“All about her, as suddenly as the awakening from a dream, the nothingness had opened out into undreamed-of distances. She stood high on a hilltop under a sky spangled with strange stars. Below she caught glimpses of misty plains and valleys with mountain peaks rising far away. And at her feet a ravening circle of small, slavering, blind things leaped with clashing teeth.”

— C. L. Moore

Black God's Kiss (1934); p. 15
Short fiction, Jirel of Joiry (1969)

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C. L. Moore 19

American author 1911–1987

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black God's Kiss (1934)
Context: All about her, as suddenly as the awakening from a dream, the nothingness had opened out into undreamed-of distances. She stood high on a hilltop under a sky spangled with strange stars. Below she caught glimpses of misty plains and valleys with mountain peaks rising far away. And at her feet a ravening circle of small, slavering, blind things leaped with clashing teeth.

“From behind the snow-capped mountains, hidden under the veil of brume, the sun prepared to rise. It took time to climb those lofty peaks with precipitous gradients. In the valley below lay a sleepy little town.”

Surendra Pratap Singh (1948–1997) Indian journalist

Parrot Under the Pine Tree

“She was tall and pleasantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.”

Dashiell Hammett book The Maltese Falcon

Description of Brigid O'Shaughnessy
The Maltese Falcon (1930)

“Auri stood, and in the circle of her golden hair she grinned and brought the weight of her desire down full upon the world.
And all things shook. And all things knew her will. And all things bent to please her.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“When she got to an angle of about 60 degrees, there was a sullen sort of rumbling roar as her massive boilers all left their beds and went crashing down through the bulkheads and everything that stood in their way.Up to that moment, she had stood out as clear as clear with her rows of electric lights all burning. When the boilers broke away, she was, of course, plunged into absolute darkness though her huge black outline was still perfectly distinct up against the stars and sky.Slowly she reared up on end till, at last, she was absolutely perpendicular. Then quite quietly, but quicker and quicker, she seemed just to slide away under the surface and disappear.As she vanished, everyone around me on the upturned boat, as though they could hardly believe it, just said, "She's gone."”

Charles Lightoller (1874–1952) British sailor

Interview with the BBC, 1936

“Night with all her negro train,
Took possession of the plain;
In an hearse she rode reclin'd.
Drawn by screech-owls slow and blind:
Close to her, with printless feet,
Crept Stillness in a winding sheet.”

Christopher Smart (1722–1771) English poet

Ode XIV. A Night-Piece; or, Modern Philosophy (1748).

“.. And with dream awakened eyes she saw all the beauty around her, saw the sea, felt the sun, and knew she had to vanish for a while from the human surface and make every sacrifice in order to create her world anew out of the depths.
And from that came
Life or Theater???”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

original German language, Zitat von Charlotte Salomon: ..und sie sah – mit wachgeträumten Augen all die Schönheit um sich her – sah das Meer spürte die Sonne und wusste: sie musste für eine Zeit von der menschlichen Oberfläche verschwinden und dafür alle Opfer bringen – um sich aus der Tiefe ihre Welt neu zu schaffen
Und dabei entstand<brdas Leben oder das Theater???
Quote, probably 1943, in Charlotte Salomon: Life? or Theatre?, (ed.) Judith C. E. Belinfante et al, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1998, ISBN 0-900946-66-0, p. 38; as cited om Wikipedia
these are the concluding words of the last overlay: JHM 4924-02 https://charlotte.jck.nl/detail/M004924/part/character/theme/keyword/M004924, of the epilogue - quoting ideas of her former love in Germany Alfred Wolfsohn, she called him 'Amadeus Daberlohn' in her paintings

“She half expected, despite her brave words, to come out upon the storied and familiar red-hot pave of hell, and this pleasant, starlit land surprised her and made her wary. The things that built the tunnel could not have been human. She had no right to expect men here. She was a little stunned by finding open sky so far underground, though she was intelligent enough to realize that however she had come, she was not underground now. No cavity in the earth could contain this starry sky.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black God's Kiss (1934); p. 16
Short fiction, Jirel of Joiry (1969)

“She closed her eyes. And while her intellect wouldn’t let her realize her deepest fear, that all this might soon be gone forever, nevertheless she stood there for a time and worshipped the only way a person like her could worship—in silence and solitude, under the temple of the sky.”

David Brin book Earth

Part VI (p. 307)
Earth (1990)

“Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in;
But not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair,
For, tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied a young man’s heart within.”

Nora Perry (1831–1896) American writer

The Love-knot, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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C. L. Moore 19

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