Quote of the Day: The Human Torch

 

Two public school boys and a torch (or flashlight, if you will): 

“And now something of the real and peculiar horror of the situation was communicated to Bell. The horror was of a peculiar nature because of the character and reputation of Ryan’s torch. Ryan’s torch, in fact, dwelt in a heavenly realm above and beyond all other torches — was famous, one might say fabulous, in the school at just this time. To be permitted to look at it was a privilege, to hold it was an honour; to use it, even with its owner’s sanction, was almost a blasphemy, frightening. This was to a certain extent because it was so wonderfully thin and small and covered with imitation crocodile leather; but principally because it had, at the top, a sliding apparatus which enabled its user to change the white light to red, and then to white again, and then again to green! What specific purpose, if any, this was intended to serve, nobody had as yet asked: everyone simply and instinctively knew that no one could ask for more. During the whole week it had been the making of Ryan: Ryan’s being was the torch and the torch was Ryan’s being. Ryan was a torch. If, then, the torch was lost, was not Ryan utterly lost, suddenly a nothing?”

~ From The West Pier, a novel by Patrick Hamilton.

Images from SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR and HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD.