Books like Ἀποκριάτικη νυχτιά

They say the jackal and the moleDrink from the self-same streamWhere the lion comes to drink.And they say the eagle and the vultureDig their beaks into the same carcass,And are at peace, one with the other,In the presence of the dead thing.O love, whose lordly handHas bridled my desires,And raised my hunger and my thirstTo dignity and pride,Let not the strong in me and the constantEat the bread or drink the wineThat tempt my weaker self.

Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.

Man’s nature is such, that happiness appears to be a thing unattainable; unconsciously and unintentionally friend offends friend, and even lovers inevitably fall out and quarrel at times. And since all legislators, from Lycurgus down to those of today, in their attempts to bestow happiness on mankind have failed miserably, I can at least comfort myself greatly with the thought of having made even one dog happy.

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathedTheir lustres with the gloomier tapestries—So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self.Upon her crest she wore a wannish fireSprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar:Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete:

After the deceptions and illusions of the torture-chamber, the precision of the details of that quiet little middle-class room seemed to have been invented for the express purpose of puzzling the mind of the mortal rash enough to stray into that abode of living nightmare. The wooden bedstead, the waxed mahogany chairs, the chest of drawers, those brasses, the little square antimacassars carefully placed on the backs of the chairs, the clock on the mantelpiece and the harmless-looking ebony caskets at either end, lastly, the whatnot filled with shells, with red pin-cushions, with mother-of-pearl boats and an enormous ostrich-egg, the whole discreetly lighted by a shaded lamp standing on a small round table: this collection of ugly, peaceable, reasonable furniture, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OPERA CELLARS, bewildered the imagination more than all the late fantastic happenings.

I know a banke where the wilde time blowes,Where Oxslips and the nodding Violet growes,Quite ouer-cannoped with luscious woodbine,With sweet muske roses, and with Eglantine;There sleepes Tytania, sometime of the night,Lul’d in these flowers, with dances and delight:And there the snake throwes her enammel’d skinne,Weed wide enough to rap a Fairy in.