I count religion but a childish toy,
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And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Birds of the air will tell of murders past!
I am asham’d to hear such fooleries.
Many will talk of title to a crown:
What right had Caesar to the empery? 12
Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure
When, like the Draco’s, 13 they were writ in blood.
Foolery and Fooleries in Shakespeare.
In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster,
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An’ reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;
An’ old Philip Lewis–thet come an’ kep’ school here
Fer the mere sake o’ scorin his ryalist ruler
On the tenderest part of our kings in futuro–
Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau,
Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o’ merry kings,
How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins,
An’ turnin’ quite faint in the midst of his fooleries,
Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o’ the Tooleries.
“And he goes to-morrow–perhaps to get killed,” he added. “A lad like a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political foolery that we priests and teachers have suffered in the place of the Kingdom of God, because we have allowed the religion of Europe to become a lie; because no man spoke the word of God. You see–when I see that–see those two, those children of one-and-twenty, wrenched by tragedy, beginning with a parting…. It’s like a knife slashing at all our appearances and discretions…. Think of our lovemaking….”
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What an explosion, how the fragments fly
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Of what was surface, mask and make-believe!
Begin now,–look at this Pope’s-halberdier
In wasp-like black and yellow foolery!
Fire may be accompanied by combustion, but combustion is not necessarily accompanied by fire. All A is B, but all B is not A. And therefore fire, no matter how you jiggle, is not identical with combustion. Fire. FIRE. I insist on the absolute word. You may say that fire is a sum of various phenomena. I say it isn’t. You might as well tell me a fly is a sum of wings and six legs and two bulging eyes. It is the fly which has the wings and legs, and not the legs and wings which somehow nab the fly into the middle of themselves. A fly is not a sum of various things. A fly is a fly, and the items of the sum are still fly.
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Minatory
“Well, here’s our solution,” said the barrister, who had terminated his slightly minatory caress and strolled to the window. “Here comes the City Magistrate. He comes in a third-class band-ghari for purposes of disguise, he comes unattended, but here comes the City Magistrate.” “At last,” said Adela sharply, which caused Fielding to glance at her.
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Discomfit
But that my heart’s on future mischief set,
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I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;
But fly you must; uncurable discomfit
Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.
Away, for your relief! and we will live
To see their day and them our fortune give.
Away, my lord, away!
The first curse was in his mouth,
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Made of grave’s mould and deadly drouth.
The next curse was in his head,
Made of God’s work discomfited.
The next curse was in his hands,
Made out of two grave-bands.
The next curse was in his feet,
Made out of a grave-sheet.
“I had fair coins red and white,
And my name was as great light;
Obstreperous
If I have any suits, as I do hope,
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Things being so easy and direct, I shall not,
I will make bold with your obstreperous aid,
Conceive me,–for your fee, sir. In mean time,
You that have so much law, I know have the conscience,
Not to be covetous of what is mine.
or sable crows
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Obstreperous of wing, in crouds combine:
Besides, unnumber’d troops of birds marine,
And Asia’s feather’d flocks, that in the muds
Of flow’ry-edg’d Cayster wont to prey,
Now in the shallows duck their speckled heads,
And lust to lave in vain, their unctious plumes
Repulsive baffle their efforts: Next hark
How the curs’d raven, with her harmful voice,
Invokes the rain, ahd croaking to herself,
Struts on some spacious solitary shore.
Lodestone
“Stella, sovereign of my joy,
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Fair triumpher of annoy,
Stella star of heavn’ly fire,
Stella lodestone of desire;
The father sat big and unheeding in his chair, his eyes vacant, his physique wrecked. He let them do as they would, he fell to pieces. And yet some power, involuntary, like a curse, remained in him. The very ruin of him was like a lodestone that held them in its control. The wreck of him still dominated the house, in his dissolution even he compelled their being. They had never lived; his life, his will had always been upon them and contained them. They were only half-individuals.
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