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unearths some literary gems.
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unearths some literary gems.
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unearths some literary gems.
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unearths some literary gems.
rom The Mayfair Mystery, by Frank Richardson:
[This so-called mystery novel, first published in 1907 as 2835 Mayfair, might be better described as a steampunk-horror paranormal transgender romance. (I'm not trying to be funny; it seems to be a quite remarkable--and largely forgotten--book for its time.) Most of the comic relief pertains to whiskers, which I've learned was Richardson's claim to fame. (You'll recall "Mainly about Whiskers" as a chapter title in the previous Richardson book I read.) Among the attachments here, the one called "face-fungus" comes from the 2015 preface to a reprinted edition (and the OED does show Richardson as the first citation for the term); the others are from the body of the book, and only the vast majority of them involve whiskers. Incidentally, the supporting character who is obsessed with whiskers, "Frank Robinson," is presumably the author's self-parody--and Robinson is disliked by his club acquaintances, so Richardson obviously has a sense of humor about himself.][Bonus: an offstage character called the Hon. Otho Trigg]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Love Insurance, by Earl Derr Biggers:
***Mr. Thacker was cold and matter-of-fact, like a card index.***He continued to crank with agonized face. In the course of a few minutes, sounds of a terrific disturbance came from inside the car. Still, like a hurdy-gurdy musician, the man cranked."I say," Minot inquired, "has your machine got the Sextette from Lucia?""Well, there's been a lot of things wrong with it," the man replied, "but I don't think it's had that yet."[Cf. Cranking a Metz engine as as musical effect, seen recently in another snippet from this same era (ca. 1914).]***The dimple, in repose now, became the champion dimple of the world.***And, every few feet, Mr. Minot came upon "The Oldest House in San Marco."[Btw, this fictional town of San Marco, Florida, seems from various clues to probably be based on St. Augustine.]***Miss Meyrick presented her father and her aunt, and that did not tend to lighten the formality. Icicles, both of them, though stocky puffing icicles.***"Ever hear of Cotrell's Ink Eraser? Nothing ever written Cotrell can't erase. Will not soil or scratch the paper. If the words Cotrell has erased were put side by side—"[later]"I rigged up a big electric sign in Times Square and all night long I had an electric Cotrell's erasing indiscreet sentences."***"Her lines are good, but somehow—it's really a great problem to me—she doesn't sound human and natural when she gets them off. I looked up her beauty doctor and asked him if he couldn't put a witty gleam in her eye, but he told me he didn't care to go that far in correcting Mrs. Bruce's Maker."[Btw, the speaker is a hired wit who "ghostwrites" repartee for a society lady. Then--precursing my short story "Get It in Writing," in which the protag finds himself concurrently ghostwriting memoirs for two rival artists--the hired wit takes on another client, who is the chief social rival of the first. (Then, on the evening they're going head-to-head [SPOILER], he accidently gives them both the same script!)]***Minot hesitated. Ought he to leave the scene of action? Of action? He glanced about him. There was less action here than in a Henry James novel.***"I can talk as we walk along," said Trimmer, and proved it.***"One condition I attach. Ask no questions. Let us go out into the night unburdened with your interrogation points."***"What is this—a comic opera or a town? You are managing editor, Harry. I shall be city editor. Is there a city to edit? No matter."***"Don't look a gift bill in the treasury number."***He wore an orange and purple dressing-gown with a floral design no botanist could have sanctioned—the sort of dressing-gown that Arnold Bennett, had he seen it, would have made a leading character in a novel.***A deathly silence fell. Only a little traveling clock on the mantel was articulate.***
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unearths some literary gems.
From Our Mr. Wrenn, by Sinclair Lewis:
***The April skies glowed with benevolence this Saturday morning. The Metropolitan Tower was singing, bright ivory tipped with gold, uplifted and intensely glad of the morning. The buildings walling in Madison Square were jubilant; the honest red-brick fronts, radiant; the new marble, witty. The sparrows in the middle of Fifth Avenue were all talking at once, scandalously but cleverly.***“You’re the brother-in-law to a wise one,” commented the Brass-button Man.[This seems to be a compliment, meaning "you're smart to do that." But the only Google Books results for the phrase come from this very line in this very novel.]***A day of furtive darts out from his room to do London, which glumly declined to be done.***[Punctuation Marks Bearing the Full Burden dept.]“And how do you place Nietzsche?” she gravely desired to know.“?”“Nietzsche. You know—the German humorist.”***"I think I’ll go back to Paris. There even the Interesting People are—why, they’re interesting."***"There’s tea at five dollars a cup that they advertise is grown on ‘cloud-covered mountain-tops.’ I suppose when the tops aren’t cloud-covered they only charge three dollars a cup."***[Culteranismo dept.]"That’s playing. With words. My aged parent calls it ‘talking too much and not saying anything.’ Note that last—not saying anything! It’s one of the rules in playing that mustn’t be broken.”He understood that better than most of the things she said. “Why,” he exclaimed, “it’s kind of talking sideways.”***“And eat them without buttering your nose. For if you butter your nose they’ll think you’re a Greek professor. And you wouldn’t like that, would you, honey?”***He ate his dinner with a grave courtesy toward the food and the waiter. He was positively courtly to his fork.***Yet when dear Carson had jauntily departed, leaving the room still loud with the smack of his grin, Istra seemed to have forgotten that Mr. Wrenn was alive.***The Aengusmere Caravanserai is so unyieldingly cheerful and artistic that it makes the ordinary person long for a dingy old-fashioned room in which he can play solitaire and chew gum without being rebuked with exasperating patience by the wall stencils and clever etchings and polished brasses. It is adjectiferous. The common room (which is uncommon for [a] hotel parlor) is all in superlatives and chintzes.***"Now do tell us all about it, Mr. Wrenn. First, I want you to meet Miss Saxonby and Mr. Gutch and dear Yilyena Dourschetsky and Mr. Howard Bancock Binch—of course you know his poetry.”And then she drew a breath and flopped back into the wing-chair’s muffling depths.***“Gee! I talked to that omelet Berg’ rac like I’d known it all my life!”***Mrs. Arty—Mrs. R. T. Ferrard is her name, but we always call her Mrs. Arty.***The profusion of furniture was like a tumult; the redness and oakness and polishedness of furniture was a dizzying activity.***A general grunt that might be spelled “Hmmmmhm” assented.***"I’m getting sick of Paris and some day I’m going to stop an absinthe on the boulevard and slap its face to show I’m a sturdy moving-picture Western Amurrican."***Setting up his box stage, he glued a pill-box and a match-box on the floor—the side of the box it had always been till now—and there he had the mahogany desks. He thrust three matches into the corks, and behold three graceful actors—graceful for corks, at least.***"Where’s N? Oh, how clever of it, it’s right by M."***Besides, it wasn’t as if he were engaged to Nelly, or anything like that. Besides, of course Istra would never care for him. There were several other besideses with which he harrowed himself while trying to appear picnically agreeable.***
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