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March 23rd, 2011
02:21 pm - To the Moon, Alice!
Alice! Lovely Alice, with her divorces, and her tearful confidences, her delicate fragile startling beauty! And then Alice with her wine glasses and her men friends and her drinking, smoking women friends! Alice with gambling debts!
So that was what she wanted of him!
--THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE (1934)
Current Mood:  confused
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July 14th, 2009
03:31 pm - Yeah, a king who likes white food
There was chicken with dumplings, light as feathers. How she managed it none could say unless she had an uncanny intuition just when to put them in, or some trick about not uncovering the steamer till they were ready to be taken out and eaten, but there they were, not a soggy one among them. And mashed potato too, not sulking as mashed potato knows how to do when it has to wait too long to be eaten. There was plenty of gravy, and little white onions creamed, and a quivering mound of currant jelly left over from last winter, with sugar cookies and coffee to top off. It was a supper fit for a king.
--MYSTERY FLOWERS (1936)
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July 9th, 2009
04:51 pm - Further Adventures in Dialect
"Oh, Hannah!" she said dropping weakly on the stairs, "When did you come in? How you startled me!"
"H'm! I come in jes ez the door bell done rung!" responded the faithful old servant. "I made out ta go ta the door, but you got there fust. I just stuck around in the kicchem an' lissum good. They all jes' like three old animals come snoopin' round tryin' to get things for theirselves. That big one name Ferguson with the man voice she like n'elefant, that Woods woman somepin' like a chipmunk chatterin' away, and that Brisbane she like one of these ferrets. There just ain't nothin' she don't know. You ain't gwine let 'em browbeat you, is you, Honey? You ain't gwine give in an' let um have any your nice old things?"
--AMORELLE (1934)
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March 16th, 2009
01:47 pm - Rich Dialect-y Goodness
"She ain't ben the same since John went back. Seems like she sort o'
sensed thet he wouldn't come again while she was livin'. She tole me the
next day a lot of things she wanted done after she was gone, and she's
ben gettin' ready to leave this earth ever since. Not that she's gloomy,
oh, my senses no! She's jes' as interested as can be in her flowers, and
in folks, an' the church, but she don't want to try to do so many
things, and she has them weak, fainty spells oftener, an' more pain in
her heart. She sits fer long hours with jest her Bible open now, but
land, she don't need to read it! She knows it most by heart--that is the
livin' parts, you know. She don't seem to care 'tall fer them magazine
articles now any more. I wish t' the land they'd be anuther Gen'l
'Sembly! Thet was the greatest thing fer her. She jest acted like she
was tendin' every blessed one o' them meetin's. Why, she couldn't wait
fer me t' git done my breakfast dishes. She'd want me t' fix her up fer
the day, an' then set down an' read their doin's. 'We kin let things go,
you know, 'Meelia Ellen,' she'd say with her sweet little smile, 'just
while the meetin's last. Then when it's over they'll be time 'nough fer
work--an' rest too, 'Meelia Ellen,' says she. Well, seems like she was
just 'tendin' those meetin's herself, same es if she was there. She'd
take her nap like it was a pill, er somethin', and then be wide awake
an' ready fer her afternoon freshenin', an' then she'd watch fer the
stage to bring the evenin' paper. John, he hed a whole cartload o'
papers sent, an' the day he spoke they was so many I jes' couldn't get
my bread set. I hed to borry a loaf off the inn. First time that's ever
happened to me either. I jest hed to set an' read till my back ached,
and my eyes swum. I never read so much in my whole borned days t' oncet;
an' I've done a good bit o' readin' in my time, too, what with nursin'
her an' bein' companion to a perfessor's invaleed daughter one summer."
--MAN OF THE DESERT (1914)
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December 23rd, 2008
10:25 am - Aww, Dimpled Baby Hands!
Her hands were the weakest point in Opal Verron's whole outfit. Not that they were unlovely in form or ungraceful. They were so small they hardly seemed like hands, so undeveloped, so useless, with the dimpling of a baby's, yet the sharp nails of a little beast. They were so plump and well cared for they were fairly sleek, and had an old wise air about them as she patted her puffy curls daintily with a motion all her own that showed her lovely rounded arm, and every needle-pointed shell-tinted finger nail, sleek and puffy, and never used, not even for a bit of embroidery or knitting. She couldn't, you know, with those sharp transparent little nails, they might break. They were like her little sharp teeth that always reminded one of a mouse's teeth, and made one shudder at how sharp they would be should she ever decide to bite.
--THE CITY OF FIRE (1922)
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December 27th, 2007
06:46 pm - GLH, Muddled Metaphor-Maker
Into the dusk Ben Barron plunged with the flaming banner above, looking toward the land they must take, and hold at all costs. The dying sun in its downward course shot vividly out with its great red eye, bloodshot, daring the men not to falter. Then suddenly it dropped into its deep blue shroud leaving only shreds of ragged gold as a hint of the glory that might be won. Afterward darkness! For even the edges of glory-gold were blotted out in the darkest night those men had ever known.
A great droning arose in the sky behind and it seemed to Ben Barron that he was alone, with all the responsibility resting on him. There were oncoming planes, an ominous determined sound, their twinkling lights starring the heavens as if they had a right to be there, reminding one of Satanic entrances: "I will be like the Most High" -- the arrogance of Lucifer.
--THROUGH THESE FIRES (1943)
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December 26th, 2007
05:53 pm - Yecccccccch!
Constance sat in dismay before her, her hands shrinking from the task put upon them. Her influence had worked with a vengeance. Arrange human hair on another head than her own! Horrible! Her flesh shrank back from the thought. She, who had always from her very babyhood had some one to arrange her own hair whenever she chose, to be asked to arrange the hair of this coarse, possibly unclean girl! How could she?
--THE WHITE LADY (1930)
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December 21st, 2007
05:30 pm - Wrinkling, rippling, and pouting
"You say you spent the summer near Albany, Mr. Temple," said Kate presently, "I wonder if you happen to know any of my friends. Did you meet a Mr. Spafford? David Spafford?"
"Of course I did, knew him well," said the young man with guarded tone. But a quick flash of dislike, and perhaps fear had crossed his face at the name. Kate was keen. She analyzed that look. She parted her charming red lips and showed her sharp little teeth like the treacherous pearls in a white kitten's pink mouth.
"He was once a lover of mine," said Kate carelessly, wrinkling her piquant little nose as if the idea were comical, and laughing out a sweet ripple of mirth that would have cut David to the heart.
"Indeed!" said the ever ready Harry, "and I do not wonder. Is not every one that at once they see you, Madam Leavenworth? How kind of your husband to stay away at sea for so long a time and give us other poor fellows a chance to say pleasant things."
Then Kate pouted her pretty lips in a way she had and tapped the delighted Harry with her carriage parasol across the fingers of his hand that had taken familiar hold of the carriage beside her arm.
"Oh, you naughty man!" she exclaimed prettily. "How dare you! Yes, David Spafford and I were quite good friends. I almost gave in at one time and became Mrs. Spafford, but he was too good for me!"
--MARCIA SCHUYLER (1908)
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December 19th, 2007
05:46 pm - GLH, Little Miss Buzzkill
Then Michael went on to tell of three dark little rooms in "his" tenement
where a family of eight, accustomed to better things, had been forced
by circumstances to make their home; and where in the dark the germs
of tuberculosis had been silently growing, until the whole family were
infected. He spoke of a little ten-year-old girl, living in one of these
little dark rooms, pushed down on the street by a playmate, an accident
that would have been thought nothing of in a healthy child, but in this
little one it produced tubercular meningitis and after two days of agony
the child died. He told of a delicate girl, who with her brother were the
sole wage earners of the family, working all day, and sewing far into the
night to make clothes for the little brothers and sisters, who had fallen
prey to the white plague.
He told instance after instance of sickness and death all resulting from
the terrible conditions in this one tenement, until a delicate, refined
looking woman down in the audience who had dropped in with her husband for
a few minutes on the way to some other gathering, drew her soft mantle
about her shoulders with a shiver and whispered: "Really, Charles, it can't
be healthy to have such a terrible state of things in the city where we
live. I should think germs would get out and float around to us. Something
ought to be done to clean such low creatures out of a decent community. Do
let's go now. I don't feel as if I could listen to another word. I shan't
be able to enjoy the reception."
But the husband sat frowning and listening to the end of the speech,
vouchsafing to her whisper only the single growl:
"Don't be a fool, Selina!"
--LO, MICHAEL! (1913)
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December 17th, 2007
04:24 pm - Not just Irish, but...
"Mother," said Cornelia, "you don't suppose he can have fallen in love with Norah, do you? Why, she's Irish and freckled! And Tryon has always been so fastidious!"
"Cornelia! How dare you suggest such a thing? Tryon is a Dunham. Whatever else a Dunham may or may not do, he never does anything low or unrefined."
--THE MYSTERY OF MARY (1903)
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