A "mysterious quote" item was a standard feature of Agora for
several years; this is an attempt to revive it.

Here's how the game works:  Someone posts a quote from a published
work.  It can be anything -- prose, poetry, fiction, nonfiction.
The first person to guess the author correctly gets to post the
next quote.

A few guidelines:  The author should be someone people are likely
to have heard of.  If people are having trouble, you should give
a hint or two, or post another quote by the same author.

98 responses total.

Okay, I'll start.  Here's a quote:

    Of the two females, the aunt now required the most
    soothing, for she was perfectly beside herself with terror.
    As to the young lady, there was something, even in the
    spectre of her lover, that seemed endearing.  There was
    still the semblance of manly beauty; and though the shadow
    of a man is but little calculated to satisfy the affections
    of a lovesick girl, yet, where the substance is not to be
    had, even that is consoling.  The aunt declared she would
    never sleep in that chamber again; the niece, for once, was
    refactory, and declared as strongly that she would sleep in
    no other in the castle: the consequence was, that she had
    to sleep in it alone; but she drew a promise from her aunt
    not to relate the story of the spectre, lest she should be
    denied the only melancholy pleasure left her on earth --
    that of inhabiting the chamber over which the guardian shad
    of her lover kept its nightly vigils.

Remember, the object is to identify the *author*.

(typo: last word on next-to-last line should be "shade")

Winter agora Item 21: That Gosh Darn Mysterious Quote Item - has been
linked to books 96.

This sounds like James Thurber.

eagar allen poe

Could be anybody.  Edith Wharton?

Not Thurber, not Poe, not Wharton.

James Branch Cabell?
I could swear I've read this thing, but I just don't know.  It's really a bit
unlike Cabell, but it could be his, & I can't think of anyone better to
guess.

Not Cabell.

Hint:  19th century author.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Tu Madre

Not Hawthorne, not, um, Madre.

I'll post another quote by this author shortly.

John Buchan?

Yay! The Mystery Quote is back!  I'll guess Emily Bronte.

Not Buchan, not Bronte.  A further hint:  The author is male
and wrote two of the best-known short stories in the English
language.

Here's another quote:

    Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have
    served for a church; every window and crevice of which
    seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the
    flail was busily resounding within it from morning till
    night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the
    eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as
    if watching the weather, some with their heads under their
    wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and
    cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the
    sunshine on the roof.  Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting
    in the repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied
    forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff
    the air.  A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in
    an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks,
    regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farm-yard,
    and guinea fowls freeting about it, like ill-tempered
    housewives, with their peevish doscontented cry.  Before
    the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a
    husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his
    burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of
    his heart -- sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet,
    and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives
    and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had
    discovered.

        I hesitate, because remmers may have made it way too easy now,
        plus I have no quotes to enter: Washington Irving.

Hm, I wasn't aware I'd made it *that* easy, but you hit the
bullseye.  Washington Irving it is.

First quote was from "The Spectre Bridegroom", second from
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

Jor's up.  You sure you can't find a quote?

        It would just be a repitition from my tired old stable.
        Which would also make it obvious. If something comes up
        I'll go ahead, in the mean time, someone please take my turn.

        Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.

(Is that a new quote?)

It can be, if I'm not overstepping any boundaries.

You're fine as long as it's from a published work by an
author who isn't hopelessly obscure.

I'll take a wild stab and guess Lyndon Johnson (since he
initiatied the "War on Poverty").

Hopelessly obscure? Well, I should hope that this author isn't that, but you
will need to retreat much farther back in history than LBJ to find this quote,
which is, btw, a translation.

Voltaire?

No, not Voltaire.

Moses Maimonides?

rca has it --- Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known by the acronym "Rambam"
wrote that in the 12th century, in his _Guide_to_the_Perplexed_.

Ok:

The shore road was "woodsy and wild and lonesome."
On the right hand, scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken
by long years of tussle with the gulf winds, grew thickly.
On the left were the steep red sandstone cliffs, so near the
track in places that a mare of less steadiness than the
sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind
her.  Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn
rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with pebbles as with
ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, shimmering and blue,
and over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery
in the sunlight.

Tama Janowitz?

Not Tama Janowitz

Jack Kerouac?

help

help
hai

        
        HAI!

  I may be way off the mark, but somehow the quotation shares a vague
ambiance with novels in the category ...La Maison aux pignons verts, but
will need to do some checking before I begin theorizing regarding the author
thereof.

Don't.  You can guess as often as necessary, though it's considered proper
to wait for at least one more response before guessing again.

not Jack Kerouac

Hm, I think R K Sawyer essentially has it in <resp:34>, although
he doesn't name the author.  Lucy Maud Montgomery.

re: 37: Lucy Maud Montgomery: ding
The reason #34 didnt count is that we were looking for the author.
go, remmers

Book was _Anne of Green Gables_ or the French title La Maison aux Pignons
Verts

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