wrdsandwrks

Not an American.

"The two highest functionaries of the state are the wet nurse and the school teacher."

***

"Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory."

Kafka?

I hope that Spring has finally taken firm hold wherever you live, and that it's a beautiful one. I hope that something unexpected and really neat happens to you today.

Love to you, niKa

Thanks so much for the sweet wishes. I'm now looking out for that thing that's "unexpected and really neat" today!

And the same goes out for you...

Certainly, you can call me b.

New author:

And of that second kingdom will I sing

Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself,

And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy.

Milton?

Reading through this thread reminded me how special that song "Shout to the Lord" is to me. It brought back memories of when we first started attending a church several years after leaving TWI. This song in particular helped me get free from the shackles and fetters of way stiffness. I was able to join in with all of my heart in lifting holy hands to praise Him who is worthy of all praise, and lifting my feet in dancing before Him and lifting my voice in a shout to the Lord.

I don't have much to add except that it was very thrilling to hear Jesus being worshipped on mainstream national TV. It brought tears to my eyes too.

A bit more obvious.

"A Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe

George

You got it! You're up.

I would guess Alexandre Dumas ("The Count of Monte Cristo")

George

No, but that's a good guess. This might help, it's from the same story:

I said to him -- "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."

"How?" said he, "Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible ? And in the middle of the carnival?"

"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."

"Amontillado!"

"I have my doubts."

"Amontillado!"

"And I must satisfy them."

"Amontillado!"

"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he. He will tell me" --

"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."

"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own."

"Come let us go."

"Whither?"

It's from Shakespeare's third sonnet.

You're up, W&W!

George

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled -- but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

George

Shakespeare???

I believe that that's Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

George

Yep! Take it away George...

Here goes:

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe."

A few more:

"The horror! The horror!"

"Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a

meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. "We have lost the first of

the ebb," said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was

barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to

the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast

sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."

Joseph Conrad????

I believe this is an Irish author, and a good friend of Tolkien,

by the name of C.S. Lewis

you got it!

One more:

There is a way into my country from all the worlds," said the Lamb; but as he spoke his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane.

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy, "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?"

"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder. And now come; I will open the door in the sky and send you to your own land."

Thomas Aquinas?

George

No, not Aquinas. Here's another one:

"Is he safe?" "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver... "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Is it too soon for another quote?

Try this:

Many a man, brought up in the glib professional of some shallow form of Christianity, who comes through reading Astronomy to realise for the first time how majestically indifferent most reality is to man, and who perhaps abandons his religion on that account, may at that moment be having his first genuinely religious experience.

and this:

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more From all the victories that I seemed to score; From the cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh; From all my proofs of Thy divinity, Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me. Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head. From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee, O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free. Lord of the narrow gate and the needle s eye, Take from me my trumpery lest I die.

While I'm not particularly fond of Jane Austen (or the Bronte sisters, for the matter),

I can't go as far as Mark Twain, who is quite brutal in his assessment of her work.

Suum cuique pulchrum est!

Wrds, I liked the short piece on your blog. Do I understand correctly that your example is from a textbook?

If so, that is a disgrace. The editors should have caught that mistake,

even if the author was not well-versed in 18th century English grammar.

Thanks. It's not exactly a textbook, more like a study-guide. It was sent out to schools by the Masterpiece Theatre to promote the Jane Austen series they were showing on Sunday nights. Yes, well I guess Jane Austin knew her English grammar better than the editors of the guide.

Here's another quote:

"I did not yet know (and I was long in learning) the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was holiness. For the first time the song of the sirens sounded like the voice of my mother or my nurse...It was as though the voices which had called to me from the world s end were now speaking at my side...never had the wind of Joy blowing through any story been less separable from the story itself...That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes."

Here it is:

Something tonic and lusty and cheerily cold, like a sea breeze, was coming over them. There was no fear anywhere: the blood inside them flowed as if to a marching-song. They felt themselves taking their places in the ordered rhythm of the universe, side by side with punctual seasons and patterned atoms and the obeying Seraphim. Under the immense weight of ther obedience their wills stood up straight and untiring like caryatides. Eased of all fickleness and all protestings they stood: gay, light, nimble, and alert. They had outlived all anxieties: care was a word without meaning.

No, not Anne Rice.

Here's another clue:

How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother.

The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which

had been blown back by the drought through the broken window, showing the drawn,

white, face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and

still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother's

bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed

before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed,

his head almost touching poor Lucy's breast. Then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one

who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me, "It is not yet too late! Quick! Quick! Bring the brandy!"

Got to be a vampire novel, maybe the original, Dracula by Bram Stoker?

seems like a back-handed compliment to me!

Good point; some people do think he secretly admired her. Here's an example if you're interested: "A Barkeeper Entering the Kingdom of Heaven": Did Mark Twain Really Hate Jane Austen? by

Emily Auerbach at : http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1999/win...eeper-entering/

"A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Ah, just the quotes I needed.

I believe this is Jane Austen.

Ding, Ding, Ding, We have a winner! Jane Austen it is!

Mark Twain and G.K. Chesterton both had memorable things to say about her:

She wasn't exactly one of Mark Twain's favorites. He said:

"Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book."

"I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

G.K. Chesterton was a bit kinder to her:

"It is certain that she by her own artistic talent made interesting what thousands of superficially similar people would have made dull."

Good tries everyone!

BTW, I wrote recently about this quote "A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can." on my blog recently. You Latin grammar fans might enjoy it: http://allmyways.blogspot.com/2008/02/dont...ane-austen.html. It was even mentioned on the Jane Austen blog here: http://www.austenblog.com/2008/03/03/how-d...he-subjunctive/

Now you know who my favorite author is:

Take it away b.

Is this GK Chesterton?

No, it's not GK.

Here's another one I like:

"It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation."

And probably the most famous of this author's quotes:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

It seems like it would be something from the 17 or 1800's.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark here...

Mark Twain - cuz' it sounds like something he would say.

Of course, he was usually calling politicians stupid, not gentleman and lady.

No, good try. It's a bit earlier than Mark Twain, someone also known for their wit.

Here's another one from the same author, (actually the same book too):

"A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Thanks B.

Here it is:

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”