Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. VIII "The Hidden City"
Quotes from book
The Path of the King
The Path of the King is a 1921 novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, presented as a loosely-coupled series of short stories.
“Truth's like a dollar-piece, it's got two sides, and both are wanted to make it good currency.”
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", I
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", II
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. VIII "The Hidden City"
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", II
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", I
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. V "The Maid"
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIII "The Last Stage"
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", III
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. V "The Maid"
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
Context: Generations follow, oblivious of the high beginnings, but there is that in the stock which is fated to endure. The sons and daughters blunder and sin and perish, but the race goes on, for there is a fierce stuff of life in it. It sinks and rises again and blossoms at haphazard into virtue or vice, since the ordinary moral laws do not concern its mission. Some rags of greatness always cling to it, the dumb faith that sometime and somehow that blood drawn from kings it never knew will be royal again. Though nature is wasteful of material things, there is no waste of spirit. And then after long years there comes, unheralded and unlooked-for, the day of the Appointed Time...
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
Context: The spark once transmitted may smoulder for generations under ashes, but the appointed time will come, and it will flare up to warm the world. God never allows waste. And we fools rub our eyes and wonder, when we see genius come out of the gutter. It didn't begin there. We tell ourselves that Shakespeare was the son of a woolpedlar, and Napoleon of a farmer, and Luther of a peasant, and we hold up our hands at the marvel. But who knows what kings and prophets they had in their ancestry!
Prologue
The Path of the King (1921)
Context: Generations follow, oblivious of the high beginnings, but there is that in the stock which is fated to endure. The sons and daughters blunder and sin and perish, but the race goes on, for there is a fierce stuff of life in it. It sinks and rises again and blossoms at haphazard into virtue or vice, since the ordinary moral laws do not concern its mission. Some rags of greatness always cling to it, the dumb faith that sometime and somehow that blood drawn from kings it never knew will be royal again. Though nature is wasteful of material things, there is no waste of spirit. And then after long years there comes, unheralded and unlooked-for, the day of the Appointed Time...
