It’d Be A Poor Kind Of World

The City Breathing, Burning, Living The Life Thy Had Preserved. Ten Million Lives And More. If Something Should Happen To All That Life - How Terrible! Nita Gulped For Control As She Remembered Fred's Word Of Just This Morning, An Eternity Ago. And This Was What Being A Wizard Was About. Keeping Terrible Things From Happening, Even When It Hurts. Not Just Power, Or Control Of What Ordinary People Couldn't Control, Or Delight In Being Able To Make Strange Things Happen. Those Were The Side Effects - Not The Reason, The Purpose.

But The Trouble With Sainthood These Days Is The Robe-and-halo Imagery That Gets Stuck Onto It." Carl Got That Brooding Look Again. "people Forget That Robes Were Street Clothes Once... And Still Are, In A Lot Of Places. And Halos Are To That Fierce Air Of Innocence What Speech Balloons In Comics Are To The Sound Of The Voice Itself. Shorthand. But Most People Just See An Old Symbol And Don't Bother Looking Behind It For The Meaning. Sainthood Starts To Look Old-fashioned, Unattainable... Even Repellent. Actually, You Can See It All Around, Once You Learn To Spot It.

Belief Made No Difference To The Truth.

You Walk On Water, And Complain That You Can't Find Anything To Drink!

The Issues Of The Choice Between Right And Wrong Has To Be An Ongoing Concern For Everybody, At Every Age. There Is No Magical Point In A Human Life When Anyone Is Or Becomes Immune To The Second-by-second Choice To Do Right Instead Of Wrong.