"The evening was soft and warm, and coffee was served upon the terrace, to our content. For a while we sat there silent, watching the shadows steal upon the landscape and the lovely light of heaven grow slowly dim. The ancient ritual diminished all worldly things."
-Dornford Yates, Ne'er-Do-Well (Kelly Bray, Cornwall, 2001), p. 5.
In one of Poul Anderson's future histories, two characters practise the art of shadow watching. They sit on a terrace where trellises cast changing patterns on a white wall. One character, Serdar, composes a haiku:
"The shadows, like life,
"moved beneath summer daylight.
"Evening reclaims them."
-Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, February 2001), PART ONE, VIII, p. 91.
Yates' characters are retired. Anderson's are becoming extinct. Anderson's Ythrians see the shadow of God the Hunter over all things.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And the characters created by Dornford Yates were far more active and energetic than the quietly despairing decadents we see in Part One, Chapter VIII of GENESIS. That chapter is an understatedly horrifying part of Anderson's book!
Ad astra! Sean
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