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Grex > Books > #40: Summer Mystery Quote Item | |
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md
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Summer Mystery Quote Item
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Jul 3 18:24 UTC 1995 |
Guess the author of the quote and you get to enter the
next quote. I guessed the last one in the Spring cf,
so I'll start it off.
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| 157 responses total. |
md
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response 1 of 157:
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Jul 3 18:25 UTC 1995 |
Here's my mystery quote. It's a longish one and I hope an
easy one. Setting: An elderly gentleman socialite has
gained the admiration of the young narrator of the story by,
among other things, ignoring his set's prohibitions against
"making a scene" in order to deliver a humiliating thrashing
to an arrogant rider at a polo match who'd been beating his
horse. He explains to his young friend that this and
certain other unconventionally humane behaviors of his are
attributable to the long talks he had years ago, during the
Civil War, with "an old heathen" who used to visit him and
the other sick and wounded soldiers in a hospital in
Washington DC. This person must have had a huge influence
on him: Ever since then, whenever he's been at a crossroads,
he's heard this mysterious visitor's voice "telling me the
right and wrong of it"; whereupon he would act, as at the
polo match, "in obedience to motives unintelligible to the
people he lived among." He had often wondered whatever
became of the "old heathen," until, one night, he was
visiting the narrator, and...
"By Jove - there he is!" Haley Delane shouted. I
turned to see what he meant.
He had taken up a book -- an unusual gesture, but it
lay at his elbow, and I suppose he had squeezed the
newspapers dry. He held the volume out to me without
speaking, his forefinger resting on the open page; his
swarthy face was in a glow, his hand shook a little. The
page to which his finger pointed bore the steel engraving
of a man's portrait.
"It's him to the life -- I'd know those old clothes of
his again anywhere," Delane exulted, jumping up from his
seat.
I took the book and stared first at the portrait and
then at my friend.
"Your pal in Washington?"
He nodded excitedly. "That chap I've often told you
about, yes!...How on earth did the old boy get his
portrait in a book? Has somebody been writing something
about him?" His sluggish curiosity awakened, he
stretched his hand for the volume. But I held it back.
"Lots of people have written about him; but this book
is his own."
"You mean he wrote it?" He smiled incredulously.
"Why, the poor chap hadn't any education!"
"Perhaps he had more than you think. Let me keep the
book a moment longer, and read you something from it."
He signed an assent, though I could see the
apprehension of the printed page already clouding his
interest.
"What sort of things did he write?"
"Things for *you*. Now listen."
He settled back into his armchair, composing a
painfully attentive countenance, and I sat down and
began:
A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim.
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path
near the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out
there, untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish
woolen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious, I halt, and silent stand:
Then with light fingers I from the face of the
nearest, the first, just lift the blanket:
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with
well-grey'd hair, and flesh all sunken about
the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step -- And who are you, my
child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?
Then to the third -- a face nor child, nor old,
very calm, as if beautiful yellow-white
ivory;
Young man, I think I know you -- I think this face
of yours is the face of the Christ himself;
Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here
again he lies.
...I shut the book and looked up again. Delane sat silent,
his great hands clasping the arms of his chair, his head
slightly sunk on his breast. His lids were dropped, as I
imagined reverentially. My own heart was beating with a
religious emotion; I had never felt the oft-read lines as
I felt them then.
A little timidly, he spoke at length. "Did *he* write
that?"
"Yes; just about the time you were seeing him,
probably."
Delane still brooded; his expression grew more and
more timid. "What do you call . . . er . . . call it
. . . exactly?" he ventured.
I was puzzled for a moment; then: "Why, poetry . . .
rather a free form, of course. . . You see, he was an
originator of new verse forms. . ."
"New verse forms?" Delane echoed forlornly. He stood
up in his heavy way, but did not offer to take the book
from me again. I saw in his face the symptoms of
approaching departure.
"Well, I'm glad to have seen his picture after all
these years," he said; and on the threshold he paused to
ask: "What was his name, by the way?"
When I told him he repeated it with a smile of slow
relish. "Yes; that's it. Old Walt -- that was what all
the fellows used to call him. He was a great chap: I'll
never forget him. -- I rather wish, though," he added, in
his mildest tone of reproach, "you hadn't told me that he
wrote all that rubbish."
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janc
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response 2 of 157:
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Jul 5 07:25 UTC 1995 |
Heh.
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rcurl
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response 3 of 157:
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Jul 5 19:16 UTC 1995 |
Who's Heh? I haven't heard of him. I will guess O'Henry.
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md
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response 4 of 157:
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Jul 5 20:28 UTC 1995 |
Not O. Henry, although the plot twist is certainly worthy
of him. I think the subject matter might be a bit too
"literary" for O. Henry. The author and O. Henry were
contemporaries, however.
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peacefrg
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response 5 of 157:
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Jul 6 07:44 UTC 1995 |
Joseph Conrad?
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md
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response 6 of 157:
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Jul 6 12:19 UTC 1995 |
Not Conrad. The author was an American.
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md
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response 7 of 157:
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Jul 6 17:22 UTC 1995 |
[The author of the quote-within-a-quote is Walt Whitman, of
course, from the "Drum Taps" collection in _Leaves of Grass_.
He actually did make the rounds of the sick and injured in
Washington DC hospitals during the Civil War. The mystery
quote, however, is from a work of fiction by someone else.
The gag is that here is a man whose entire life has been under
the spell of Walt Whitman, and he's never read a word of his
poetry, and doesn't even like it when someone finally reads
it to him. The setting of the mystery quote, btw, is New York.]
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rcurl
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response 8 of 157:
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Jul 6 18:21 UTC 1995 |
Why are you telling us all that? I was digging through Whitman for
the poem, on the off chance....(not having recognized it)....and you
trumped me. Now, back to the books....
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md
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response 9 of 157:
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Jul 6 20:41 UTC 1995 |
[Gack! Sorry about that. I wanted to clarify what the mystery
quote was (not Whitman, but...the other one) and I went and spoiled
your Whitman digging.]
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md
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response 10 of 157:
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Jul 10 12:11 UTC 1995 |
No more guesses? Want a hint? I said this author and O. Henry
were contemporaries; actually, they were born in the same year.
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md
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response 11 of 157:
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Jul 11 13:21 UTC 1995 |
Still no guesses? Hmmm... The May issue of "Yankee" magazine
has an article about this writer. One of the points the author
of the article makes is that ten years ago you could pick up
first editions of our writer's books for a few dollars, and
now our writer is "the hottest writer in the country." I don't
know if I'd go quite that far, but it's true that a reversal
of fortunes has taken place in the past few years.
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rcurl
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response 12 of 157:
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Jul 11 15:51 UTC 1995 |
Let's try Edith Wharton - I do not recall ever reading anything by
her, but there is more note of her now, as well as previous quotes.
Also, she was born in the same year as O. Henry....
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md
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response 13 of 157:
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Jul 13 15:39 UTC 1995 |
Bingo! It's from the story "The Spark" from her "Old New York"
collection. Rane's turn.
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rcurl
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response 14 of 157:
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Jul 14 06:49 UTC 1995 |
I was afraid of that....I'm leaving tomorrow for a week out of town,
and don't have time to enter a quote now (I'm running low... :), nor
to tend it if I did. Would you like to enter another quote Michael,
or find a volunteer? I'll win another turn some time. (And I think
I'll pick up a brief collection of Wharton, to correct my lack of
knowledge of her work.)
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md
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response 15 of 157:
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Jul 14 13:03 UTC 1995 |
There's a nice collection of her short stories edited by R.W.B. Lewis.
Includes "Xingu," "Roman Fever," and other favorites. The Library
of America has two Wharton Volumes out now.
I'm stumped for a quote. Any volunteers?
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md
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response 16 of 157:
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Jul 18 12:40 UTC 1995 |
No volunteers. Hmph. Here's the next mystery quote. The author
was not a member of the Monty Python gang, and in fact was dead
by the time Python got started, just to get that out of the way.
SCENE WITH HAREBELLS
High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division:
Before Mr Justice Cheese and a special Jury the hearing was
begun of the action Mulberry v. Home Secretary.
Mr Roring, KC, said: My Lord, this is an action in which we ask
for nominal damages for wrongful imprisonment. The facts
pertaining may be stated very briefly. Miss Diana Mulberry is a
maiden lady living in South Kensington and justly celebrated as a
writer of dainty stories and playlets. On the --
Mr Justice Cheese: Has anybody got a pin?
A Juror: An ordinary pin or a safety pin, my Lord?
Mr Justice Cheese: Never mind, I can draw things instead. Well,
Mr Roring?
Mr Roring: On the night of the third of April, my Lord, towards
half-past ten o'clock, Miss Mulberry was returning in a taxicab
from a dinner party in Hampstead. The night was clear and mild
and there was a full moon. As her cab skirted the heath Miss
Mulberry perceived in a little distant dell a clump of harebells
nodding in the breeze, and the sight suddenly caused her, in her
own words, to 'come all over whimsy'. She therefore leaned out
and stopped the taxicab, alighted, and, seizing the driver, Jas.
Tomlinson, by the hand, ran swiftly towards the harebell clump.
On arriving there she blew the harebells a kiss and ran tiptoe
behind a tree, crying to Jas. Tomlinson: 'Let's pretend!'
She then peeped from behind the tree, ran out, and kneeling down
by the harebells pretended to telephone to Jas. Tomlinson,
saying: 'Hello, Prince Wonderful, this is 9908 Fairyland
speaking!'
Mr Justice Cheese: And was it?
Mr Roring: Er--no, my lord. After further indulgence in
whimsiness, which the evidence will disclose, Miss Mulberry again
took Jas. Tomlinson by the hand and danced with him on tiptoe
round the harebells, shouting with elfish glee. It was at that
point that Police-Constable Bumpton arrived and took Miss
Mulberry, after a slight struggle, into custody.
Mr Justice Cheese: It's odd I can never draw necks properly.
Mr Roring: As y'Ludship pleases.
Mr Justice Cheese: Ears, yes. Necks, no.
Miss Mulberry then gave evidence bearing out counsel's opening.
Mr Roring: Harebells have a decided effect on you, Miss Mulberry?
-- Yes. They make me feel dancey! I always think the fairies
use them for telephones!
Mr Roring: Bluebells have this effect also? -- Certainly.
Mr Justice Cheese: And dumb-bells? -- I beg your pardon?
Mr Justice Cheese: When I said 'dumb-bells', that was just a
little whimsy crack of my own. Proceed, Mr Roring.
Jas. Tomlinson, taxicab driver, of Little Padge Street,
Bermondsey, describes the dance by moonlight among the
harebells.
Mr Roring: You enjoyed the dance, Mr Tomlinson? -- Not so bad.
You ran after Miss Mulberry and blew her a kiss? -- Not to the
lady I didn't. I never blew kisses to no lady. I got my licence
to think of.
Did you blow a kiss to the policeman when he appeared? -- Well,
I can't rightly say. The lady was telephoning to 'im, like,
''Ullo,' she says, 'is that Prince Winkipop? The darling
'arebells 'ave missed you, Prince!'
Mr Justice Cheese: And had they? -- I couldn't rightly say,
melud.
PC Reginald Bumpton, YY709, said that Miss Mulberry was dancing
on tiptoe hand in hand with Tomlinson. He requested them to move
away. The complainant then said: ''Oo knows but we are all
enchanted 'ere tonight, in the moonlight, among the 'arebells?'
Mr Roring: You cautioned her? -- I cautioned 'er, and she
replied: ''Ush! The fairies are ringing us up!' I cautioned 'er
further, and she replied: 'Tinkle, tinkle, Princess 'Oneylocks
speaking.' She then 'opped up and down on 'er toes, very
excited.
What was the taxicab driver doing? -- 'E was larfing.
Mr Justice Cheese (to Miss Mulberry): Were you laughing? -- Oh,
*no*. It was all so beautiful! The harebells were chiming a
little cozy cuddly song and a little breeze came dancing in,
curtseying to the trees, and --
Mr Justice Cheese: Can you draw horses' legs. -- No.
Mr Justice Cheese: Nor can I.
Miss Mulberry: I should like to add that a tiny, wee, winsome
baby rabbit peeped out at us!
Mr Justice Cheese: Can you draw a rabbit? -- Oh, no. One
doesn't *draw* rabbits, one *thinks* them! Lovely warm tender
furry rabbity tricksy thoughts peeping in and out of one's
dreams. One thinks harebells, too. Slim, dancey, pale-blue
thoughts! Every time a fairy trips over a rainbow a new harebell
is born.
Mr Justice Cheese (to PC Bumpton): Is that true? -- I can't say,
my Lord.
Mr Justice Cheese: Is anybody here from the Royal Botannical
Society?
Mr Boomer, KC (for the Home Secretary): The Chief Conservator of
Kew will be called, my Lord. He will tell the Court that the
complainant's theory with regard to harebells is extremely
doubtful.
Mr Justice Cheese: The Home Secretary is being called also?
Mr Boomer, KC: Yes, m'lud. Our case is that the whimsy conduct
with which the complainant was charged took place after eight
p.m.
Mr Justice Cheese: Oh, Auntie!
The Court adjourned for luncheon.
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birdlady
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response 17 of 157:
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Jul 18 15:58 UTC 1995 |
This sounds so familiar...but I don't know what on earth it is. =( I enjoyed
reading it, though. <g>
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helmke
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response 18 of 157:
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Jul 18 16:07 UTC 1995 |
The write of Alice in Wonderland? UMMMMMMM... what was that name again?
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omni
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response 19 of 157:
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Jul 18 17:35 UTC 1995 |
Lewis Carroll, although I suspect it being P.G. Wodehouse.
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md
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response 20 of 157:
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Jul 18 20:24 UTC 1995 |
Neither Lewis Carroll nor P.G. Wodehouse.
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remmers
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response 21 of 157:
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Jul 20 12:43 UTC 1995 |
Hm, could it be James M. Barrie, author of "Peter Pan"? (Or perhaps
someone satirizing Barrie -- the business about conjuring up fairies
is what got me thinking along those lines.)
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md
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response 22 of 157:
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Jul 20 20:42 UTC 1995 |
Not Barrie, either. It is a dead Englishman. I don't
know who he was satirizing or parodying, but I thought it
was hilarious. This guy is probably not well-known enough
to be a legitimate mystery quote subject. I entered this
just because it made me laugh out loud, and I thought it
might make others laugh, too.
Come to think of it, the only reason I entered this quote
at all is because no one else volunteered. It wasn't even
my turn. Since I'm going on vacation next week, I'm going
to give the answer: D.B. Wyndham Lewis. Not to be confused
with the American painter and satirist Percy (I think) Wyndham
Lewis. D.B. is the one Edith Sitwell used to refer to as
"the wrong Wyndham Lewis," poor man. The only reference to
him in the Oxford Companion to English Literature is at
the end of the article about the American Wyndham Lewis guy,
and all it says is "Not to be confused with the Catholic
biographer, D.B. Wyndham Lewis." But when he wasn't being a
Catholic biographer, he wrote humorous newspaper items like
the above.
ANYWAY, will someone who will be around next week *please*
enter the next quote?
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md
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response 23 of 157:
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Jul 20 20:45 UTC 1995 |
[Btw, our miniature dachshund, Lucy, is familiarly known
as "Princess Winkipop" thanks to Miss Mulberry.]
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remmers
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response 24 of 157:
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Jul 21 14:27 UTC 1995 |
I would never have gotten D.B. Wyndham Lewis. That being the case, I'll
offer the next quote:
If it suits you to believe that Yahweh created the universe in
the fashion related in Genesis, I won't argue it. But I don't
have to respect your belief and I do not think that legislation
requiring that the Biblical version be included in public
school textbooks is either constitutional or fair. How about
Ormuzd? Ouranos? Odin? There is an unnumbered throng of
religions, each with its creation myth -- all different. Shall
one of them be taught as having the status of a scientific
hypothesis merely because the members of the religion subscribing
to it can drum up a majority at the polls, or organize a pressure
group at a state capital? This is tyranny by the mob inflicted
on minorities in defiance of the Bill of Rights.
Revelation has no place in a scientific textbook; it belongs
under religious studies. Cosmogony is the most difficult and
least satisfactory branch of astronomy; cosmologists would be
the first to agree. But, damn it; they're *trying*! -- on the
evidence as it becomes available, by logical methodology, and
their hypotheses are constantly subjected to pitiless criticism
by their informed equals.
They should not have to surrender time on their platform, space
in their textbooks, to purveyors of ancient myths supported only
by a claim of "divine revelation."
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