A pocket-knife, I
need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations
all to itself. A knife typifies one of the most primary of those
practical origins upon which as upon low, thick pillows all our human
civilisation reposes. Metals, the mystery of the thing called iron and
of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream.
I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among
all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent
battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered
against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man.
I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the
swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is
only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword.
-Tremendous Trifles (1909)
1 comment:
"A pocket-knife, I need hardly say, would require a thick book full of moral meditations all to itself"
:)
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