44
" Sophia was asked to speak to the students of a local medical school.
“Sophia, what do we need to be better doctors?” the students asked.
“Doctors,” Sophia said, “need strong stomachs and strong powers of observation.” Then she opened a canister. The putrid smell quickly moved through the classroom. Sophia stuck a finger in the jar, pulled it up, and then licked it. She passed the jar around encouraging each doctor in training to do the same. Each did, and though many felt nauseas, no one got sick.
“You all have very strong stomachs,” she said. “But your powers of observation need some work.”
“What do you mean?” they asked. “We did just what you did.”
“There is one difference,” she replied. “The finger I dipped in the jar was not the finger I licked. "
― , For the Love of Sophia: Wisdom Stories from Around the World and Across the Ages
52
" Oh yes," said Jana. " You want the birdbath." She let him down onto the rim of the birdbath, then watched as he dipped his head, lowered his chest into the water, and raised it. Having finished his bath, he did a dance of sheer joy, flapping his wings and shaking off the water in a circle of drops. " He enjoys life," said a voice. Mr. Powell the optometrist, a closed umbrella in hand, was letting his two dachshunds chase each other around the park. " As do your dogs," said Jana. " Yes," said Mr. Powell," they have fun in a simpler and more joyous way than most humans do. Their pleasures seem more reliable. All you have to do is say the word 'walk' and they're wiggling from head to toe.... "
57
" She tied him a fly, using a pattern she’d designed, one that had given her untold luck with those silvery fish, those fighting steelhead. She was anxious for his return.
“Does it have a name?” he said, when she gave it to him.
“The Predator.” She smiled. A little embarrassed.
His eyes turned dark, and her heart beat faster. His voice dipped low. “It’s a fine name.”
He regarded her for several heavy, silent beats. She felt an atavistic pull, the hairs on her arms rising toward him, as if in electrical attraction. He leaned closer and her mouth turned dry. And he told her about the wild blueberries. Down by the bend in the river.
She took the lure.
She went in search of the berries.
She never came home. "
― Loreth Anne White , A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1)
59
" Jess Pepper's review of the Avalon Strings:
'In a land so very civilized and modern as ours, it is unpopular to suggest that the mystical isle of Avalon ever truly existed. But I believe I have found proof of it right here in Manhattan.
To understand my reasoning, you must recall first that enchanting tale of a mist-enshrouded isle where medieval women--descended from the gods--spawned heroic men. Most notable among these was the young King Arthur. In their most secret confessions, these mystic heroes acknowledged Avalon, and particularly the music of its maidens, as the source of their power.
Many a school boy has wept reading of Young King Arthur standing silent on the shore as the magical isle disappears from view, shrouded in mist.
The boy longs as Arthur did to leap the bank and pilot his canoe to the distant, singing atoll. To rejoin nymphs who guard in the depths of their water caves the meaning of life. To feel again the power that burns within.
But knowledge fades and memory dims, and schoolboys grow up. As the legend goes, the way became unknown to mortal man. Only woman could navigate the treacherous blanket of white that dipped and swirled at the surface of the water.
And with its fading went also the music of the fabled isle.
Harps and strings that heralded the dawn and incited robed maidens to dance evaporated into the mists of time, and silence ruled.
But I tell you, Kind Reader, that the music of Avalon lives. The spirit that enchanted knights in chain mail long eons ago is reborn in our fair city, in our own small band of fair maids who tap that legendary spirit to make music as the Avalon Strings.
Theirs is no common gift. Theirs is no ordinary sound. It is driven by a fire from within, borne on fingers bloodied by repetition. Minds tormented by a thirst for perfection.
And most startling of all is the voice that rises above, the stunning virtuoso whose example leads her small company to higher planes.
Could any other collection of musicians achieve the heights of this illustrious few? I think not.
I believe, Friends of the City, that when we witnes their performance, as we may almost nightly at the Warwick Hotel, we witness history's gift to this moment in time. And for a few brief moments in the presence of these maids, we witness the fiery spirit that endured and escaped the obliterating mists of Avalon. "
― Bailey Bristol , The Devil's Dime (The Samaritan Files #1)