Breathless

Edmund Conti notes an unfortunate mannerism in Ngaio Marsh’s 1970 detective novel When in Rome:

Page 14: “Here,” he said in basic Italian. “Keep the change.” The waiter ejaculated with evident pleasure.

Page 49: “Nothing to what I was!” Sophy ejaculated.

Page 74: They could be heard ejaculating in some distant region.

Page 75: “Ah,” ejaculated Grant, “don’t remind me of that for God’s sake!”

Page 84: “Violetta, is it!” he ejaculated.

Page 87: “Good God!” the Major ejaculated.

Page 88: “Well!” the Major ejaculated.

Page 88: There were more ejaculations and much talk of coincidence …

Page 104: Marco gave an ejaculation and a very slight wince.

Page 109: “Phew!” said the Major, who seemed to be stuck with this ejaculation.

Page 140: “Eccellenza!” the Questore ejaculated.

Page 145: The Van der Veghels broke into scandalized ejaculations, first in their language and then in English.

Page 149: Sophy had given a little ejaculation.

Page 149: “I remember!” the Baron ejaculated.

Page 157: Finally Giovanni gave a sharp ejaculation.

Page 188: “We would exclaim, gaze at each at each other, gabble, ejaculate, tell each other how we felt …”

Page 194: Bergami ejaculated and answered so rapidly that Alleyn could only just make out what he said.

Conti adds, “Cigarette?”

| Language · Literature

Standards

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vale,_May_(1862-1945)_Girl_reading.jpg

Read proudly; put the duty of being read invariably on the author. If he is not read, whose fault is it? I am quite ready to be charmed, — but I shall not make believe I am charmed.

— Emerson, address at the opening of the Concord Free Public Library, Oct. 1, 1873

| Literature

Food for Thought

A selection of topics considered by the Athenian Society, a learned organization established in 1691 to answer “all the most nice and curious questions proposed by the ingenious of either sex”:

Bashfulness, why in Women more than Men?
Books least known to those that need ’em
Bath-waters, what makes ’em hot?
Dials, Clocks and Watches, when first made?
Eunuch, whether ever in Love?
Greenland, how should a Tree come there?
Hedg-hogs, how are they propagated?
Head or Feet, which Travels most?
Knowledge of Men or Things, which best?
Kissing, is there any Pleasure in it?
Love, its discovery
Lady, whether she may marry herself?
Love after Marriage, whether as great as before?
Matter, whether infinitely divisible or no?
Memory, how shall I strengthen it?
Nettle, how does it sting?
Original copy of the Bible, how proved?
Offence committed, which was the first?
Pre-existence of the Soul, how is it?
Rain-bow, its Cause
Socrates, did he wisely in bearing the Clamours of his Wife?
Vow never to Marry, whether I may break it?
Vows made to a Lady, whether binding?
Virginity or Marriage, which best?
Women, why more talkative than Men?

Readers submitted their questions anonymously, and the responses were published weekly.

| Literature

Endorsement

In 1906, as George Bernard Shaw and his wife were looking for a house in rural Hertfordshire, they came upon a tombstone in Ayot St Lawrence:

Mary Ann South
Born 1825, Died 1895
Her Time Was Short

When asked why he chose the village as his home, Shaw said that if the biblically allotted threescore years and ten was considered a short life in Ayot, it must be a good place to live.

| Death · Literature

Points of Pride

She’s the girl that makes the thing that drills the hole that holds the spring
That drives the rod that turns the knob that works the thingumebob,
And it’s the girl that makes the thing that holds that oil that oils the ring
That works the thingumebob THAT’S GOING TO WIN THE WAR!

— Popular song of 1942

“I’ve Danced With a Man, Who’s Danced With a Girl, Who’s Danced With the Prince of Wales”

— Popular song of 1927

Dr. Polycarp was, as you all know, an unusually sallow bimetallist. ‘There,’ people of wide experience would say, ‘There goes the sallowest bimetallist in Cheshire.’

— G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, 1904

| Entertainment · History · Literature · Society

Impostor

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cululus_canorus(1925).jpg

Visiting Hamburg in 1878, Mark Twain heard a cuckoo calling in the woods.

“First cuckoo I ever heard outside of a clock,” he wrote. “Was surprised how closely it imitated the clock — and yet of course it could never have heard a clock.”

He added, “The hatefulest thing in the world is a cuckoo clock.”

(From his Notebook.)

| Literature

Noted

Went yesterday to Cambridge and spent most of the day at Mount Auburn; got my luncheon at Fresh Pond, and went back again to the woods. After much wandering and seeing many things, four snakes gliding up and down a hollow for no purpose that I could see — not to eat, not for love, but only gliding.

— Emerson, Journals, April 11, 1834

| Literature

Personae

In a 1920 letter, George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The stock joke of the London stage is a fabulous stage direction ‘Sir Henry turns his back to the audience and conveys that he has a son at Harrow.'”

This is perhaps beaten by J.M. Barrie, who allegedly told a young actor in one of his plays, “I should like you to convey when you are acting it that the man you portray has a brother in Shropshire who drinks port.”

| Humor · Literature

Full House

Visiting Lord Byron in 1821, Percy Shelley wrote to his friend Thomas Love Peacock:

“Lord Byron’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels as if they were the masters of it.”

He added in a postscript: “I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea-hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were, before they were changed into these shapes.”

| Literature