c86d402
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We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.
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autumn
beautiful
birth
brave
death
delight
deny
doubt
dreams
effort
eternity
fable
fairy
fear
gods
grief
hateful
haunted
hope
joy
king-lear
lake
life
love
mountains
music
mystery
nature
pagan
passion
past
perfection
philosophies
pleasure
poetic
punishment
questions
religion-myths
sacred-books
scorn
shakespeare
smiles
spring
summer
tears
tender
thought
throne
true
truth
william-shakespeare
winter
woods
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Robert G. Ingersoll |
9d82638
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Holy gods. He'd frozen the whole damn lake. He was THAT powerful?
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gods
heir-of-fire
hof
lake
powerful
rowan-whitethorn
sarah-j-maas
throne-of-glass
tog
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Sarah J. Maas |
b3d410d
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The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water.
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lake
life
meaning
razor-s-edge
ripple
river
stone
surface
water
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W. Somerset Maugham |
3edf89d
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The lake's deep...and dark...and dangerous.
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ghost-story
lake
scary
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Mary Downing Hahn |
9fd2c05
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"If Molly had not been so entirely loyal to her friend, she might have thought this constant brilliancy a little tiresome when brought into every-day life; it was not the sunshiny rest of a placid lake, it was
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enriched
faking
lake
loyalty
magical
mirrors
sadness
sisters
sunshine
well-written
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Elizabeth Gaskell |
f4676d4
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Captain Tervitt had been a real captain, for many years, on the lake boats. Now he had a job as a special constable. He stopped the cars to let the children cross the street in front of the school and kept them from sledding down the side street in winter. He blew his whistle and held up one big hand, which looked like a clown's hand, in a white glove. He was still tall and straight and broad-shouldered, though old and white-haired. Cars would do what he said, and the children, too.
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clown
lake
proud-professional
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Alice Munro |
4469757
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The afternoon had passed to a ghostly gray. She was struck by the immensity of things, so much water and sky and forest, and after a time it occurred to her that she'd lived a life almost entirely indoors. Her memories were indoor memories, fixed by ceilings and plastered white walls. Her whole life had been locked to geometries: suburban rectangles, city squares. First the house she'd grown up in, then dorms and apartments. The open air had been nothing but a medium of transit, a place for rooms to exist.
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growing-up
home
house
indoors
lake
life
nature
rooms
sky
thought
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Tim O'Brien |