Here are the quotations for next week (August 20th to 26th):
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;
there were sheaves of diamond-hilted swords, daggers and hunting knives;
there were golden sacrificial bowls and ladles, and portable altars of a
shape that never sees the light of day…there were belts, seven fingers
broad, of square-cut diamonds and rubies…'
2. 'It blazed with the dull red of the ruby, the angry green of the
emerald, the cold blue of the sapphire and the white, hot glory of the
diamond. But 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 - black as the pitch of the infernal lake, and lighted from
below with the fires of hell.'
3. 'First are two flawed sapphires - one of two ruttees and one of four,
as I should judge. The four ruttee sapphire is chipped at the edge. There
is one Turkestan turquoise, plain with black veins, and there are two
inscribed - one with a Name of God in gilt… 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, and there is a
balas-ruby, flawed, of two ruttees…'
The sources of this week’s extracts (Aug 13th to 19th) are as follows:
1. (…’I expect to be through with my little trouble by the twenty-first
of next month, an' I'm dyin' to see him as soon as possible after that
date…')
This is from "A Madonna of the Trenches" in Debits and Credits.
2. ('…Come spring , I 'ad something else to rage for. I'd growed a nasty
little weepin' boil, like, on me shin’) This is from "The Wish House" in
Debits and Credits.
3. (…In the middle of his singing he felt the cold touch of the Crab's
claw on the apple of his throat…) This is from "The Children of the
Zodiac", in Many Inventions.
Good wishes to all, John R
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