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147ff81
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The crumbling castle, looming among the mists, exhaled the season, and every cold stone breathed it out. The tortured trees by the dark lake burned and dripped, their leaves snatched by the wind were whirled in wild circles through the towers. The clouds mouldered as they lay coiled, or shifted themselves uneasily upon the stone skyfield, sending up wreathes that drifted through the turrets and swarmed up hidden walls.
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Mervyn Peake |
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900b7e7
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Civilized people don't .
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feelings
people
civilized
emotions
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Mervyn Peake |
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5458cd9
|
She could feel the blood flowing within her and she felt that she must die or break forth into leaves and flowers. It was not passion she felt: not the passion of the body, though that was there, but rather an exultation, a reaching for life, for the whole of the life which she was capable, and in that life which she but dimly divined was centered love, the love for a man. She was not in love with Rantel: she was in love with what he meant ..
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Mervyn Peake |
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0b9530a
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But there were also times when she cried out in the darkness biting her lips - cried out against the substance of her age: for it was now that she should be young; now above all other times, with the wisdom in her, the wisdom that was frittered away in her 'teens', set aside in her twenties, now, lying there, palpable and with forty summers gone. She clenched her hands together. What good was wisdom; what good was anything when the fawn is ..
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Mervyn Peake |
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3c079eb
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Gormenghast. Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet beats away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll's hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs...
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literature
gormenghast
gothic
classic
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Mervyn Peake |
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890b5a2
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But Fuchsia might as well have been carved from dark marble. Only her tears moved.
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gormenghast
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Mervyn Peake |
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a82a9cf
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Equality,' said Steerpike,' is the thing. It is the only true and central premise from which constructive ideas can radiate freely and be operated without prejudice. Absolute equality of status. Equality of wealth. Equality of power.
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Mervyn Peake |
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0593387
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With what characters she had filled this lost stage of emptiness! It was here that she would see the people of her imagination, the fierce figures of her making, as they strolled from corner to corner, brooded like monsters or flew through the air like seraphs with burning wings, or danced, or fought, or laughed, or cried. This was her attic of make-believe, where she would watch her mind's companions advancing or retreating across the dust..
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Mervyn Peake |
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bed2704
|
Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargo Congealed in the dark arteries, Old veins That hold Glamorgan's blood. The midnight miner in the secret seams, Limb, life, and bread. -
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coal
coal-miner
glamorgan
miners
mining
rhondda
the-land
hills
wales
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Mervyn Peake |
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0578d80
|
I want a big breakfast," said Fuchsia at last. "I want a lot to eat, I'm going to think today." --
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thinking
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Mervyn Peake |
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08519b7
|
Irma, my dear sister,' said Prunesquallor, 'I have two things to say. Firstly, why in the name of discomfort are we hanging around in the hall and probably dying of a draught that as far as I'm concerned runs up my right trouser leg and sets my gluteous maximus twtiching; and secondly, what is wrong, when you boil the matter down - with feet? I have always found mine singularly useful, especially for walking with. In fact, ha, ha, ha, one m..
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Mervyn Peake |
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2f345ef
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His mind had been working away behind his high forehead. Unimaginative himself he could recognize imagination in her: he had come upon one whose whole nature was the contradiction of his own. He knew that behind her simplicity was something he could never have. Something he despised as impractical. Something which would never carry her to power or riches, but would retard her progress and keep her apart in a world of her own make-believe. T..
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steerpike
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Mervyn Peake |
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f244cf9
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It is my cape of good hope, and if it isn't I will probably bite your nose off
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Mervyn Peake |
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f40351e
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He knew that he was caught up in one of those stretches of time when for anything to happen normally would be abnormal. The dawn was too tense and highly charged for any common happening to survive.
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time
tension
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Mervyn Peake |
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a720c35
|
I hate things! I hate all things! I hate and hate every single tiniest thing. I hate the world." said Fuchsia aloud, raising herself on her elbows, her face to the sky. "I shall live alone. Always alone. In a house, or in a tree." Fuchsia started to chew at a fresh grass blade. "Someone will come then, if I live alone. Someone from another kind of world - a new world - not from this world, but someone who is different, and he will fall in l..
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Mervyn Peake |
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1b21c86
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It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others. He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt. But on an occasion such as this it was different, for the spirit of convention was being rigorously adhered to, and in between his ribs Mr. Flay experienced twinges of pleasure.
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independence
revolution
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Mervyn Peake |
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69d76c8
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You are a clever little monster,' said the Doctor, tossing off another cognac and placing the glass upon the table with a click. 'A diabolically clever little monster.' 'That is what I hoped you would realize, Doctor,' said Steerpike. 'But haven't all ambitious people soemthing of the monstrous about them? You, sir, for instance, if you will forgive me, are a little bit monstrous.' 'But, my poor youth, said Prunesquallor, beginning to pace ..
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Mervyn Peake |
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7b63527
|
Glorious,' said Steerpike, 'is a dictionary word. We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect. In dead and shackled language, my dears, you *are* glorious, but oh, to give vent to a brand new sounds that might convince you of what I really think of yo..
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Mervyn Peake |
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283421e
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One thing at a time,' said the Boy. 'You must be patient. This is a day of hope and wild revenge. Do not interrupt me. I am a courier from another world. I bring you golden words. Listen!' said the Boy. 'Where I come from there is no more fear. But there is a roaring and a bellowing and a cracking of bones. And sometimes there is silence when, lolling on your thrones, your slaves adore you.
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revenge
boy
goat
golden-words
hyena
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Mervyn Peake |
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381dc1a
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Swelter, as soon as he saw who it was, stopped dead, and across his face little billows of flesh ran swiftly here and there until, as though they had determined to adhere to the same impulse, they swept up into both oceans of soft cheek, leaving between them a vacuum, a gaping segment like a slice cut from a melon. It was horrible. It was as though nature had lost control. As though the smile, as a concept, as a manifestation of pleasure, h..
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fantasy
humor
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Mervyn Peake |
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bdb88f8
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What is Time, O sister of similar features, that you speak of it so subserviently? Are we to be the slaves of the sun, that secondhand overrated knob of gilt, or of his sister, that fatuous circle of silver paper? A curse upon their ridiculous dictatorship!
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time
humor
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Mervyn Peake |
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a110cfe
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The crags of the mountain were ruthless in the moon; cold, deadly and shining. Distance had no meaning. The tangled glittering of the forest roof rolled away, but its furthermost reaches were brought suddenly nearer in a bound by the terrifying effect of proximity in the mountain that they swarmed. The mountain was neither far away nor was it close at hand. It arose starkly, enormously, across the lens of the eye. The hollow itself was a cu..
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proximity
mountains
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Mervyn Peake |
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b524497
|
She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate's flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be concieved. Utterly un-feminine - no man couldd have invented it.
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Mervyn Peake |
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a26058c
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Behind him she saw something which by contrast with the alien incalculable figure before her, was close and real. It was something which she understood, something which she could never do without, or be without, for it seemed as though it were her own self, her own body, at which she gazed and which lay so intimately upon the skyline. Gormenghast. The long, notched outline of her home. It was now his background. It was a screen of walls and..
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Mervyn Peake |
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ffcf97c
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As the figure moved before him he followed the muscles as they wove beneath the skin. he was not only fighting with an assailant who was awaiting for that split second in which to strike him dead, but he was stabbing at a masterpiece -- at sculpture that leapt and heaved, at a marvel of inky shadow and silver light. A great wave of nausea surged through him and his knife felt putrid in his hand. His body went on fighting
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Mervyn Peake |
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5c23ce3
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Prunesquallor, as urbane as ever, had nevertheless something in his fish-like eyes that might almost be described as determination. One glance at his sister was sufficient to make him realize that to attempt to reason with her would be about as fruitful as to try to christianize a vulture.
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Mervyn Peake |
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5c0e5fa
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Of Swelter's acreage, only a perch or two here and there might, if broken, prove vulnerable loam. That he bled profusely could prove little. There was blood in him to revitalize an anaemic army, with enough left over to cool the guns. Placed end to end, his blood vessels might have coiled up the Tower of Flints and half way down again like a Virginia creeper -- a vampire's home from home.
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Mervyn Peake |
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5258df0
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I said she was wicked, and she said that everyone was - everyone and everything except rivers, clouds, and some rabbits.
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Mervyn Peake |
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ac4d771
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And a ton came down on a coloured road, And a ton came down on a gaol, And a ton came down on a freckled girl, And a ton on the black canal, And a ton came down on a hospital, And a ton on a manuscript, And a ton shot up through the dome of a church, And a ton roared down to the crypt. And a ton danced over the Thames and filled A thousand panes with stars, And the splinters leapt on the Surrey shore To the tune of a thousand scars.
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war
bomb
bombing
wwii
london
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Mervyn Peake |
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6a73238
|
Yet here apparently on this stifling summer afternoon was the eye of Mr. Flay at the outer keyhole of the Hall of the Bright Carvings, and presumably the rest of Mr Flay was joined on behind it.
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humor
mr-flay
rottcodd
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Mervyn Peake |
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3734e83
|
It was obvious that their sorrows were conjoined.
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cora-groan
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Mervyn Peake |
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9ecb2c6
|
It was a long head. It was a wedge, a sliver, a grotesque slice in which it seemed the features had been forced to stake their claims, and it appeared that they had done so in a great hurry and with no attempt to form any kind of symmetrical pattern for their mutual advantage. The nose had evidently been first upon the scene and had spread itself down the entire length of the wedge, beginning among the grey stubble of the hair and ending am..
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mervyn-peake
steerpike
|
Mervyn Peake |
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012b253
|
another comber of far pleasure followed the first, for his books came suddenly before his eyes, row upon row of volumes, row upon priceless row of calf-bound Thought, of philosophy and fiction, of travel and fantasy; the stern and the ornate, the moods of gold or green, of sepia, rose, or black; the picaresque, the arabesque, the scientific - the essays, the poetry and the drama. All this, he felt, he would now re-enter. He could inhabit t..
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melancholy
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Mervyn Peake |
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26cdd7a
|
His youth had been so long ago that he could remember nothing of it but he presumed, erroneously, that he had tasted the purple fruit, had broken hearts and hymens, had tosses flowers to ladies on balconies, had drunk champagne out of their shoes and generally been irresistible.
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Mervyn Peake |
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58c14f6
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The Aunts put their arms about one another so that their faces were cheek to cheek, and from this doublehead they gazed up at Steerpike with a row of four equidistant eyes. There was no reason why there should not have been forty, or four hundred of them. It so happened that only four had been removed from a dead and endless frieze whose inexhaustible and repetitive theme was forever, eyes, eyes, eyes.
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humor
weird
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Mervyn Peake |
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29874b9
|
Home is a room dappled with firelight: there are pictures and books. And when the rain sighs, and the acorns fall, there are patterns of leaves against the drawn curtains. Home is where I was safe. Home is what I fled from.
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Mervyn Peake |
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4aaf8de
|
Indeed he had worn that piece of furniture - or symbol of bone-laziness - into such a shape as made the descent of any other body than his own into that crater of undulating horsehair a hazardous enterprise.
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lazy
habit
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Mervyn Peake |
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d38ffc7
|
Keda,' she said to herself,' Keda, this is tragedy.' But as her words hung emptily in the morning air, she clenched her hands for she could feel no anguish and the bright bird that had filled her breast was still singing... was still singing.
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keda
rantel
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Mervyn Peake |
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5bccd06
|
Each day we live is a glass room Until we break it with the thrusting Of the spirit and pass through The splintered walls to the green pastures Where the birds and buds are breaking Into fabulous song and hue By the still waters. -
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spirit
life
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Mervyn Peake |
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b3dedb9
|
The love of the painter standing alone and staring, staring at the great coloured surface he is making. Standing with him in the room the rearing canvas stares back with tentative shapes halted in their growth, moving in a new rhythm from floor to ceiling. The twisted tubes, the fresh paint squeezed and smeared across the dry upon his palette. The dust beneath the easel. The paint has edged along the brushes' handles. The white light in a n..
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Mervyn Peake |
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c6b5196
|
The vastest things are those we may not learn. We are not taught to die, nor to be born, Nor how to burn With love. How pitiful is our enforced return To those small things we are the masters of.
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poetry
death
love
mervyn-peake
humans
|
Mervyn Peake |
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253ae0d
|
As his lord stared at the door another figure appeared, a girl of about fifteen with long, rather wild black hair. She was gauche in movement and in a sense, ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich - her eyes smouldered.
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Mervyn Peake |
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280ebc6
|
From daybreak to sunset she turned her thoughts, like boulders, over. She set them in long lines. She rearranged their order...
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thoughts
|
Mervyn Peake |
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e4a5dd8
|
How's the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How's the blood-stream?"... "It's quite comfortable, sir...I think, sir, thank you."... "Aha!"..."a comfortable stream, is it? Aha! v-e-r-y good. V-e-r-y good. Dawdling 'twixt hill and hill, no doubt. Meandering through groves of bone, threading the tissues and giving what sustenance it can to your dear old body...I am glad. But in your - right deep down in your - how do you feel..
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humorous
nannie
|
Mervyn Peake |