Within Those Confining Walls, Teachers - A

When A Captive Lion Steps Out Of His Cage, He Comes Into A Wider World Than The Lion Who Has Known Only The Wilds. While He Was In Captivity, There Were Only Two Worlds For Him - The World Of The Cage, And The World Outside The Cage. Now He Is Free. He Roars. He Attacks People. He Eats Them. Yet He Is Not Satisfied, For There Is No Third World That Is Neither The World Of The Cage Nor The World Outside The Cage.

He Had Never Looked Forward To The Wisdom And Other Vaunted Benefits Of Old Age. Would He Be Able To Die Young—and If Possible Free Of All Pain? A Graceful Death—as A Richly Patterned Kimono, Thrown Carelessly Across A Polished Table, Slides Unobtrusively Down Into The Darkness Of The Floor Beneath. A Death Marked By Elegance.

The Purest Evil That Human Efforts Could Attain, In Other Words, Was Probably Achieved By Those Men Who Made Their Wills The Same And Who Made Their Eyes See The World In The Same Way, Men Who Went Against The Pattern Of Life's Diversity, Men Whose Spirits Shattered The Natural Wall Of The Individual Body, Making Nothing Of This Barrier, Set Up To Guard Against Mutual Corrosion, Men Whose Spirit Accomplished What Flesh Could Never Accomplish.

In The Pale Light Of Daybreak The Gravestones Looked Like So Many White Sails Of Boats Anchored In A Busy Harbor. They Were Sails That Would Never Again Be Filled With Wind, Sails That, Too Long Unused And Heavily Drooping, Had Been Turned Into Stone Just As They Were. The Boats' Anchors Had Been Thrust So Deeply Into The Dark Earth That They Could Never Again Be Raised.

I Am One Who Has Always Been Interested Only In The Edges Of The Body And The Spirit, The Outlying Regions Of The Body And The Outlying Regions Of The Spirit. The Depths Hold No Interest For Me; I Leave Them To Others, For They Are Shallow, Commonplace. What Is There, Then, At The Outer Most Edge? Nothing, Perhaps, Save A Few Ribbons, Dangling Down Into The Void.