- The ignorant /Looker-on/ can't imagine what the /Limner/ means by those seemingly /rude Lines/ and /Scrawls/, which he intends for the /Rudiments/ of a /Picture/, and the /Figures of Mathematick Operation/ are /Nonsense/, and /Dashes/ at a /Venture/, to one uninstructed in /Mechanicks/. We are in the Dark to /one another's/ Purposes and Intendments; and there are a thousand Intrigues in our little Matters, which will not presently confess their Design, even to /sagacious Inquisitors/. --Joseph Glanvil: /Sadducismus Triumphatus/
- "What are you looking for out that window?" the man asked.
- "Witches," the little boy said promptly. "Bad old mean witches."
- "I see," the man said. "Find many?"
- "My father smokes cigars," the little boy said.
- "All men smoke cigars," the man said. "Someday you'll smoke a cigar, too."
- "I'm a man already," the little boy said.
- "How old are you?" the man asked.
- The little boy, at the eternal question, looked at the man suspiciously for a minute and then said, "Twenty-six. Eight hunnerd and forty eighty."
- His mother lifted her head from the book. "Four," she said, smiling fondly at the little boy.
- "Is that so?" the man said politely to the little boy. "Twenty-six." He nodded his head at the mother across the aisle. "Is that your mother?"
- The little boy leaned forward to look and then said, "Yes, that's her."
- "What's your name?" the man asked.
- The little boy looked suspicious again. "Mr. Jesus, he said."
- "Johnny," the little boy's mother said.
- "Hi, Pop, y'old dust mop." -Laurie, in kindergarten
- It was a long, cool room, comfortably furnished and happily placed, with hydrangea bushes outside the large windows and their pleasant shadows on the floor. Everyone in it was wearing linen--the little girl in the pink linen dress with a wide blue belt, Mrs. Kator in a brown linen suit and a big, yellow linen hat, Mrs. Lennon, who was the little girl's grandmother, in a white linen dress, and Mrs. Kator's little boy, Howard, in a blue linen shirt and shorts. Like in Alice Through the Looking-Glass, the little girl thought, looking at her grandmother; like the gentleman all dressed in white paper. I'm a gentleman all dressed in pink paper, she thought.
- (Seven Types of Ambiguity, by Empson)
- (Meredith)
- "Well, John," Kathy said, "I am Miss Valentine and this lady is Mrs. Archer and the other one is Mrs. Corn."
- "How do you do?" the old man said.
- "I gather you're from the old country," Kathy said.
- "I beg your pardon?"
- "Irish, aren't you?" Kathy said.
- "I am, Madam." The old man plunged the fork into one of the eggs and watched the yoke run out onto the plate. "I knew Yeats," he said suddenly.
- "Really?" Kathy said, leaning forward. "Let me see--he was the writer, wasn't he?"
- "'Come out of charity, come dance with me in Ireland,'" the old man said. He rose and, holding on to the chair back, bowed solemnly to Mrs. Archer, "Thank you again, Madam, for your generosity." He turned and started for the front door. The three women got up and followed him.
- "But you didn't finish," Mrs. Corn said.
- "The stomach," the old man said, "as this lady has pointed out, shrinks. Yes, indeed," he went on reminiscently, "I knew Yeats."
- At the front door he turned and said to Mrs. Archer, "Your kindness should not go unrewarded." He gestured to the shoelaces lying on the floor. "These," he said, "are for you. For your kindness. Divide them with the other ladies."
- "But I wouldn't dream--" Mrs. Archer began.
- "I insist," the old man said, opening the door. "A small return, but all that I have to offer. Pick them up yourself," he added abruptly. Then he turned and thumbed his nose at Mrs. Corn. "I hate old women," he said.
- "Well!" said Mrs. Corn faintly.
- "I may have imbibed somewhat freely," the old man said to Mrs. Archer, "but I have never served bad sherry to my guests. We are of two different worlds, Madam."
sep 14 2011 ∞
mar 30 2012 +