Weather appropriate Snow Queen illustration.
14Be not afraid of the night
Take the Book with you, you may need it to refer to or to pray on.
The Talisman around your neck will let you in where you need to go. Use it wisely, and show it when you need to buy trust.
The Siren’s screech is fearsome and will beset you without warning. The only way to be rid of it is to face it head on and answer its call.
Choose your battles, pick the right weapons to fight with. You have but a fraction of a second to decide and not many second chances should you get it wrong.
You will not have all the answers, you will not know all the paths. May the powers that be grant you the mental agility to know what you lack, remember what you know and work out what you do not.
If all else fails, hope the cavalry arrives at the right moment.
Above all, have heart. You will have moments where your courage wavers, but remember that as you are toiling, dawn is racing to reach you. Hold the line until it does.
You - you alone will have the stars as no one else has them…In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…You - only you - will have stars that can laugh.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (via phalene)
(Source: vividnotions, via fyeahthelittleprince)
Illustration from the Firebird
Mourning the loss of eyebrows
Did you even realise they were gone?
You seem the sort of person who would not understand the importance of the unnecessary, like the feel of silk or the influence of cherry blossoms. Or of loyalty or kindness or trust.
I did not, until today, comprehend the significance of them - satirical symmetrical comet tails of facial hair on ridges of bone -and for what? Do they serve as a relic of our shared part-simian origins, a comical remnant from the time of our forefathers? Are they objects maintained only for the enjoyment of fanatics from the cult of aestheticism?
The cock and the fox.
Ernest Griset, from Æsop’s fables, with text based chiefly upon Croxall, La Fontaine and L’Estrange, London, New York, 1869.
(Source: archive.org)
The Ghostly Heart
Out of the gloom it suddenly appears. Pale, pulsating and otherworldly it floats upside-down through the shadows, it flirts with the idea of becoming visceral.
But it does not, and instead shimmers and teases in a sort of grotesque fascinating burlesque, a vague ethereal organ.
Like a deep-sea creature it half shimmies, half propels itself through the darkness away from prying eyes.
A sneaking creep of hair
Like all things that bear a resemblance to living substance, hair has a wisdom of its own. Observe how left to its own devices stray strands will coalesce into little whorled balls, or weave together in silent unopposed rivers on carpets, streaking down stairs, into corners where they are discovered, in eruptions, matting together quietly.
Even when it belongs wholly to one owner, hair never is content to be sat complacently in one place. It waits for opportunities.
Kay Nielsen illustration of Rapunzel
With elegant hats and up-to-date rackets, they did look a handsome pair!
Cecil Aldin, from Cecil Aldin’s merry party, told by May Byron, London, 1913.
(Source: archive.org)
