Eye-brow Raising Quotes from Great Authors of the Past

   Scythrop Glowry on Jun 4 14:38:22

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Some of my fondest memories of reading come from bizarre lines and moments. Here are a few favorites I can remember at the moment...for instance...

I never thought I would hear games of croquet referred to as “innocent orgies”:

She played croquet with that gentleman and Mr. Barold day after day, upon the grass-plat, before all the eyes gazing down upon her from the neighboring windows; she managed to coerce Mr. Burmistone into joining these innocent orgies; and, in fact, to quote Miss Pilcher, there was "no limit to the shamelessness of her unfeminine conduct."

- Frances Hodgeson Burnett

Unfortunately the passage below loses its bizarrity when studied in a mature light. To the ten year old I was when I first read it, however, it would appear that Edwin A. Abbot was as distinguished for his fart jokes as his concept of a fourth dimension:

For whenever the temper of the Women is thus exasperated by confinement at home or hampering regulations abroad, they are apt to vent their spleen upon their husbands and children; and in the less temperate climates the whole male population of a village has been sometimes destroyed in one or two hours of simultaneous female outbreak. Hence the Three Laws, mentioned above, suffice for the better regulated States, and may be accepted as a rough exemplification of our Female Code.

- Edwin A. Abbot

Having read a little ways into Tom Jones I was surprised to find myself, for the only time in all those 800+ pages, transported to the top of a hill as, apparently, a character in the novel:

Reader, take care. I have unadvisedly led thee to the top of as high a hill as Mr. Allworthy's, and how to get thee down, without breaking thy neck, I do not well know. However, let us e'en venture to slide down together; for Miss Bridget rings her bell, and Mr. Allworthy is summoned to breakfast, where I must attend, and, if you please, shall be glad of your company.

- Henry Fielding

This is not the first time Louisa May gave us a grudging happy ending, and perhaps her apology for extending one of her realistic books into the near future would be equally entertaining, but I think this will be amply surprising without giving any spoilers:

It is a strong temptation to the weary historian to close the present tale with an earthquake which should engulf Plumfield and its environs so deeply in the bowels of the earth that no youthful Schliemann could ever find a vestige of it.

- Louisa May Alcott

Then, of course, what could be more eye-brow-raising than this famous, and astonishingly ungrammatical, run-on sentence from Charles Dickens:

IT was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

#1

Leah Charles on Jun 11, 2024 5:35 PM
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I like the one by Louisa May Alcott😅. It definitely shows her side as an author of writing what she wants verses what the publishers or readers would have wanted. When the new Little Women movie came out they spent some time showing how Alcott would rather write realistically while the publisher just want something light, happy, or romantic.

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#2

Scythrop Glowry on Jun 15, 2024 10:07 AM
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in response to comment_104_1

I find that difficult to believe entirely, considering that Alcott's works are vastly more light and happy than typical Victorian fiction. It's definitely true that Alcott (as an old maid) seemed to hate a "romantic" ending - that's why she gave Jo a stout bearded old man! It attests to her skill as an author that she made the ending sweet and suspenseful despite her own desire to get back at those readers who wouldn't let her leave Jo a spinster.

As for realistic - LOL - yes she based the books off of things she knew, but she idealized them unbelievably. There never ever was such a mother as Marmee - I won't believe it - certainly not her own mother. Her actual father was an unsuccessful fanatic who left the bread winning entirely to his wife and daughters because it was beneath him to accept money for his philosophical work. The real Beth was not at all resigned to her fate. The real Plumfield was shut down because parents were dubious about the philosophies being taught. The real Jo didn't get a perfectly loving husband, two adorable little boys of her own, an ideal school, and a college with black students ON TOP of the hugely successful but rather exhausting writing career that Jo did eventually achieve.

The movie makers that now besmurch Alcott's best stories attest to the fact that the glamorous actress in Jo's Boys didn't succeed in "purifying the stage."

Alcott liked to write stories with her own kind of happy ending. It wasn't that she didn't idealize, it was that getting married wasn't her ideal (or maybe she was jealous?) Alcott definitely talked about things other writers didn't. Corsets, secret make-up practices, girls carving a statue of The New Woman (?!), and many other surprising things make it into her books. Her books give an extremely detailed picture of everday Victorian life, but it must always be remembered that it is written from the perspective of the absolute most ahead-of-their-time progressive set in the country and that it is tinged with castles in the air. Sometimes Alcott likes to write about people the way she wishes they were, rather than the way they are.

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#3

Scythrop Glowry on Jun 15, 2024 10:20 AM
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in response to comment_104_2

P.S. When I said "grudging happy ending" I meant MY kind of happy ending. Sorry, I just won't be happy unless the heroine ends up with the hero at the end of the book, no matter how nice her life could be as a spinster. Alcott liked happy endings. She just didn't like to "pair them off, two by two."

...

Excuse me, but even if the hero can't have the heroine, I still want the heroine to marry at the end of the book. As far as I'm concerned, a romance novel or any novel with a marrying-age heroine that doesn't end up with her married or going to is a tradgedy...or worse, an annoying book.

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