3
" The Author To Her Book
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door. "
― Anne Bradstreet , The Works of Anne Bradstreet
4
" Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your self ye daily such doe see:
But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,
Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew:
But onely that is permanent and free
From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew.
That is true beautie: that doth argue you
To be divine and borne of heavenly seed:
Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true
And perfect beauty did at first proceed.
He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made,
All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade. "
― Edmund Spenser , Amoretti And Epithalamion
6
" From the bonny bells of heather,
They brewed a drink long syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
And lay in blessed swound,
For days and days together,
In their dwellings underground.
There rose a King in Scotland,
A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red mountain
He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
Of the dying and the dead.
Summer came in the country,
Red was the heather bell,
But the manner of the brewing,
Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like children’s
On many a mountain’s head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
Lay numbered with the dead.
The king in the red moorland
Rode on a summer’s day;
And the bees hummed and the curlews
Cried beside the way.
The King rode and was angry,
Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather,
And lack the Heather Ale.
It fortuned that his vassals,
Riding free upon the heath,
Came on a stone that was fallen
And vermin hid beneath.
Roughly plucked from their hiding,
Never a word they spoke:
A son and his aged father –
Last of the dwarfish folk.
The king sat high on his charger,
He looked down on the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he had them:
And there on the giddy brink –
“I will give thee life ye vermin,
For the secret of the drink.”
There stood the son and father
And they looked high and low;
The heather was red around them,
The sea rumbled below.
And up spoke the father,
Shrill was his voice to hear:
“I have a word in private,
A word for the royal ear.
“Life is dear to the aged,
And honour a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret”,
Quoth the Pict to the King.
His voice was small as a sparrow’s,
And shrill and wonderful clear:
“I would gladly sell my secret,
Only my son I fear.
“For life is a little matter,
And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour,
Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
And cast him far in the deep;
And it’s I will tell the secret
That I have sworn to keep.”
They took the son and bound him,
Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
And flung him far and strong
And the sea swallowed his body,
Like that of a child of ten;
And there on the cliff stood the father,
Last of the dwarfish men.
“True was the word I told you:
Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage,
That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
Fire shall not avail:
Here dies in my bosom
The secret of the Heather Ale. "
― Robert Louis Stevenson
12
" And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvae so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water - things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other - forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. (" The House And The Brain" ) "
13
" I’m not… What’s wrong with them believing?” Bea asked, a note of pleading creeping, uninvited, into her voice.
“You do not sell belief, you sell belief-in. Belief in true love, as if everyone were entitled to it. Belief in a simple solution to a complex problem. Belief in one type of person, one type of future.”
“No I don’t. I offer people dreams, and hope, and, and, something to organise their lives with,” Bea said, not sure why she was trying to convince him. “I don’t make them into ‘one person’.”
“Oh no? Let me recall your doctrine: Kings, Princes and their ilk must marry girls whose only asset is their beauty. Not clever girls, not worthy girls, not girls who could rule. Powerful women, older women – like one day you will become – are nought but wicked creatures, consumed with jealousy and unfit to hold position. No,” he said as Bea began to speak, “I am not finished. Let us turn our attention to the men. As long as the woman is something to be won, it follows only the worthy will prevail. It matters not if they truly love the girl, nor if the man is cruel or arrogant or unfit to tie his own doublet. As long as he has wealth and completes whatever trials are decided fit, he is suitable. For what is stupidity or arrogance when compared against a crown? The good will win, and the wicked perish, and you and your stories decide what makes a person good or wicked. Not life. Not choice. Not even common sense. You. "
― F.D. Lee , The Fairy's Tale (The Pathways Tree, #1)
14
" I returned, however, with unabated vigour to my work—a more arduous task than anyone can imagine, who has not felt something like the misery of being charged with the care and direction of a set of mischievous, turbulent rebels, whom his utmost exertions cannot bind to their duty; while, at the same time, he is responsible for their conduct to a higher power, who exacts from him what cannot be achieved without the aid of the superior’s more potent authority; which, either from indolence, or the fear of becoming unpopular with the said rebellious gang, the latter refuses to give. I can conceive few situations more harassing than that wherein, however you may long for success, however you may labour to fulfil your duty, your efforts are baffled and set at nought by those beneath you, and unjustly censured and misjudged by those above. "
― Anne Brontë , Agnes Grey
16
" The foolish of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of god is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that may not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath choses the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And bade things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. "
― Madeleine L'Engle , A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)
18
" Friar Laurence:
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought to vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give; nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime's by action dignified. "
― William Shakespeare , Romeo and Juliet
19
" There were some that were of so rare a beauty that my pleasure on catching sight of them was enhanced by surprise. By what privilege, on one morning rather than another, did the window on being uncurtained disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled. So, in her matchless colour, she invited us out over those rough terrestrial roads, from which, seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche, we should see, all day long and without ever reaching it, the coolness of her gentle palpitation. "
― Marcel Proust , In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
