Name That Author

[hiway29]

I used to think I was literate, but I've been lost by most of the clues here. Guess I need to read more.

[anotherDan]

George,

You're correct!

Lincoln's second inaugural address, last lines. Take it away, brother!

[GeorgeStGeorge]

No time now. I'll try tonight.

George

[GeorgeStGeorge]

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

George

[wrdsandwrks]

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

George

Karl Marx?

[GeorgeStGeorge]

Yes, indeed. About the only large chunk of The Communist Manifesto I could find without the words communist, proletariat, or bourgeoisie in it!

George

[wrdsandwrks]

"The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done."

"'Women ought to be free – as free as we are,' he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences."

"There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe."

[anotherDan]

hail mary:

James Fenimore Cooper

[wrdsandwrks]

hail mary:

James Fenimore Cooper

Nah Dan, not Cooper, It's not that kind of tribe. It's about New York "society". Here's a couple more:

IT was generally agreed in New York that the Countess Olenska had “lost her looks.” 1

She had appeared there first, in Newland Archer’s boyhood, as a brilliantly pretty little girl of nine or ten, of whom people said that she “ought to be painted.” Her parents had been continental wanderers, and after a roaming babyhood she had lost them both, and been taken in charge by her aunt, Medora Manson, also a wanderer, who was herself returning to New York to “settle down.”

As he dropped into his armchair near the fire his eyes rested on a large photograph of May Welland, which the young girl had given him in the first days of their romance, and which had now displaced all the other portraits on the table. With a new sense of awe he looked at the frank forehead, serious eyes and gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose soul’s custodian he was to be. That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything, looked back at him like a stranger through May Welland’s familiar features; and once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas.

[doojable]

Edith Wharton?

[wrdsandwrks]

Edith Wharton?

You got it! All the quotes are from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Take it away Dooj!

[doojable]

Well, let's see if anyone knows this author.

Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the child.

"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language spoken at Valmonde in those days.

"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails - real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"

[wrdsandwrks]

Well, let's see if anyone knows this author.

Is it Flaubert?

[doojable]

Not Flaubert.

Here's another quote from the author's only (known) novel:

“The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not the first time she had heard an artist at the piano. Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth...She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her."

[doojable]

I hope she's not too obscure (hint ;) )

She wrote about NOLA...

The Edith Wharton quotes reminded me about this author.

Does that help?

[wrdsandwrks]

I hope she's not too obscure (hint ;) )

She wrote about NOLA...

The Edith Wharton quotes reminded me about this author.

Does that help?

Kate Chopin?

[doojable]

Kate Chopin?

Mais oui!

Somehow I figured you'd know her.

[Cynic]

I discovered this thread just yesterday, and hope I am not in poor protocol in jumping in and posting this.

(deleted)

Edited June 15, 2008 by Cynic

[GeorgeStGeorge]

I discovered this thread just yesterday, and hope I am not in poor protocol in jumping in and posting this.

Actually, you are. The person who gets the last clue gets to post one. Of course, we like to have new players, so I say we leave it up to wrdsandwrks to see whether she wants to post one or go ahead with your clue.

George

[Cynic]

My apologies.

The quote is withdrawn.

[doojable]

Keep that quote handy though Cynic. We always need new players. (I'm a real lightweight here.)

The more the merrier!

[wrdsandwrks]

Actually, you are. The person who gets the last clue gets to post one. Of course, we like to have new players, so I say we leave it up to wrdsandwrks to see whether she wants to post one or go ahead with your clue.

George

Cynic, Welcome to the Forum and sure, it’s fine with me, let’s continue with your quote.

But indulge me if you will, with an observation about Dooj’s previous quotes from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

I haven’t read the book in many years but it did have a significant effect on me when I read it. It’s set in New Orleans, my home town, and among the French speaking natives of New Orleans, known back when the book was set in the 1800s as “Creoles”. These are my ancestors and so the book had a familiar feel to me when I read it. In fact I may even be related to the author, I have relatives named Chopin in my family tree.

I remember on one trip to visit my family in New Orleans, I dragged my husband and father on a driving trip to visit Grand Isle, where the Creoles migrated in the summer months to escape the heat and diseases of New Orleans. (And where the main drama of The Awakening takes place, where the heroine of the story ends up drowning herself in the Gulf of Mexico.)I think it’s about a hundred miles or so from the city of New Orleans, a really picturesque drive down the Louisiana bayous.

The most powerful memory of that trip however, was when we finally reached our destination and crossed over the bridge that now connects Grand Isle to the “mainland”. As excited as I was about reaching the endmost part of the Louisiana coastline, looking for the quaint vacation cottages described by Kate Chopin and seeing mainly oil drilling equipment, the most overpowering thing was the heat.

We stepped out of our air-conditioned car and almost bowled over in the intensity of the humidity and heat. I can’t think of another time in my life, (except maybe in the sweat lodge at LEAD, but that’s another story) when I couldn’t hardly breathe because of the intensely humid heat, and I grew up in New Orleans. Maybe it was just an abnormally hot day, but I can’t imagine anyone going there to escape the heat. We took probably less than a minute to look around and say wow, it’s hot, I can hardly breathe, let’s go.

Here’s an essay from Literary Traveler site (literarytraveler.com) that describes a visit to Grand Isle that wasn’t as “brief” as mine was:

Sunset Grand Isle, LA - A visit to the setting of The Awakening

[wrdsandwrks]

My apologies.

The quote is withdrawn.

No problem, Cynic. While I was off composing my last reply, I missed that you withdrew the quote. Please do keep it handy.

[wrdsandwrks]

Here's a new author:

Absolute surrender-let me tell you where I got those words. I used them myself often, and you have heard them numerous times. But once, in Scotland, I was in a company where we were talking about the condition of Christ's Church, and what the great need of the Church and of believers is. There was in our company a godly Christian worker who has much to do in training other workers for Christ, and I asked him what he would say was the great need of the Church-the message that ought to be preached. He answered very quietly and simply and determinedly:

"Absolute surrender to God is the one thing."

The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the Christian workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve. Whereas, others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God's full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.

And now, I desire by God's grace to give to you this message-that your God in heaven answers the prayers which you have offered for blessing on yourselves and for blessing on those around you by this one demand: Are you willing to surrender yourselves absolutely into His hands? What is our answer to be? God knows there are hundreds of hearts who have said it, and there are hundreds more who long to say it but hardly dare to do so. And there are hearts who have said it, but who have yet miserably failed, and who feel themselves condemned because they did not find the secret of the power to live that life. May God have a word for all!

[Cynic]

I haven't read it before, but it's from Andrew Murray I presume.