{"product_id":"2940013768918","title":"Allan and the Ice Gods","description":"Had I the slightest qualification for the task, I, Allan Quatermain,\u003cbr\u003ewould like to write an essay on Temptation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis, of course, comes to all, in one shape or another, or at any rate\u003cbr\u003eto most, for there are some people so colourless, so invertebrate that\u003cbr\u003ethey cannot be tempted--or perhaps the subtle powers which surround\u003cbr\u003eand direct, or misdirect, us do not think them worth an effort. These\u003cbr\u003ecling to any conditions, moral or material, in which they may find\u003cbr\u003ethemselves, like limpets to a rock; or perhaps float along the stream\u003cbr\u003eof circumstance like jellyfish, making no effort to find a path for\u003cbr\u003ethemselves in either case, and therefore die as they have lived--quite\u003cbr\u003egood because nothing has ever moved them to be otherwise--the objects\u003cbr\u003eof the approbation of the world, and, let us hope, of Heaven also.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe majority are not so fortunate; something is always egging their\u003cbr\u003eliving personalities along this or that road of mischief. Materialists\u003cbr\u003ewill explain to us that this something is but the passions inherited\u003cbr\u003efrom a thousand generations of unknown progenitors who, departing,\u003cbr\u003eleft the curse of their blood behind them. I, who am but a simple old\u003cbr\u003efellow, take another view, which, at any rate, is hallowed by many\u003cbr\u003ecenturies of human opinion. Yes, in this matter, as in sundry others,\u003cbr\u003eI put aside all the modern talk and theories and am plumb for the\u003cbr\u003egood, old-fashioned, and most efficient Devil as the author of our\u003cbr\u003ewoes. No one else could suit the lure so exactly to the appetite as\u003cbr\u003ethat old fisherman in the waters of the human soul, who knows so well\u003cbr\u003ehow to bait his hooks and change his flies so that they may be\u003cbr\u003eattractive not only to all fish but to every mood of each of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, without going further with the argument, rightly or wrongly,\u003cbr\u003ethat is my opinion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThus, to take a very minor matter--for if the reader thinks that these\u003cbr\u003ewords are the prelude to telling a tale of murder or other great sins\u003cbr\u003ehe is mistaken--I believe that it was Satan himself, or, at any rate,\u003cbr\u003eone of his agents, who caused my late friend, Lady Ragnall, to\u003cbr\u003ebequeath to me the casket of the magical herb called \/Taduki\/, in\u003cbr\u003econnection with which already we had shared certain remarkable\u003cbr\u003eadventures.[*]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[*] See the books \/The Ivory Child\/ and \/The Ancient Allan\/.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, it may be argued that to make use of this \/Taduki\/ and on its\u003cbr\u003ewings to be transported, in fact or in imagination, to some far-away\u003cbr\u003estate in which one appears for a while to live and move and have one's\u003cbr\u003ebeing is no crime, however rash the proceeding. Nor is it, since, if\u003cbr\u003ewe can find new roads to knowledge, or even to interesting imaginings,\u003cbr\u003ewhy should we not take them? But to break one's word \/is\/ a crime, and\u003cbr\u003ebecause of the temptation of this stuff, which, I confess, for me has\u003cbr\u003emore allurement than anything else on earth, at any rate, in these\u003cbr\u003elatter days, I have broken my word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor, after a certain experience at Ragnall Castle, did I not swear to\u003cbr\u003emyself and before Heaven that no power in the world, not even that of\u003cbr\u003eLady Ragnall herself, would induce me again to inhale those time-\u003cbr\u003edissolving fumes and look upon that which, perhaps designedly, is\u003cbr\u003ehidden from the eyes of man; namely, revealments of his buried past,\u003cbr\u003eor mayhap of his yet unacted future? What do I say? This business is\u003cbr\u003eone of dreams--no more; though I think that those dreams are best left\u003cbr\u003eunexplored, because they suggest too much and yet leave the soul\u003cbr\u003eunsatisfied. Better the ignorance in which we are doomed to wander\u003cbr\u003ethan these liftings of corners of the veil; than these revelations\u003cbr\u003ewhich excite delirious hopes that, after all, may be but marsh lights\u003cbr\u003ewhich, when they vanish, will leave us in completer blackness.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070248698096,"sku":"2940013768918","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013768918_p0.jpg?v=1763590009","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013768918","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}