The Majesty of the Law

“The judge, Jeffrey Chalmers, was a big man in every sense of the word. He was three-hundred pounds, but tall and muscular, about six and a half feet, and he had bushy eyebrows, and a fierce mustache. When he had his robe on, and was up behind that mahogany bench, he was visibly formidable. Not all the defendants who came before him would plead guilty, but all of them wanted to.”

The Man in the Dark, p. 203

The Binariest of Choices

Introduction: Last Friday when I left the office to head home, I was greeted out on the sidewalk by a liberal lady (who would self-identify as an evangelical, if that helps, which it shouldn’t) who was masked up, carrying a poster that chided Christ Church for having held a joint service last Sunday. Our problem …

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A Formidable Tribunal Indeed

“He had felt as though he were going up before an implacable and terrible feminine tribunal. In his imagination, he was going to walk up to a table, with her standing behind it, a stern and beautiful expression on her face. He was going to spread all his innards out on the table before her, and he was then going to give her a huge wooden mallet, and she would do as she pleased. Given the high insult his declaration of love would naturally be to someone as noble as she was, he was confident that she would wield that heavy mallet with a will. And yet he loved her still.”

The Man in the Dark, pp. 194-195