“Her Brown Eyes Were Untranslatable…She Was Made Entirely Of A Sweetness Bordering On Tears.”

Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home

Anna Akhmatova, from "Don't Frighten Me" in Selected Poems

[He] felt that the murky twilight which was gradually seeping into the room was also slowly penetrating his body, transforming his blood into fog, and that he was powerless to stop the spell that was being cast on him by the twilight.

Vladimir Nabokov, Mary, 1926

Gennady Aygi, tr. by Peter France, from “The People Are a Temple.”

Captieux

• fin XIVe; lat. captiosus, de capere « prendre »

♦ Littér. Qui tend, sous des apparences de vérité, à surprendre, à induire en erreur. ⇒ fallacieux, insidieux, spécieux.  Raisonnement, discours captieux. « Un argument captieux et difficile à débrouiller » (Taine). — (Personnes) Un raisonneur, un philosophe captieux.  ⇒ sophiste

● captieux, captieuse adjectif (latin captiosus, trompeur) Qui vise à tromper par des apparences de raison, de vérité ; fallacieux : Argument captieux.

-Qui tend à tromper, qui séduit par de belles, de fausses apparences. Argument, raisonnements captieux; questions captieuses :

-[En parlant d'une pers.] Qui induit en erreur ou cherche à le faire par de faux raisonnements.

-Captieusement, adv.De façon captieuse, insidieuse. Interroger captieusement (Ac. 1878-1932). Déjà tant de volupté se glissait captieusement sous l'idylle

Synonymes : - artificieux - fallacieux - insidieux - sophistiqué - spécieux - trompeur

Contraires : - correct - fondé - franc - honnête - juste - sincère - vrai

“I have been woman for a long tine beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic”

— Audre Lorde, from her porm “A Woman speaks”

“Incense, with its sweetsmelling perfume and high-ascending smoke, can be compared to a sincere, earnest prayer which, enkindled by the fire of concentration, rises up as a pleasant offering.”

—

Anna Riva;

Magic With Incense and Powders: 850 Rituals and Uses With Chants and Prayers

(via liminalblessings)

T.S. Eliot, from “III. The Fire Sermon”, Collected Poems, 1909-1962

Novalis, Heinrich von Ofterdingen: A Romance [originally published 1802]

“I do understand—and it is terrible.”

— Franz Kafka, from a letter to Felice Bauer written c. July 1915, featured in “Letters to Felice,” (via violentwavesofemotion)