"Seven Pillars of Wisdom"

[fiefoe]

The connection is at best tenuous, but 《麒麟》 is still probably the impetus for me to pick up this book.  T.E. Lawrence is of the old school of writers who drop you into long paragraphs without apologies or explanation, (no sigh-posting here!)

• I took upon myself, as I describe it, a mock primacy.
• We were fond together, because of the sweep of the open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us.
• Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age.
• The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
• ...but soul to the overmastering greed of victory.
• Our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies - a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure.
• So very brief and sore was life with us.
• Pray God that men reading the story will not, for love of the glamour of strangeness, go out to prostitute themselves and their talents in serving another.

__ The clay of its building was said to have been kneaded for greater richness, not with water, but with the precious essential oils of flowers.