What is fleeting and transient in time, no doubt soon forgotten by adults, or rendered inconsequential in their lives, may burrow deep into the child-witness's soul ...
-- Joyce Carol Oates, The Lost Landscape
What is fleeting and transient in time, no doubt soon forgotten by adults, or rendered inconsequential in their lives, may burrow deep into the child-witness's soul ...
A man who expected the worst. Also, a superstitious man, a crosser of fingers, who knew, for example, that in America wicked spirits lived in trees so it was necessary to knock on wood to drive them out, whereas British tree spirits (he was an admirer of the British countryside) were friendly creatures so one touched wood to get the benefit of their benevolence.