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unearths some literary gems.
From Everyone on this Train Is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson:
***I'd say S. S. Dine [who made rules about mystery writing] would be rolling in his grave, but that would break one of the general rules about the supernatural. So he'd be lying very still but disappointed all the same.***Tickets didn't just run into the thousands of dollars, they sprinted.***They all had their links, their grievances and their arguments, which, adding ego and cooking under the desert sun, baked into nothing less than a resentful quiche.***"Pissssss off," he said, spending S's like he'd robbed a bank of them.***Royce scowled back at the door like it had insulted him.***"He shouldn't be so... so... caviar... with my friendship."***"Why do you get to interview me, and I don't get to interview you?""Because I'm the narrator!"***"I know how a denouement works," I said, sulking."De-noo-moh," Wolfgang said from behind me, ladling the French over my mispronunciation like syrup.***If the Ghan were a steam train, Royce's ears could have powered it.***Bonus: The Four Cousins of Barbara Who-Gives-a-Toss (a nonexistent book given, by the narrator, as one of several hypothetical examples of a trend toward best sellers that include the protagonist's name in the title)
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unearths some literary gems.
From My Discovery of England, by Stephen Leacock:
***They carry away with them their impressions of America, and when they reach England they sell them. This export of impressions has now been going on so long that the balance of trade in impressions is all disturbed. There is no doubt that the Americans and Canadians have been too generous in this matter of giving away impressions. We emit them with the careless ease of a glow worm, and like the glow-worm ask for nothing in return.***Or here, again, is a form of "impression" that recurs again and again-"At Cleveland I felt a distinct note of optimism in the air."This same note of optimism is found also at Toledo, at Toronto—in short, I believe it indicates nothing more than that some one gave the visitor a cigar.***This particular part of London is connected with the existence of that strange and mysterious thing called "the City." I am still unable to decide whether the city is a person, or a place, or a thing. But as a form of being I give it credit for being the most emotional, the most volatile, the most peculiar creature in the world. You read in the morning paper that the City is "deeply depressed." At noon it is reported that the City is "buoyant" and by four o'clock that the City is "wildly excited."***The Abbey, I admit, is indeed majestic. I did not intend to miss going into it. But I felt, as so many tourists have, that I wanted to enter it in the proper frame of mind. I never got into the frame of mind; at least not when near the Abbey itself. I have been in exactly that frame of mind when on State Street, Chicago, or on King Street, Toronto, or anywhere three thousand miles away from the Abbey. But by bad luck I never struck both the frame of mind and the Abbey at the same time.***It was understood that the main object of my trip to England was to find out whether the British people have any sense of humour. No doubt the Geographical Society had this investigation in mind in not paying my expenses.***Please note that roar at the end of the English personal anecdote. It is the sign that indicates that the story is over. When you are assured by the narrators that all the persons present "roared" or "simply roared," then you can be quite sure that the humorous incident is closed and that laughter is in place.***
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unearths some literary gems.
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unearths some literary gems.
From "Who Do You Think Did It?" by Stephen Leacock:
***The afternoon edition of the Metropolitan Planet was going to press. Five thousand copies a minute were reeling off its giant cylinders. A square acre of paper was passing through its presses every hour. In the huge Planet building, which dominated Broadway, employés, compositors, reporters, advertisers, surged to and fro. Placed in a single line (only, of course, they wouldn't be likely to consent to it) they would have reached across Manhattan Island. Placed in two lines, they would probably have reached twice as far.***In the whole vast building all was uproar. Telephones, megaphones and gramophones were ringing throughout the building. Elevators flew up and down, stopping nowhere.***There was something in his massive frame which suggested massiveness***"Inspector," he said, "I must have some more clues. Take me again to the Kelly residence. I must re-analyse my first diæresis."***
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unearths some literary gems.
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Page 7 of 64
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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