response 92 of 215:

May 7 20:49 UTC 2001

okey...sorry about the delay.  could've sworn I had this book lying around;
as it is I had to go look up the quote I wanted:
"But the author of *Primrose Dalliance* said that with the Book of the Moment
crows, what counted was Personal Pull--surely they remembered that Hepplewater
had married Walter Strawberry's latest wife's sister.  The author of *Jocund
Day* agreed about the PUll, but though that in this instance it was political,
because there was some powerful anti-Fascist propaganda in *Mock Turtle* and
it was well known that you could always get old Sneep Fortescue with a good
smack at the Blackshirts.
"'But what's *Mock Turtle* about?' inquired Harriet.  On this point, the 
authors were for the most part vague; but a young man who wrote humorous 
magazine stories and could therefore afford to be wide-minded about novels,
said he had read it and thought it rather interesting, only a bit long.  It
was about a swimming instructor at a watering-place, who had contracted such
an unfortunate anti-nudity complex through watching so many bathing-beauties
that it completely inhibited all his natural emotions.  So he got a job on
a whaler and fell in love at first sight with an Eskimo, because she was such
a beautiful bundle of garments.  So he married her and brought her back to 
live in a suburb, where she fell in love with a vegetarian nudist.  So the 
husband went slightly mad and contracted a complex about giant turtles, and
spent all his spare time staring into the turtle-tank at the Aquarium, and 
watching the strange, slow monsters swimming significantly round in their
encasing shells.  But of course a lot of things come into it-it was one of
those books that reflect the author's reactions to Things in General.
Altogether, significant was, he thought, the word to describe it. Harriet began
to feel that there might be something to be said even for the plot of *Death
'twixt Wind and Water.*  It was, at least, significant of  nothing in
particular."

response 94 of 215:

May 8 12:50 UTC 2001

(I believe that the quote is from _Gaudy_Night_, for what it's worth.)

response 96 of 215:

May 8 19:55 UTC 2001

Ack.  And I actually quoted from that same book in the mystery quote before,
but I didn't remember anything about nudist vegetarians.  You'd think that
would stick in my mind.

response 98 of 215:

May 9 12:43 UTC 2001

Well, I'm pretty familiar with the book (though it's probably been a decade
since I last read it).  I have to admit that for the first bit I was muttering
"I *know* this quote, but who is it?" ... until about the time the name
"Harriet" appeared; I was getting it, but the name confirmed it.

A quote should appear in due course.  I don't have anything suitable at hand.

response 100 of 215:

May 10 23:42 UTC 2001

OK, here's the next quote.  You may not be surprised to learn that it was
suggested, by association, by the last one.  But the author is different -
and, I think, the parody more specifically pointed.

             "Please permit me a slight digression.  At College we
        have a flourishing Musical Society, which in recent years has
        grown in numbers to such an extent that it can now tackle the
        less monumental symphonies.  In the year of which I speak, it
        was embarking on a very ambitious enterprise.  It was going to
        produce a new opera, a work by a talented young composer whose
        name it would not be fair to mention, since it is now well-known
        to you all.  Let us call him Edward England.  I've forgotten the
        title of the work, but it was one of these stark dramas of tragic
        love which, for some reason I've never been able to understand,
        are supposed to be less ridiculous with a musical accompaniment
        than without.  No doubt a good deal depends on the music.
             "I can still remember reading the synopsis while waiting
        for the curtain to go up, and to this day have never been able
        to decide whether the libretto was meant seriously or not.
        Let's see--the period was the late Victorian era, and the
        main characters were Sarah Stampe, the passionate postmistress,
        Walter Partridge, the saturnine gamekeeper, and the squire's son,
        whose name I forget.  It's the old story of the eternal triangle,
        complicated by the villager's resentment of change--in this case,
        the new telegraph system, which the local crones predict will Do
        Things to the cows' milk and cause trouble at lambing time.
             "Ignoring the frills, it's the usual drama of operatic
        jealousy.  The squire's son doesn't want to marry into the Post
        Office, and the gamekeeper, maddened by his rejection, plots
        revenge.  The tragedy rises to its dreadful climax when poor Sarah,
        strangled with parcel tape, is found hidden in a mailbag in the
        Dead Letter Department.  The villagers hang Partridge from the
        nearest telegraph pole, much to the annoyance of the linesmen.
        He was supposed to sing an aria while he was being hung: _that_
        is one thing I regret missing.  The squire's son takes to drink,
        or the Colonies, or both: and that's that.
             "I'm sure you're wondering where all this is leading: please
        bear with me for a moment longer.  The fact is that while this
        synthetic jealousy was being rehearsed, the real thing was going
        on back-stage.  Fenton's friend Kendall had been spurned by the
        young lady who was to play Sarah Stampe.  I don't think he was a
        particularly vindictive person, but he saw an opportunity for a
        unique revenge.  Let us be frank and admit that college life _does_
        breed a certain irresponsibility--and in identical circumstances,
        how many of us would have rejected the same chance?
             "I see the dawning comprehension on your faces.  But we,
        the audience, had no suspicion when the overture started on that
        memorable day.  It was a most distinguished gathering: everyone
        was there, from the Chancellor downwards.  Deans and professors
        were two a penny: I never did discover how so many people had
        been bullied into coming.  Now that I come to think of it,
        I can't remember what I was doing there myself.
             "The overture died away amid cheers, and, I must admit,
        occasional cat-calls from the more boisterous members of the
        audience.  Perhaps I do them an injustice: they may have been
        the more musical ones.

(The quotation marks are in the original, as this is not narration but
a character's speech.  There is no close quote because I did not reach
the end of the embedded quotation.)

response 102 of 215:

May 11 00:09 UTC 2001

Arthur C. Clark, _Silence Please_, (c)1954
Collected in _Tales from the "White Hart"_

response 104 of 215:

May 11 10:19 UTC 2001

Clarke (not Clark) is correct.  Waugh is not.

response 106 of 215:

May 11 16:06 UTC 2001

I may have to go track that down now, just to hear the end of the story...

response 108 of 215:

May 11 18:36 UTC 2001

Re #15: Paul - Tales from the White Hart is Clarke's explicit attempt to mix
scifi with humor.  Every story is a tale told in a bar about some dubious
scientific achievement.

response 110 of 215:

May 12 00:42 UTC 2001

{I forgot to change my name here, didn't I?  Most folks call me "Joe."}

response 112 of 215:

May 12 11:36 UTC 2001

(s lark/larke/? - drat!)
I've got a long weekend of family stuff coming up & may or may not manage
to log in.  Could someone who hasn't been up in a while take this and enter
a quote?

response 114 of 215:

May 12 18:22 UTC 2001

Go for it.