“Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracks. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river.”
Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 1, section 1 (p. 399)
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Mervyn Peake 91
English writer, artist, poet and illustrator 1911–1968Related quotes
“Arrogance in full bloom bears a crop of ruinous folly from which it reaps a harvest all of tears.”
Source: The Persians (472 BC), lines 821–822 (tr. Christopher Collard)
“Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade.”
St. 1
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)
Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 1 “The Hall of the Bright Carvings” (p. 9)
Part VI
The City of Dreadful Night (1870–74)
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IV, Sec. 2
Context: If there are no sandpits from which it can be dug, then we must sift it out from river beds or from gravel or even from the sea beach. This kind however has these defects when used in masonry: it dries slowly... and such a wall cannot carry vaultings. Furthermore, when sea-sand is used in walls and these are coated with stucco, a salty efflorescence is given out which spoils the surface.
“She floats upon the river of his thoughts.”
The Spanish Student http://www.readbookonline.net/title/3208/, Act II, sc. iii (1843).
“It's a pity we don't whistle at one another, like birds. Words are misleading.”
Pastor Jón Prímus
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)