Here are the quotations for this week (July 18th to 24th):
1. .He leaned forward, but his eye was caught by the setting sun. It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, and the light poured in between the tree trunks so that you could see red and gold and black deep into the heart of Far Wood ..in his armour (he) shone as though he had been afire. 'Wait,' he said, lifting a hand, and the sunlight jinked on his glass bracelet. 'Wait! I pray to Mithras!'. He rose and stretched his arms westward, with deep, splendid-sounding words.
2. ...The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the colour of a blood-red ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the smell of the box-tree by the dairy window mixed with the smell of earth after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke. The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down the orchard...
3. .'They stole down our alley, they tapped secretly at our door, they took off their rags, they arrayed themselves, and they talked to my father at the wine. All over the world the heathen fought each other. They brought news of these wars . There can be no war without gold, and we jews know how the earth's gold moves with the seasons and the crops, and the winds: circling and looping and rising away like a river - a wonderful underground river.'
The sources of last week's extracts (July 11th to 17th) are as follows:
1. (...there were shields of lacquer, of tortoise-shell and rhinoceros hide, strapped and bossed with red gold and set with emeralds at the edge...) This is from "The King's Ankus" in The Second Jungle Book.
2. (...dulling all these glories was the superb radiance of one gem that lay above the great carved emerald on the central clasp. It was the black diamond...) This is from The Naulahka.
3. ('...Four flawed emeralds there are, but one is drilled in two places, and one is a little carven.there is one ruby of Burma, of two ruttees, without a flaw...') This is from Kim
Good wishes to all, John R
