Here are the quotations for next week (March 17th
to 23rd):
1. A yellow and brown streak
glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the
water, drank, and lay still - a big cobra with fixed lidless eyes…
…'Let him
live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. 'May thy
release come soon, brother.'…He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head.
It flattened itself among the dusty coils…
2. I hate and fear snakes, because
if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more
of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil
felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal,
and it twists up trouser legs.
3. The young man
felt inside … with his stick, and slung out a snake, which he named, balanced on
the wire. The body dropped raspingly on the dry grass at the edge of the moat,
and recovered itself like coiled lightning, its head already set, and in cocked
watch towards the man. He half kicked towards it with his shoed foot. It half
struck back, showing its death-coloured mouth, and sank back into its coils,
cursing a little.
The Sources of this week's
quotations (March 10th to 16th) are as follows:
1. ('Gerowlia waited in the sunshine and chuckled to herself like a
female pauper...') This is from 'Letters of
Marque' in ‘From Sea to Sea’, volume 1.
2. ('We trust each our own elephant, till our own elephant kills us...')
This is from the introduction to ‘My Lord the
Elephant’, in ‘Many Inventions’.
3. ( ‘Surely they
make these things to please their Gods,’ said the Bull again.
‘Not
altogether’, the Elephant rolled forth...) This is
from ‘The Bridgebuilders’ in ‘The Day's Work’.
Good wishes to all, John R
