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“O see ye not yon narrow road
So thick beset wi’ thorns and briers?”
— “Thomas the Rhymer”, anonymous 17th century poet quoted by J.R.R. Tolkien in On Fairy Stories
It is not down in any map; true places never are.
— Herman Melville
The book sits still, waiting for my eye to glance away. There! Did it not shift ever so slightly? Does something sprout along its spine? A ripple runs now beneath the cobbled skin of its cover. Words have power. I dread it, but soon, in the day, I will pick up this tattered volume. I will read and another world will exist.
— The Scissor Sharpener (Journal)