response 25 of 224:

Oct 16 02:20 UTC 2003

  re #23:  you shouldn't hedge your bets like that if you're going
  to guess correctly.  It is indeed Kipling (it's the beginning of
  "The Man Who Would Be King.")

response 27 of 224:

Oct 16 03:29 UTC 2003

OK.  Don't know why it felt like Kipling, though.

        I scarely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously
        place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit.  He kept a
        summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais,
        and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter
        months and read Nietzche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain.
        When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty
        existence in the city and to toil incessantly.  Had it not been
        my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to
        stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday
        morning would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay.

response 29 of 224:

Oct 16 14:48 UTC 2003

Richard Brautigan?

response 31 of 224:

Oct 16 17:08 UTC 2003

Cool. I havent even read that but it sounded like him and I asked 
myself, "who would write about San Fransisco".

Ok, here is mine....

"The three years that have passed have brought but few changes to the 
quiet family. The war is over, and [NAME DELETED] safely at home, busy 
with his books and the small parish which found in him a minister by 
nature as by grace, a quiet, studious man, rich in the wisdom that is 
better than learning, the charity which calls all mankind `brother', 
the piety that blossoms into character, making it august and lovely. 

These attributes, in spite of poverty and the strict integrity which 
shut him out from the more worldly successes, attracted to him many 
admirable persons, as naturally as sweet herbs draw bees, and as 
naturally he gave them the honey into which fifty years of hard 
experience had distilled no bitter drop. Earnest young men found the 
gray-headed scholar as young at heart as they, thoughtful or troubled 
women instinctively brought their doubts to him, sure of finding the 
gentlest sympathy, the wisest counsel. Sinners told their sins to the 
pure-hearted old man and were both rebuked and saved. Gifted men found 
a companion in him. Ambitious men caught glimpses of nobler ambitions 
than their own, and even worldlings confessed that his beliefs were 
beautiful and true, although `they wouldn't pay'. "

response 33 of 224:

Oct 16 18:06 UTC 2003

Wow. I figured that one would be easy but I didnt figure it would be 
*that* easy ;) You got it, Twila, so it is your turn. 

response 35 of 224:

Oct 19 04:19 UTC 2003

Yeah, it's a record ejaculation time, for you.

response 37 of 224:

Oct 20 02:49 UTC 2003

I canht wait.

response 39 of 224:

Oct 25 02:24 UTC 2003

Hmmm, since Twila has not gotten to it, I'll post a little something
in the interim.

       Mr C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass is, of course, the
    well-known novelist.  Of his books, _A Moral Dustbin_,
    _More Chains Than Clank_, _Was It Likely?_, and the
    Hipdeep trilogy are, perhaps, the most admired.  Mr
    Earbrass is seen on the croquet lawn of his house,
    Hobbies Odd, near Collapsed Pudding in Mortshire.  He
    is studying a game left unfinished at the end of the
    summer.

response 41 of 224:

Oct 25 05:29 UTC 2003

Tom Holt?

response 43 of 224:

Oct 25 13:21 UTC 2003

Re 40,41,42.  Nope.

Should I give clues?  The passage was first published in 1953.

response 45 of 224:

Oct 25 23:58 UTC 2003

Edward Gorey.

response 47 of 224:

Oct 26 15:17 UTC 2003

(Re #44:  If you mean George Bernard Shaw, he died in 1950.  Doesn't
sound much like Shaw in any case.)

response 49 of 224:

Oct 27 06:37 UTC 2003

Re 44,47,48.  Not Shaw.  I mentioned 1953 in #43.

Re 45.  John Perry is correct!  Edward Gorey.

The quote is the opening pargraph of "The Unstrung Harp", published in
1953, republished in the collection "Amphigorey".