something wicked this way comes full book

What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. “For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. He can't let himself alone, won't let himself off the hook if he falls just a breath from grace.” A man with high standards, too, the least hair falls on him sometimes wilts his spine. I suppose it's thinking about trying to be good makes the crack run up the wall one night. You work twice as hard to be a farmer as to be his hog. For being good is a fearful occupation men strain at it & sometimes break in two.

On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt & sin, why, often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. Hear a man too loudly praising others & look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit appetites. And all men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, colors & smells. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. There are smiles & smiles learn to tell the dark variety from the light. “Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying.

But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. “Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again.

Something wicked this way comes full book