The City of Mirrors

That is what two people must give to each other, he thinks: the history of themselves. How else can we hope to be known?

History is that scar on your hand. It’s the stories that leave a mark, the past that refuses to stay past.”

History is a story—the story of ourselves.

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

—WILLIAM FAULKNER, REQUIEM FOR A NUN

Every song is a love song, she thought. Every song is for you.

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

—SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET

Destiny was too small a word; there was a force at work that ran far deeper, a thread woven into the fabric of all things.

He placed his son along his arm as Jenny had done and began to rub. The lightness of his body was stupendous; how astounding that a person could grow from this small thing, that not just people but every living creature upon the earth had begun this way. Caleb felt swept into a miracle. Something soft and wet filled his palm; the baby’s chest expanded with a gulp of air.

And thence we came forth, to see again the stars.

—DANTE ALIGHIERI, INFERNO

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

—SARAH WILLIAMS, “THE OLD ASTRONOMER TO HIS PUPIL”