The Luminaries

Beyond it, Tauwhare knew, lay the deep waterways of the southern fjords, where the sun set early behind the sudden peaks, so that the water took on the blackened look of tarnished silver, and the shadows pooled like oil. Tauwhare had never seen Piopiotahi, but he had heard tell of it, and he loved it because it was Te Tai Poutini land.

meagre, and dreary

in some chamber of his mind

keep pace with

taken up that mantle

man of humble standing

Reverse alchemy. Do you see—the transformation—not into gold, but out of it

how roundly self-examination is condemned, by the moral prophets of our age! As if the self had no relation to the self, and one only looked in mirrors to have one’s arrogance confirmed

As a child he had known instinctively that it was always better to tell a partial truth with a willing aspect than to tell a perfect truth in a defensive way.

He had known only suspicion, cynicism, probability—never the fearful unravelling that comes when one ceases to trust in one’s own trusting power; never the dread panic that follows this unravelling; never the dull void that follows last of all.