I am no longer an artist interested and anxious. I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on forever. Feeble, inarticulate, will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth, and may it burn in their lousy souls. – Paul Nash, Artist 1899–1946 Paul Nash served with the Artists’ Rifles and the Royal Hampshire Regiment in the Great War.
Their love was thus seeded in the rich soil of mutual understanding.
It makes my heart so heavy. Young men shouldn’t have to die, and their parents shouldn’t have to go through the rest of their lives making everything seem right by saying, ‘At least my boy was brave.’ Or, ‘We’re proud he did his bit.
She thought the flat would be all the better for some photographs, not only to serve as reminders of those who were loved, or reflections of happy times spent in company, but to act as mirrors, where she might see the affection with which she was held by those dear to her.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. – KAHLIL GIBRAN.
The irony in any investigation was that lies were often protectors of the truth – unless they became too powerful, in which case lies were like worker bees who turn on their queen.
The depression we find ourselves in here, and which is causing havoc in America, is allowing people to give weight to that which divides them, rather than to the shared experiences and elements of connection they see mirrored in their fellow man.
Those of us who have reached our more mature years know the value of a nap, Maisie, and we can indulge ourselves without the comfort of pillow or bed.
There is no path set for this kind of shock, and for the grief that attends such terrible news.
Maisie bit her lip. She had learned that sometimes it was best to let words die of their own accord, rather than fight them.
But for Maisie the case notes would not be filed away until those whole lives were touched by her investigation had reached a certain peace with her findings, with themselves, and with one another – as far as that might be possible.
Perhaps we shouldn’t try to answer the questions now – let’s just note them down. Maurice always said the power in a question is not in the answer, it’s in the way the imagination gets busy when the question is at work.
Solitude was her soul’s hermitage.
In a time of war the supply and movement of money becomes even more crucial than ever. Money is a powerful tool, and wars are about powerful men and how they use the tools at their disposal. The military is involved in a number of ways.
Pay attention to the reactions of your body. It is the wisdom of the self speaking to you. Be aware of concern, of anticipation, of all the feelings that come from the self. They manifest in the body.
It’s not enough to say that you want equality, Ro. What do you intend to do about it?
If her soul were a room, it was as if a light were now shinning in a corner that had been dark.
She might not be completely at peace with the past, but rubbed along with it because it was part of who she had become.
I can dance with life again.
She understood loss, understood how it could leach into every fiber of one’s being; how it could dull the shine on a sunny day, and how it could replace happiness with doubt, giving rise to a lingering fear that good fortune might be snatched back at any time.