a little bit of sunshine and hope in a world of shadow and pain.

It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a caster of state. How they use the salt, precisely--who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.

You have good ideas, Elend Venture,” Tindwyl said. “Regal ideas. However, you are not a king. A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.

Daniel recognized in him a pale reflection of the man he’d leaned to hate. Nothing remained of his regal face, of his arrogant demeanor and his haughty presence . Someone or something has ripped out everything that could be taken from a human being until all that remained was a longing for darkness and oblivion

The Chablis runs smooth throughout. Then the vol-au-vents, light as a puff of summer air, then elderflower sorbet followed by plateau de fruits de mer with grilled langoustines, gray shrimps, prawns, oysters, berniques, spider crabs and the bigger torteaux- which can nip off a man's fingers as easily as I could nip a stem of rosemary- winkles, palourdes, and atop it all a giant black lobster, regal on its bed of seaweed. The huge platter gleams with reds and pinks and sea greens and pearly whites and purples, a mermaid's cache of delicacies that gives off a nostalgic salt smell, like childhood days at the seaside. We distribute crackers for the crab claws, tiny forks for the shellfish, dishes of lemon wedges and mayonnaise.

Bridget, angelic and regal. Steffan, clean-cut and debonair in his fancy tuxedo. Then there was me, tattooed and scarred, haunted by the things I’d done and the blood on my hands. By all accounts, Steffan was the better, and easier, option for Bridget. Her grandfather, the palace, the press…they were all salivating for a Princess and the Duke love story. I didn’t give a flying fuck. Bridget was mine. She wasn’t mine to take, but I was taking her anyway. Her laughs, her fears, her joy and her pain. Every inch of her body and beat of her heart. All mine. And I’d had enough of watching her in another man’s arms.

You're trying to be charming again," Shelby muttered. "Am I succeeding?" Some questions were best ignored. "I really don't know how to be more succinct, Alan." Was that part of the appeal? he wondered. The fact that the free-spirited Gypsy could turn into the regal duchess in the blink of an eye. He doubted she had any notion she was as much one as the other. "You have a wonderful speaking voice.What time will you be ready?" Shelby huffed and frowned and considered. "If I agree to spend some time with you today, will you stop sending me things?" Alan was silent for a long moment. "Are you going to take a politician's word?" Now she had to laugh. "All right, you've boxed me in on that one." "It's a beautiful day, Shelby.I haven't had a free Saturday in over a month. Come out with me." She twined the phone cord around her finger. A refusal seemed so petty, so bad-natured.He was really asking her for very little, and-dammit-she wanted to see him. "All right, Alan, every rule needs to be bent a bit now and again to prove it's really a rule after all." "If you say so.Where would you like to go? There's an exhibition of Flemish art at the National Gallery." Shelby's lips curved. "The zoo," she said and waited for his reaction. "Fine," Alan agreed without missing a beat. "I'll be there in ten minutes." With a sigh,Shelby decided he just wasn't an easy man to shake. "Alan, I'm not dressed." "I'll be there in five." On a burst of laughter, she slammed down the phone.

She found a small picture made entirely of feathers and was trying to decide whether it depicted a monkey climbing up the back of a man—or possibly a person climbing a flight of stairs or perhaps a cow next to a tree, when she saw a chess piece, sitting by itself on a small pedestal. It was the white queen, carved from ivory. She stood with a regal frown, her body shadowed by the enormous crown that bloomed on her head. The crown was a hollow sphere, exquisitely carved with open work, and when Jemma peered inside she saw inside another sphere, also open, and inside that, yet another.

dope? Tawfulsdreck! A reine of the shee, a shebeen quean, a queen of pranks. A kingly man, of royal mien, regally robed, exalted be his glory! So gave so take: Now not, not now! He would just a min. Suffering trumpet! He thought he want. Whath? Hear, O hear, living of the land! Hungreb, dead era, hark!

Because what should I fear facing eternity, if today the wind tousles my hair, freshens my face, blows into the collar of my shirt, flows through my pockets, and rips the buttons off of my jacket, while tomorrow it breaks useless old buildings, uproots oaks, stirs and swells reservoirs, and carries the seeds from my orchard all over the world—what should I fear, I, geographer Pavel Norvegov, an honest suntanned man from the fifth suburban zone, a modest but well-qualified pedagogue, whose thin but still-regal hand from morning until evening keeps turning the empty planet made of the deceptive papier-mâché?

Many, Lorenzo, have held and still hold the opinion, that there is nothing which has less in common with another, and that is so dissimilar, as civilian life is from the military. Whence it is often observed, if anyone designs to avail himself of an enlistment in the army, that he soon changes, not only his clothes, but also his customs, his habits, his voice, and in the presence of any civilian custom, he goes to pieces; for I do not believe that any man can dress in civilian clothes who wants to be quick and ready for any violence; nor can that man have civilian customs and habits, who judges those customs to be effeminate and those habits not conducive to his actions; nor does it seem right to him to maintain his ordinary appearance and voice who, with his beard and cursing, wants to make other men afraid: which makes such an opinion in these times to be very true. But if they should consider the ancient institutions, they would not find matter more united, more in conformity, and which, of necessity, should be like to each other as much as these (civilian and military); for in all the arts that are established in a society for the sake of the common good of men, all those institutions created to (make people) live in fear of the laws and of God would be in vain, if their defense had not been provided for and which, if well arranged, will maintain not only these, but also those that are not well established. And so (on the contrary), good institutions without the help of the military are not much differently disordered than the habitation of a superb and regal palace, which, even though adorned with jewels and gold, if it is not roofed over will not have anything to protect it from the rain. And, if in any other institutions of a City and of a Republic every diligence is employed in keeping men loyal, peaceful, and full of the fear of God, it is doubled in the military; for in what man ought the country look for greater loyalty than in that man who has to promise to die for her? In whom ought there to be a greater love of peace, than in him who can only be injured by war? In whom ought there to be a greater fear of God than in him who, undergoing infinite dangers every day, has more need for His aid? If these necessities in forming the life of the soldier are well considered, they are found to be praised by those who gave the laws to the Commanders and by those who were put in charge of military training, and followed and imitated with all diligence by others.

​“I am woman and woman is beautiful. We are expected to be beautiful, so I will be what people don’t expect. They don’t expect intelligence, they don’t expect grace. I am strong, and even when others have the ability to physically overpower me, mentally, I am stronger. I am a queen on a throne, and a place next to me must be earned. When I find my king, his power doesn’t erase my own. My crown is not a man’s to repossess. I was born in regality.  I am kind, but naivety does not dwell within me. I am woman. I am the origin. Everything begins and ends with me. No man is worthy of my worth. I cannot be bought. I will not sell myself short. I do not give discounts. I am woman. I demand respect. I respect my dignity. My presence is a revocable gift, rented with effort and good intention. I am woman.

God lives in my head. His fields are immeasurable, his gardens are full of beautiful flowers that never die, regal women walk there naked, thousands of them. And the sun rises and sets and shines low and high and low again and the endless domain is endlessly itself and never the same for an instant. Broad rivers run through it, curving and meandering, and the sun shines on them and they carry the light to the sea. I sit quiet and content beside the rivers of my thoughts and smoke a clay pipe and feel the sunshine on my body and see the water flow ceaselessly into the unknown. The unknown doesn’t bother me. I nod now and then to the beautiful women plucking the flowers in my gardens and I hear the wind rustling through the high pines, through the forests of certainty, of knowing that all this exists whenever I decide to think it. I am grateful that this has been given to me. And I puff on my pipe in all humility and feel like God himself, who is infinity itself. I sit there aimlessly, God’s aim is aimlessness. But to keep this awareness always is granted to no man.

What did you just call him?” “Rufus is a stupid name,” she says with a shrug. I choke on air. “Excuse me?” “You heard me. What even is a Rufus anyway?” “A name,” I answer. “A manly name for a manly dog.” “He looks like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sprinkles. It had to be changed.” “You can’t just change a dog’s name. He’s eight months old. He likes his name. He knows it.” “Does he?” she asks, arching a brow. Jesus, she looks so much like her mother right now it’s almost scary. “Rufus.” I whistle. “Come here boy.” He lets out a whimper, but stays rooted in place, his eyes trained on the girl with the snacks. “Sprinkles, come.” Priss points to the floor. That traitor rises to all fours, looking more regal than Queen Elizabeth herself as he marches to her side. Man’s best friend, my ass. “Good boy,” she says, stuffing another treat into his mouth. “Sprinkles, sit.” He sits. “Shake,” she says, holding out her hand for his paw. “You taught him all of that in less than two hours?” “Uh-huh. Wasn’t hard. I watched some dog training videos.” “Let me guess, YouTube?” She grins. “Well, it worked.” “I see that.” “So…Sprinkles?” She steeples her hands in front of her face, poking out her lip for added drama. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how my beast of a dog became a pansy.

When at last he finally hooked one, despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to prevent it, she scrambled to her feet and backed up a step. “You-you’re hurting it!” she cried as he pulled the hook from its mouth. “Hurting what? The fish?” he asked in disbelief. “Yes!” “Nonsense,” said he, looking at her as if she was daft, then he tossed the fish on the bank. “It can’t breathe, I tell you!” she wailed, her eyes fixed on the flapping fish. “It doesn’t need to breathe,” he retorted. “We’re going to eat it for lunch.” “I certainly won’t!” she cried, managing to look at him as if he were a cold-blooded murderer. “Lady Cameron,” he said sternly, “am I to believe you’ve never eaten a fish?” “Well, of course I have.” “And where do you think the fish you’ve eaten came from?” he continued with irate logic. “It came from a nice tidy package wrapped in paper,” Elizabeth announced with a vacuous look. “They come in nice, tidy paper wrapping.” “Well, they weren’t born in that tidy paper,” he replied, and Elizabeth had a dreadful time hiding her admiration for his patience as well as for the firm tone he was finally taking with her. He was not, as she had originally thought, a fool or a namby-pamby. “Before that,” he persisted, “where was the fish? How did that fish get to the market in the first place?” Elizabeth gave her head a haughty toss, glanced sympathetically at the flapping fish, then gazed at him with haughty condemnation in her eyes. “I assume they used nets or something, but I’m perfectly certain they didn’t do it this way.” “What way?” he demanded. “The way you have-sneaking up on it in its own little watery home, tricking it by covering up your hook with that poor fuzzy thing, and then jerking the poor fish away from its family and tossing it on the bank to die. It’s quite inhumane!” she said, and she gave her skirts an irate twitch. Lord Marchman stared at her in frowning disbelief, then he shook his head as if trying to clear it. A few minutes later he escorted her home. Elizabeth made him carry the basket containing the fish on the opposite side from where she walked. And when that didn’t seem to discomfit the poor man she insisted he hold his arm straight out-to keep the basket even further from her person. She was not at all surprised when Lord Marchman excused himself until supper, nor when he remained moody and thoughtful throughout their uncomfortable meal. She covered the silence, however, by chattering earnestly about the difference between French and English fashions and the importance of using only the best kid for gloves, and then she regaled him with detailed descriptions of every gown she could remember seeing. By the end of the meal Lord Marchman looked dazed and angry; Elizabeth was a little hoarse and very encouraged.

Providence then - and this is what is most important to grasp - is not the same thing as a universal teleology. To believe in divine and unfailing providence is not to burden one's conscience with the need to see every event in this world not only as an occasion for God's grace, but as a positive determination of God's will whereby he brings to pass a comprehensive design that, in the absence of any single one of these events, would not have been possible. It may seem that this is to draw only the finest of logical distinction, one so fine indeed as to amount to little more than a sophistry. Some theologians - Calvin, for instance - have denied that the distinction between what God wills and what he permits has any meaning at all. And certainly there is no unanimity in the history of Christian exegesis on this matter. Certain classic Western interpretations of Paul's treatment of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and of the hardened heart of Israel in Romans 9 have taken it as a clear statement of God's immediate determination of his creatures' wills. But in the Eastern Christian tradition, and in the thought of many of the greatest Western theologians, the same argument has often been understood to assert no more than that God in either case allowed a prior corruption of the will to run its course, or even - like a mire in the light of the sun - to harden the outpouring of God's fiery mercy, and always for the sake of a greater good that will perhaps redound even to the benefit of the sinner. One might read Christ's answer to his disciples' question regarding why a man had been born blind - 'that the works of God should be made manifest in him' (John 9:3) - either as a refutation or as a confirmation of the distinction between divine will and permission. When all is said and done, however, not only is the distinction neither illogical nor slight; it is an absolute necessity if - setting aside, as we should, all other judgments as superstitious, stochastic, and secondary - we are to be guided by the full character of what is revealed of God in Christ. For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and "entertainment" pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and “entertainment” pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.

For the next twenty minutes Elizabeth asked for concessions, Ian conceded, Duncan wrote, and the dowager duchess and Lucinda listened with ill-concealed glee.. In the entire time Ian made but one stipulation, and only after he was finally driven to it out of sheer perversity over the way everyone was enjoying his discomfort: He stipulated that none of Elizabeth’s freedoms could give rise to any gossip that she was cuckolding him. The duchess and Miss Throckmorton-Jones scowled at such a word being mentioned in front of them, but Elizabeth acquiesced with a regal nod of her golden head and politely said to Duncan, “I agree. You may write that down.” Ian grinned at her, and Elizabeth shyly returned his smile. Cuckolding, to the best of Elizabeth’s knowledge, was some sort of disgraceful conduct that required a lady to be discovered in the bedroom with a man who was not her husband. She had obtained that incomplete piece of information from Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, who, unfortunately, actually believed it. “Is there anything more?” Duncan finally asked, and when Elizabeth shook her head, the dowager spoke up. “Indeed, though you may not need to write it down.” Turning to Ian, she said severely, “If you’ve any thought of announcing this betrothal tomorrow, you may put it out of your head.” Ian was tempted to invite her to get out, in a slightly less wrathful tone than that in which he’d ordered Julius from the house, but he realized that what she was saying was lamentably true. “Last night you went to a deal of trouble to make it seem there had been little but flirtation between the two of you two years ago. Unless you go through the appropriate courtship rituals, which Elizabeth has every right to expect, no one will ever believe it.” “What do you have in mind?” Ian demanded shortly. “One month,” she said without hesitation. “One month of calling on her properly, escorting her to the normal functions, and so on.” “Two weeks,” he countered with strained patience. “Very well,” she conceded, giving Ian the irritating certainty that two weeks was all she’d hoped for anyway. “Then you may announce your betrothal and be wed in-two months!” “Two weeks,” Ian said implacably, reaching for the drink the butler had just put in front of him. “As you wish,” said the dowager. Then two things happened simultaneously: Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones let out a snort that Ian realized was a laugh, and Elizabeth swept Ian’s drink from beneath his fingertips. “There’s-a speck of lint in it,” she explained nervously, handing the drink to Bentner with a severe shake of her head. Ian reached for the sandwich on his plate. Elizabeth watched the satisfied look on Bentner’s face and snatched that away, too. “A-a small insect seems to have gotten on it,” she explained to Ian. “I don’t see anything,” Ian remarked, his puzzled glance on his betrothed. Having been deprived of tea and sustenance, he reached for the glass of wine the butler had set before him, then realized how much stress Elizabeth had been under and offered it to her instead. “Thank you,” she said with a sigh, looking a little harassed. Bentner’s arm swopped down, scooping the wineglass out of her hand. “Another insect,” he said. “Bentner!” Elizabeth cried in exasperation, but her voice was drowned out by a peal of laughter from Alexandra Townsende, who slumped down on the settee, her shoulders shaking with unexplainable mirth. Ian drew the only possible conclusion: They were all suffering from the strain of too much stress.

There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.

Possibly, the main reason for my father’s respectability fixation was a fear of his inner chaos. I felt this, viscerally, because every now and then that chaos would burst forth. Without warning, late at night, the phone in the front hall would jingle, and when I answered there would be that same gravelly voice on the line. “Come getcher old man.” I’d pull on my raincoat—it always seemed, on those nights, that a misting rain was falling—and drive downtown to my father’s club. As clearly as I remember my own bedroom, I remember that club. A century old, with floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases and wing-backed chairs, it looked like the drawing room of an English country house. In other words, eminently respectable. I’d always find my father at the same table, in the same chair. I’d always help him gently to his feet. “You okay, Dad?” “Course I’m okay.” I’d always guide him outside to the car, and the whole way home we’d pretend nothing was wrong. He’d sit perfectly erect, almost regal, and we’d talk sports, because talking sports was how I distracted myself, soothed myself, in times of stress. My father liked sports, too. Sports were always respectable.

While Dr. Weeks attended to Devon’s injuries, Kathleen went to visit West. Even before she reached the open door of his room, she heard noise and laughter drifting into the hallway. She stood at the threshold, watching with a touch of fond resignation as she saw West sitting up in bed, regaling a group that included a half-dozen servants, Pandora, Cassandra, both dogs, and Hamlet. Helen stood beside a lamp, reading the temperature of a glass thermometer. Thankfully West no longer appeared to be shivering, and his color had improved. “…then I glimpsed a man wading back out into the river,” he was saying, “toward a half-submerged railway carriage with people trapped inside. And I said to myself, ‘That man is a hero. Also an idiot. Because he’s already been in the water for too long, and he won’t be able to save them, and he’s about to sacrifice his life for nothing.’ I proceeded to climb down the embankment and found Sutton. ‘Where is the earl?’ I asked.” West paused for dramatic effect, relishing the rapt attention of his audience. “And where do you think Sutton pointed? Out to the river, where that reckless fool had just saved a trio of children, and was wading after them with a baby in one arm and a woman on the other.” “The man was Lord Trenear?” one of the housemaids gasped. “None other.” The entire group exclaimed with pleasure and possessive pride. “Nothing to it, for a bloke as big as his lordship,” one of the footmen said with a grin. “I should think he’ll be put in the papers for this,” another exclaimed. “I hope so,” West said, “if only because I know how he would loathe it.

Just when the first collie came to Sunnybank is not known. But Terhune wrote and told many times how he acquired his own first collie when he was thirteen. He had painfully amassed a savings of $9 and took it to the New York dog pound. There he bought a tricolored collie, which he named Argus. “I devoted all my out-of-school hours to Argus’s education,” he wrote later. “He learned with bewildering ease, but I learned ten times as much from him as he ever learned from me.” It was Argus who made Terhune into a collie man – a strange, deep-rooted aberration afflicting collie owners by the score and, eventually, Terhune readers by the thousands. Its major symptom is the passionate, wholly illogical belief that one breed of dog rises regally far above the rest of the barking pack – and that the old Scottish sheep-herding breed whose very name, like its origins, is shrouded in mystery. Though every breed has its equally impassioned adherents, collie people had the clear advantage, in Terhune, of a trumplet-like spokesman. He was wont to write things like: “A dog is a dog, but a collie is – a collie. “Or: “…the Sunnybank collies aren’t merely dogs. There a super dogs!” But much more than such extravagant claims about collies, it was the attributes given to the collies in his stories that had such a powerful effect on his readers. They were wise beyond belief, everlastingly gentle with those where merited such treatment (and the collies always knew), terrifyingly vengeful with those who didn’t. And they were eternally loyal – so loyal that the word itself seems inadequate to describe their fealty.

The kingdom arrived with Jesus; indeed, one might say that as Son of God incarnate, Jesus is the kingdom of God in person. His rule over Christians is regal in the full-blooded biblical sense, personal, direct, and absolute. His claims are the claims of God, overriding those of man. Yet his rule is not tyranny, for King Jesus is his people’s servant, their shepherd and champion, ordering all things for their protection and enrichment. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

Two men are forever warring within me-- the man I am called to be, and the man I truly am. I am called to be regal, irreproachable, and all-knowing. That is the mask. That is the king. But I am, in my heart, a scientist. One of the most brilliant in the world. And all my brilliance has mostly taught me this: show me an all-knowing man and I will show you a fool. It's not my regalness that marks me from other men, but my desire to know.

What a sight the big man made, sitting his horse with a commanding presence as if he were born to the guardianship. If she hadn't known him, Eva would have guessed him to be as regal as a king.

The Sovereign has also implied that the instability in their marriage is an over-riding consideration in any musings she may have about abdication. Naturally this does not please Prince Charles who refused to speak to his mother for several days following her 1991 Christmas broadcast when she spoke of her intention to serve the nation and the Commonwealth for “some years to come”. For a man who holds his mother in total awe that silence was a measure of his anger. Once again he blamed the Princess of Wales. As he stalked along the corridors at Sandringham the Prince complained to anyone who would listen about the state of his marriage. Diana pointed out to him that he had already abdicated his regal responsibilities by allowing his brothers, Princes Andrew and Edward, to take over as counsellors of state, the official “stand ins” for the Sovereign when she is abroad on official business. If the Prince showed such indifference to these nominal constitutional duties, she asked sweetly, why should his mother give him the job. Certainly the last twelve months have seen the Queen and daughter-in-law develop a more relaxed and cordial relationship. At a garden party last summer the Princess felt confident enough to essay a little joke about the Queen’s black hat. She complimented her on the choice, remarking how it would come in useful for funerals. In a more serious vein they have had confidential discussions about her eldest son’s state of mind. At times the Queen finds the direction of his life unfocused and his behaviour odd and erratic. It has no escaped her notice that he is as unhappy with his lot as his wife.

Zoltán looked at them through the window. He hated the man. Now he hated work. Work for these? Work with these? He saw before him the great puszta. Here the long, cracked stripe of a ditch once again stole the blue of the sky, transforming it into a deeper colour, renewing it, like an artist's palette: every pool on the meadows, every clump of flowers, was a jewel on the bosom of nature, a diadem, a string of pearls: oh, nature was lovely... That is, it would be if it could... But mankind... Among these? Struggle, fight, this greedy little piece of meat... Dark furrows on the wondrous surface, the many-branched, tufted promise of the maize, jewelled patches on God's regal robe: why was the world so lovely? to cover up the ugliness of man?

I found out a lot about my father as he regaled my wife. He'd learned how to be a potter in a small village in Bolivia. There, working on a kick-wheel in a shack the size of an outhouse, he started thinking about the few novels he'd read.

America may have landed a man on the moon, but the French have the coolest wedding cakes on earth. It's not really a cake. It's called a croquembouche- a "crunch in the mouth"- or, more regally, a pièce montée. It's like you climb the ladder to your new life on a four-foot pyramid of individual vanilla cream puffs, held together with glossy praline- caramelized sugar that shatters in your mouth like glass and sticks in your teeth like toffee.

Theodor Herzl was the leader the Zionists so desperately needed. Under Herzl the Zionist movement exploded onto the world scene as a force to be reckoned with. With his articulate manner, elegant dress, and regal demeanor, Herzl cut an impressive figure, charismatic and radiant. He was also tireless, working relentlessly to achieve his dream. He met with the grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire as early as 1896. Upon his return from Constantinople and arrival at the rail station in Sofia, Bulgaria, a mob of several hundred jubilant Jews engulfed the Viennese messiah. For surely he was the man who would finally deliver them a state of their own! They carried him off the train to a synagogue, where people insisted on kissing his hand.

This taunt served only to rouse the feelings of Marius, as well for the honor at which he aimed, as against Metellus. He suffered himself to be actuated, therefore, by ambition and resentment, the worst of counselors. He omitted nothing henceforward, either in deeds or words, that could increase his own popularity. He allowed the soldiers, of whom he had the command in the winter quarters, more relaxation of discipline than he had ever granted them before. He talked of the war among the merchants, of whom there was a great number at Utica, censoriously with respect to Metellus, and vauntingly with regard to himself; saying "that if but half of the army were granted him, he would in a few days have Jugurtha in chains; but that the war was purposely protracted by the consul, because, being a man of vanity and regal pride, he was too fond of the delights of power." All these assertions appeared the more credible to the merchants, as, by the long continuance of the war, they had suffered in their fortunes; and to impatient minds no haste is sufficient.

If I had met you for the first time tonight, I would have despised you. You put me in mind of Regal." "Did I? Well, perhaps that reflect my belief that there is something to be learned from everyone that we meet.

Patience. Over the next five days, Hunter’s became as elusive as dandelion fuzz caught in a high wind. He was living with not one but two angry yellow-hairs, Loretta because he refused to take Amy home and had made mention of the possibility that he might marry more than one woman. Amy because he was forcing Swift Antelope’s company upon her. On all counts, Hunter felt justified and carried on with implacable determination, trying to ignore the glares to which he was treated every time he set foot inside his lodge. By the fifth night his perseverance was rewarded with a smile from Amy after Swift Antelope escorted her home from their daily walk. With flushed cheeks, Amy regaled Loretta with the details of her time spent with Swift Antelope, about the doe and twin fawns they had spied upon, about the flowers Swift Antelope had picked for her, about the birdcalls and sign language he was teaching her, about the silly tricks he played on her. Clearly Swift Antelope was making headway with Amy; the girl was beginning to heal. Hunter’s already low spirits plummeted. It was a sad state of affairs when an untried boy had more luck with women than a grown man. It was especially upsetting because Hunter knew he had paid dearly, not once but twice, for the right to possess Loretta, that he could exercise his rights at any time he chose, yet found himself hesitating because of the shadows in her eyes. Recalling his father’s advice, he could only scoff. The way things were going, if he was to become his woman’s friend before he became her lover, they might never move on to the second stage of their relationship.

By the fifth night his perseverance was rewarded with a smile from Amy after Swift Antelope escorted her home from their daily walk. With flushed cheeks, Amy regaled Loretta with the details of her time spent with Swift Antelope, about the doe and twin fawns they had spied upon, about the flowers Swift Antelope had picked for her, about the birdcalls and sign language he was teaching her, about the silly tricks he played on her. Clearly Swift Antelope was making headway with Amy; the girl was beginning to heal. Hunter’s already low spirits plummeted. It was a sad state of affairs when an untried boy had more luck with women than a grown man. It was especially upsetting because Hunter knew he had paid dearly, not once but twice, for the right to possess Loretta, that he could exercise his rights at any time he chose, yet found himself hesitating because of the shadows in her eyes. Recalling his father’s advice, he could only scoff. The way things were going, if he was to become his woman’s friend before he became her lover, they might never move on to the second stage of their relationship. The more disgruntled Hunter became over the situation, the more he glowered, and the more he glowered, the more uneasy Loretta was in his presence. The worst part was, Hunter couldn’t blame her. Their bargain hung over them like a dark cloud, her promises binding her to him yet holding them apart. He knew she dreaded the moment when he would confront her, demanding that she lie with him. With each passing day, the prospect seemed to grow more frightening to her. Hunter was perceptive enough to realize that waiting patiently for her to come around wasn’t abetting him in his cause, yet he couldn’t bring himself to force her, either.

Late the fourth evening, Many Horses visited Maiden’s lodge. At first Loretta sensed that Hunter’s father was taking measure of her, and she was suspicious of his motives for coming, but soon Many Horses’ dry humor had her smiling and then laughing. To Amy’s delight, Many Horses regaled them with stories of Hunter’s boyhood. By the evening’s end Loretta had to admit she actually liked him. What was even more unsettling was that he seemed to like her, and she felt absurdly pleased that he approved. When he departed he placed a gnarled hand on Loretta’s forehead, much like a holy man bestowing a blessing, and bade her good night, addressing her as “my daughter.” The title took Loretta completely by surprise. When she looked up, Many Horses gifted her with an understanding smile and left before she could gather her composure.

… that our King-in-Waiting Chivalry is not at all the son whom King Shrewd supposed him to be. As you can well imagine, this has grieved my good husband beyond telling, but as ever, Prince Regal has done all in his power to be a comfort to his beloved father. It was my sad duty to inform both my lord and our wayward prince that in light of his besprinkling the countryside with bastards (for where there is one, can we doubt there are others?) my Dukes of the Inland Duchies have expressed doubt of Chivalry’s worthiness to follow his father as king. In light of that, Chivalry has been persuaded to step aside. I have been less successful in persuading my lord that the presence of this by-blow at Buckkeep Castle is an affront to myself and every true married woman. He maintains that if the child is restricted to the stable and the stableman’s care, it should not concern the rest of us that this physical evidence of Lord Chivalry’s failing is ever flaunted before us. I have begged in vain for a more permanent solution … —LETTER FROM QUEEN DESIRE TO LADY PEONY OF TILTH

Like all imperial princes, Almorante was an arresting and imposing man. He was very tall, and for a Malagash, his hair was unusually dark, falling in a straight curtain about his shoulders. His face was handsome in a hawkish sort of way, the forehead high, the eyes deep-set. His hands were long, the fingers unnaturally mobile. He stood up when Khaster entered the room, and Khaster bowed to him. Not for the first time, he thought that Almorante should really be the heir to the throne. He was for more regal than Gastern.

Son’s mouth went dry and he watched Valerian chewing a piece of ham, his head-of-a-coin profile content, approving even of the flavor in his mouth although he had been able to dismiss with a flutter of the fingers the people whose sugar and cocoa had allowed him to grow old in regal comfort; although he had taken the sugar and cocoa and paid for it as thought it had no value, as though the cutting of cane and picking of beans was child’s play and had no value; but he turned it into candy, the invention of which really was child’s play, and sold it to other children and made a fortune in order to move near, but not in the midst of, the jungle where the sugar came from and build a palace with more of their labor and then hire them to do more of the work he was not capable of and pay them again according to some scale of value that would outrage Satan himself and when those people wanted a little of what he wanted, some apples for their Christmas, and took some, he dismissed them with a flutter of the fingers because they were thieves, and nobody knew thieves and thievery better than he did and he probably thought he was a law-abiding man, they all did, and they all always did, because they had not the dignity of wild animals who did not eat where they defecated but they could defecate over a whole people and come there to live and defecate some more by tearing up the land and that is why they loved property so, because they had killed it soiled it defecated on it and they loved more than anything the places where they shit

Myrtle Warren—a sixth year Ravenclaw and muggle-born—was an overly emotional girl with glasses too big for her face and a voice too shrill for her age. She was plain in appearance and not at all charming, but her unpredictable, chaotic nature pulled Tom in like a moth to a flame. He still remembered the first time he’d met her. It was only a few weeks in to their first year, and the Slytherins were already gossipping about the strange girl in Ravenclaw. They disparaged her looks, her lack of a wizarding surname, and her bold rudeness. And yet, despite their clear dislike of the girl, there was an undercurrent of fear in their voices when they spoke of her. She wore a Dark artefact around her neck, or so they claimed, and anyone who asked about it was regaled with a tale of a man tortured to death in a ritual to purify the souls of his followers. A wreath of thorns place atop his head. Nails driven into his hands and feet as his bloodied body was secured to two wooden beams. A spear in his side. Left to die alone and in agony, forsaken by his father. The symbol of that brutal murder hung from a slim chain so that she could always carry its memory with her. Tom had to fight not to laugh hysterically when he’d heard. These stupid purebloods were terrified of a simple crucifix necklace and the story of Jesus Christ. Myrtle Warren wasn’t Dark or dangerous at all. She was Catholic. Afterwards, he sought her out to congratulate her on her clever trick. She’d laughed too loud and for too long at how effective her plan of scaring off her would-be tormentors had been, and asked if Tom would be kind enough to back up any claims she made about growing up in a cult that consumed the blood and flesh of their tortured savior (the eucharist sounded terrifying when she put it like that). He eagerly agreed. If this is what it took for muggle-borns to be respected in the wizarding world, he was more than happy to play along.

The elapids as a group are dangerous animals. They include the most terrifying of all snakes, the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah). This species fully deserves its regal status. It is easily the biggest of all venomous snakes, reaching a length of 5.5 metres. It is thought to be among the most intelligent of all reptiles. If threatened it rears up almost to the height of a man, spreads its neck into a hood and growls loudly. It is the only snake to make a nest of leaves for its eggs. This it will actively defend against intruders of all kinds, including elephants which it can kill with a bite on their trunk. And its main food is other snakes-pythons, rat snakes and even other lesser cobras.

The shadow cast by Scipio over his fellow citizens was one that could not help but provoke resentment. The guiding principle of the Republic remained what it had always been: that no one man should rule supreme in Rome. To the Roman people, the very appearance of a magistrate served as a reminder of the seductions and dangers of monarchy. The purple that lined the border of his toga had originally been the colour of kingship. ‘Lictors’ – bodyguards whose duty it was to clear a path for him through the crowds of his fellow citizens – had once similarly escorted Tarquin the Proud. The rods and single axe borne by each lictor on his shoulder – the fasces, as they were known – symbolised authority of an intimidatingly regal scope: the right to inflict both corporal and capital punishment.*2 Power of this order was an awesome and treacherous thing. Only with the most extreme precautions in place could anyone in a free republic be trusted to wield it. This was why, in the wake of the monarchy’s downfall, the powers of the banished king had been allocated, not to a single magistrate, but to two: the consuls.

ALL the beauty and sublimity with which we have invested real and imagined things, I will show to be the property and product of man, and this should be his most beautiful apology. Man as a poet, as a thinker, as a god, as love, as power. Oh, the regal liberality with which he has lavished gifts upon things in order to im poverish himself and make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest disinterestedness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to conceal from himself that he it was who had created what he admired.

Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life. He lay on a sofa in the sitting-room, ostensibly reading the five-days-old Chelmsford paper, and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler of cold punch. But the storm had quite a different effect upon George Talboys. His friend was startled when he looked at the young man's white face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder, and staring at the black sky, rent every now and then by forked streaks of steel-blue lightning.

Ask a graybeard for a fish story, and you are bound to be regaled about a childhood catch that was “this big!” Any listening kids will giggle. They’ll think that he’s exaggerating or that his memory has failed—after all, no fish is that big. Actually, fish really were that big. In fact, fishing preferentially removes larger specimens, causing a steady decrease in overall size. When the old man passes away, so does his baseline. Every generation naturally accepts the planet as it is, with ever-smaller fish, fewer birds, and less ice. That’s how humans as a whole unwittingly overlook drastic and devastating changes to the environment. The unfolding declines are broken into a series of baselines—ever shifting—so the overall loss is never felt by a single generation, never suffered by a single soul.

Anorexia is regal, in control, all-powerful. Bulimia is out of control, chaotic, pathetic. Poor man’s anorexia.

All the beauty and sublimity we have bestowed upon real and imaginary things I will reclaim as the property and product of man: as his fairest apology. Man as poet, as thinker, as God, as love, as power: with what regal liberality he has lavished gifts upon things so as to impoverish himself and make himself feel wretched! His most unselfish act hitherto has been to admire and worship and to know how to conceal from himself that it was he who created what he admired.

First, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground.” We are dust—earthy and humble, finite and temporal. Second, he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” We live on borrowed breath. We are alive in the most profound sense of the word—filled with the very breath that spoke creation into being. Within this tension is a status that is regal but lowly, significant but insignificant, unique but ordinary.3 God looks upon humanity’s frame of dust and says, “I formed you, I love you, and I delight in you.” We are beloved dust.

each Shakespearean reference is taken from a specific Shakespearean character. These are the characters I paired together: Cady: Miranda in The Tempest. Miranda is an ingenue who has lived most of her life secluded with her father in a remote wilderness, not unlike Cady. (I broke this pairing once, when Cady uses lines borrowed from Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. The quote from Hero was so perfect for the moment that I had to use it. Can you find it?) Janis: Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Beatrice has a caustic, biting wit and a fierce loyalty to her friends. Regina: Kate in Taming of the Shrew. Kate, the titular shrew, starts off the play as a harsh woman with a sharp tongue. Gretchen: Viola in Twelfth Night. Viola, dressing as a man, serves as a constant go-between and wears a different face with each character. Karen: Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is the youngest of Shakespeare’s heroines. She is innocent and hopeful. Mrs. Heron: Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra is the regal, intelligent woman who has come from Africa. Mrs. George: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s cruelest, most cunning villains. Yes, this is unfair to Amy Poehler’s portrayal of Mrs. George, who is nothing but positive and fun. My thought was that anyone who could raise Regina must be a piece of work. Ms. Norbury: Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s little textual connection here—I just love Tina Fey so much that I thought, “Who could represent her except a majestic fairy queen?

You have good ideas, Elend Venture,” Tindwyl said. “Regal ideas. But you are not a king. A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.

In Sanguine Ascendancy by Stewart Stafford Courage is your meat and mead, For fortune's fighter guaranteed, Mighty grows the meekest seed, Hear the charter is now decreed. Use every instrument of state, Crown, sceptre, orb and mace, In virtuous nobility to legislate, A legacy endowed to celebrate. A childless king is a man of straw, No heirs to follow, a dynasty raw, Take fair hand with beauty awed, Bloodline safe in a dragon's maw. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

opportunity of comparing the San Francisco of 1852 with that of 1853. As before stated, there had been but one wharf in front of the city in 1852 – Long Wharf. In 1853 the town had grown out into the bay beyond what was the end of this wharf when I first saw it. Streets and houses had been built out on piles where the year before the largest vessels visiting the port lay at anchor or tied to the wharf. There was no filling under the streets or houses. San Francisco presented the same general appearance as the year before; that is, eating, drinking and gambling houses were conspicuous for their number and publicity. They were on the first floor, with doors wide open. At all hours of the day and night in walking the streets, the eye was regaled, on every block near the water front, by the sight of players at faro. Often broken places were found in the street, large enough to let a man down into the water below. I have but little doubt that many of the people who went to the Pacific coast in the early days of the gold excitement, and have never been heard from since, or who were heard from for a time and then ceased to write, found watery graves beneath the houses or streets built over San Francisco Bay.

An exceptional choice for a wife, Sydney," the elderly man remarked. "Poised, unaffected, and quite lovely. You are quite fortunate." No one would have disagreed with that, least of all Nick. Lottie was a revelation this evening, her gown stylish but not too sophisticated, her smile easy, her posture as regal as that of a young queen. Neither the grandeur of their surroundings nor the hundreds of curious gazes seemed to disturb her composure. She was so polished and immaculately pretty that no one suspected the layer of steel beneath her exterior. No one would ever guess that she was the kind of young woman who would have defied her parents and lived by her own wits for two years... the kind of woman who could hold her own against a hardened Bow Street runner.

Any apparent insurrection of bodily or cerebral cells towards Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or depression, is due to no disloyalty among the humble citizens, but to past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will, given to him simultaneous with a soul and revocable never. Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals and keeps himself alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice!) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of nature or environment. Each man’s intellectual reactions, feelings, moods and habits are circumscribed by effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life. Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the transitory truths and freedoms, the kriya yogi passes beyond all disillusionment into his unfettered Being. All scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body, but a living soul; by kriya he is given a method to prove the scriptural truth.

Over against his lost outward kingship he sets an inner kingship, makes his true kingship to retire to inner man, to soul and mind and "regal thoughts": You may my glories and my state depose, But not my briefs, still am I king of those. (IV.i.192ff)

I never regaled him with an account of what the children had done, the lateness of deliveries because of traffic, or the neighborhood gossip (unless it was a particularly juicy bit!). There’s nothing less stimulating for a man than the day-to-day business of raising four children. That’s woman’s work. If she’s lucky she revels in it. If not, she gets it done anyhow, and in the time allotted for it.

While Dr. Weeks attended to Devon’s injuries, Kathleen went to visit West. Even before she reached the open door of his room, she heard noise and laughter drifting into the hallway. She stood at the threshold, watching with a touch of fond resignation as she saw West sitting up in bed, regaling a group that included a half-dozen servants, Pandora, Cassandra, both dogs, and Hamlet. Helen stood beside a lamp, reading the temperature of a glass thermometer. Thankfully West no longer appeared to be shivering, and his color had improved. “…then I glimpsed a man wading back out into the river,” he was saying, “toward a half-submerged railway carriage with people trapped inside. And I said to myself, ‘That man is a hero. Also an idiot.

I put together a promo akin to my old indie character, Rebecca Knox, decorated with rhymes and puns and doused in energy. Rattling through it, I felt I was giving the Gettysburg Address, for the amount of confidence I had in my content. However, I couldn’t tell if it was the shits or maybe they just wanted to see something else when Regal spoke up, in his very Regal voice, distinct yet soft-spoken. “Tell us your story.” Without the armor of my prerehearsed “masterpiece,” I told the class my life story up until this moment. Opening up about my struggles with leaving wrestling and spending years trying to fill the void it left caused my voice to tremble and tears to fall from my eyes. I was on the brink of a whole new world.

The Fey's Captive by Stewart Stafford Sprite music in moonlit sway, Her song turned azaleas grey, A haunting lilt that carried far; Charmed ear to shimmering star. Hornpipe down, melody went on, Lovelight flickered, then it shone, Claimed me then on yearly shore, Dragged me behind the fairy door. An enchanted hostage kept there, Gossamer glowed her flaxen hair, Made me pledge to be her slave, This regal man, reduced to knave. A year and a day passed, comet swift, My sentence over, her parting gift, Conditions met by kith and kin, Woke to bedroom light with a grin. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved