Post an excerpt from your favourite book

bm
(It's late. I'm tired. Will try to post later on.)

and more from the same (it does happen to be one of my most favourite books ever, so there'll be more to come...)


At a point between Berlin and Dresden, George, who had, for the last quarter of an hour or so, been looking very attentively out of the window, said:

"Why, in Germany, is it the custom to put the letter-box up a tree? Why do they not fix it to the front door as we do? I should hate having to climb up a tree to get my letters. Besides, it is not fair to the postman. In addition to being most exhausting, the
delivery of letters must to a heavy man, on windy nights, be positively dangerous work. If they will fix it to a tree, why not fix it lower down, why always among the topmost branches? But,
maybe, I am misjudging the country," he continued, a new idea occurring to him. "Possibly the Germans, who are in many matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the
average middle-aged German."

I followed his gaze out of window. I said:

"Those are not letter-boxes, they are birds' nests. You must understand this nation. The German loves birds, but he likes tidy birds. A bird left to himself builds his nest just anywhere. It is not a pretty object, according to the German notion of
prettiness. There is not a bit of paint on it anywhere, not a plaster image all round, not even a flag. The nest finished, the bird proceeds to live outside it. He drops things on the grass; twigs, ends of worms, all sorts of things. He is indelicate. He makes love, quarrels with his wife, and feeds the children quite in public. The German householder is shocked. He says to the bird:

"'For many things I like you. I like to look at you. I like to hear you sing. But I don't like your ways. Take this little box,and put your rubbish inside where I can't see it. Come out when you want to sing; but let your domestic arrangements be confined to the interior. Keep to the box, and don't make the garden untidy.'"

In Germany one breathes in love of order with the air, in Germany the babies beat time with their rattles, and the German bird has come to prefer the box, and to regard with contempt the few
uncivilised outcasts who continue to build their nests in trees and hedges. In course of time every German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place in a full chorus. This promiscuous and
desultory warbling of his must, one feels, be irritating to the precise German mind; there is no method in it. The music-loving German will organise him. Some stout bird with a specially well-
developed crop will be trained to conduct him, and, instead of wasting himself in a wood at four o'clock in the morning, he will, at the advertised time, sing in a beer garden, accompanied by a piano. Things are drifting that way.

Your German likes nature, but his idea of nature is a glorified Welsh Harp. He takes great interest in his garden. He plants seven rose trees on the north side and seven on the south, and if they do not grow up all the same size and shape it worries him so that he cannot sleep of nights. Every flower he ties to a stick. This interferes with his view of the flower, but he has the satisfaction of knowing it is there, and that it is behaving itself. The lake is lined with zinc, and once a week he takes it
up, carries it into the kitchen, and scours it. In the geometrical centre of the grass plot, which is sometimes as large as a tablecloth and is generally railed round, he places a china dog.
The Germans are very fond of dogs, but as a rule they prefer them of china. The china dog never digs holes in the lawn to bury bones, and never scatters a flower-bed to the winds with his hind
legs. From the German point of view, he is the ideal dog. He stops where you put him, and he is never where you do not want him. You can have him perfect in all points, according to the latest
requirements of the Kennel Club; or you can indulge your own fancy and have something unique. You are not, as with other dogs,limited to breed. In china, you can have a blue dog or a pink dog. For a little extra, you can have a double-headed dog.

On a certain fixed date in the autumn the German stakes his flowers and bushes to the earth, and covers them with Chinese matting; and on a certain fixed date in the spring he uncovers them, and stands them up again. If it happens to be an exceptionally fine autumn, or an exceptionally late spring, so much the worse for the unfortunate vegetable. No true German would allow his arrangements to be interfered with by so unruly a thing as the solar system. Unable to regulate the weather, he ignores it.
Among trees, your German's favourite is the poplar. Other disorderly nations may sing the charms of the rugged oak, the spreading chestnut, or the waving elm. To the German all such, with their wilful, untidy ways, are eyesores. The poplar grows where it is planted, and how it is planted. It has no improper rugged ideas of its own. It does not want to wave or to spread itself. It just grows straight and upright as a German tree should
grow; and so gradually the German is rooting out all other trees, and replacing them with poplars.

Your German likes the country, but he prefers it as the lady thought she would the noble savage--more dressed. He likes his walk through the wood--to a restaurant. But the pathway must not be too steep, it must have a brick gutter running down one side of it to drain it, and every twenty yards or so it must have its seat on which he can rest and mop his brow; for your German would no more think of sitting on the grass than would an English bishop dream of rolling down One Tree Hill. He likes his view from the summit of the hill, but he likes to find there a stone tablet telling him what to look at, find a table and bench at which he can sit to partake of the frugal beer and "belegte Semmel" he has been careful to bring with him. If, in addition, he can find a police notice posted on a tree, forbidding him to do something or other, that gives him an extra sense of comfort and security.

Your German is not averse even to wild scenery, provided it be not too wild. But if he consider it too savage, he sets to work to tame it. I remember, in the neighbourhood of Dresden, discovering a picturesque and narrow valley leading down towards the Elbe. The winding roadway ran beside a mountain torrent, which for a mile or so fretted and foamed over rocks and boulders between wood-covered banks. I followed it enchanted until, turning a corner, I suddenly came across a gang of eighty or a hundred workmen. They were busy
tidying up that valley, and making that stream espectable. All the stones that were impeding the course of the water they were carefully picking out and carting away. The bank on either side they were bricking up and cementing. The overhanging trees and bushes, the tangled vines and creepers they were rooting up and trimming down. A little further I came upon the finished work--the mountain valley as it ought to be, according to German ideas. The water, now a broad, sluggish stream, flowed over a level, gravelly bed, between two walls crowned with stone coping. At every hundred yards it gently descended down three shallow wooden platforms. For a space on either side the ground had been cleared, and at regular
intervals young poplars planted. Each sapling was protected by a shield of wickerwork and bossed by an iron rod. In the course of a couple of years it is the hope of the local council to have "finished" that valley throughout its entire length, and made it fit for a tidy-minded lover of German nature to walk in. There will be a seat every fifty yards, a police notice every hundred, and a restaurant every half-mile.

They are doing the same from the Memel to the Rhine. They are just tidying up the country. I remember well the Wehrthal. It was once the most romantic ravine to be found in the Black Forest. The last time I walked down it some hundreds of Italian workmen were encamped there hard at work, training the wild little Wehr the way it should go, bricking the banks for it here, blasting the rocks
for it there, making cement steps for it down which it can travel soberly and without fuss.

For in Germany there is no nonsense talked about untrammelled nature. In Germany nature has got to behave herself, and not set a bad example to the children. A German poet, noticing waters coming down as Southey describes, somewhat inexactly, the waters coming down at Lodore, would be too shocked to stop and write alliterative
verse about them. He would hurry away, and at once report them to the police. Then their foaming and their shrieking would be of short duration.

"Now then, now then, what's all this about?" the voice of German authority would say severely to the waters. "We can't have this sort of thing, you know. Come down quietly, can't you? Where do
you think you are?"

And the local German council would provide those waters with zinc pipes and wooden troughs, and a corkscrew staircase, and show them how to come down sensibly, in the German manner.

It is a tidy land is Germany.

1) "in the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime."

2) "you are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. you may have to work for it however"

3) "the original sin is to limit the IS. dont"



- "illusions", richard bach

Milan Šimečka, Letters from prison: on how he recongnizes great literature:

"Whenever I detect some note, a slight trembling of the soul, a touch of beauty, some little novelty, whatever it is that transforms lines of text into literature, I feel it like the wind in my face, like the warmth in my stomach after a glass of wine, simply as something that defies description but exists nonetheless."

Wow! TRUE!

He must have read my poetry, methinks.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. `If it had grown up,' she said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.' And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right way to change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good- natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

`Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on `And how do you know that you're mad?'

`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

`I suppose so,' said Alice.

`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

`I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

`Call it what you like,' said the Cat. `Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?'

`I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been invited yet.'

`You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

`By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. `I'd nearly forgotten to ask.'

`It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

`I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. `I've seen hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.' As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

`Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

`I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make on quite giddy.'

`All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

`Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; `but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever say in my life!'

She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself `Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead!'

However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. `It can't be anybody else!' she said to herself. `I'm as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face.'

It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on the top of a high wall -- such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance -- and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the opposite direction, and he didn't take the least notice of her, she thought he must be a stuffed figure after all.

`And how exactly like an egg he is!' she said aloud, standing with her hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to fall.

`It's VERY provoking,' Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, `to be called an egg -- VERY!'

`I said you LOOKED like an egg, Sir,' Alice gently explained. `And some eggs are very pretty, you know, she added, hoping to turn her remark into a sort of a compliment.

`Some people,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual, `have no more sense than a baby!'

Alice didn't know what to say to this: it wasn't at all like conversation, she thought, as he never said anything to HER; in fact, his last remark was evidently addressed to a tree -- so she stood and softly repeated to herself: --

`Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the King's men Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again.'

`That last line is much too long for the poetry,' she added, almost out loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her.

`Don't stand there chattering to yourself like that,' Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time,' but tell me your name and your business.'

`My NAME is Alice, but -- '

`It's a stupid name enough!' Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. `What does it mean?'

`MUST a name mean something?' Alice asked doubtfully.

`Of course it must,' Humpty Dumpty said with a sort laugh: `MY name means the shape I am -- and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like your, you might be any shape, almost.'

`Why do you sit out here all alone?' said Alice, not wishing to begin an argument.

`Why, because there's nobody with me!' cried Humpty Dumpty. `Did you think I didn't know the answer to THAT? Ask another.'

`Don't you think you'd be safer down on the ground?' Alice went on, not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. `That wall is so VERY narrow!'

`What tremendously easy riddles you ask!' Humpty Dumpty growled out. `Of course I don't think so! Why, if ever I DID fall off - - which there's no chance of -- but IF I did -- ' Here he pursed his lips and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. `IF I did fall,' he went on, `THE KING HAS PROMISED ME -- WITH HIS VERY OWN MOUTH -- to -- to -- '

`To send all his horses and all his men,' Alice interrupted, rather unwisely.

`Now I declare that's too bad!' Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a sudden passion. `You've been listening at doors -- and behind trees -- and sown chimneys -- or you couldn't have known it!'

`I haven't, indeed!' Alice said very gently. `It's in a book.'

`Ah, well! They may write such things in a BOOK,' Humpty Dumpty said in a calmer tone. `That's what you call a History of England, that is. Now, take a good look at me! I'm one that has spoken to a King, _I_ am: mayhap you'll never see such another: and to show you I'm not proud, you may shake hands with me!' And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell of the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched him a little anxiously as she took it. `If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet behind,' she thought: `and then I don't know what would happen to his head! I'm afraid it would come off!'

`Yes, all his horses and all his men,' Humpty Dumpty went on. `They'd pick me up again in a minute, THEY would! However, this conversation is going on a little too fast: let's go back to the last remark but one.'

`I'm afraid I can't quite remember it,' Alice said very politely.

`In that case we start fresh,' said Humpty Dumpty, `and it's my turn to choose a subject -- ' (`He talks about it just as if it was a game!' thought Alice.) `So here's a question for you. How old did you say you were?'

Alice made a short calculation, and said `Seven years and six months.'

`Wrong!' Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. `You never said a word like it!'

`I though you meant "How old ARE you?"' Alice explained.

`If I'd meant that, I'd have said it,' said Humpty Dumpty.

Alice didn't want to begin another argument, so she said nothing.

`Seven years and six months!' Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. `An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said "Leave off at seven" -- but it's too late now.'

`I never ask advice about growing,' Alice said Indignantly.

`Too proud?' the other inquired.

Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. `I mean,' she said, `that one can't help growing older.'

`ONE can't, perhaps,' said Humpty Dumpty, `but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.'

`What a beautiful belt you've got on!' Alice suddenly remarked. (They had had quite enough of the subject of age, she thought: and if they really were to take turns in choosing subjects, it was her turn now.) `At least,' she corrected herself on second thoughts, `a beautiful cravat, I should have said -- no, a belt, I mean -- I beg your pardon!' she added in dismay, for Humpty Dumpty looked thoroughly offended, and she began to wish she hadn't chosen that subject. `If I only knew,' the thought to herself, 'which was neck and which was waist!'

Evidently Humpty Dumpty was very angry, though he said nothing for a minute or two. When he DID speak again, it was in a deep growl.

`It is a -- MOST -- PROVOKING -- thing,' he said at last, `when a person doesn't know a cravat from a belt!'

`I know it's very ignorant of me,' Alice said, in so humble a tone that Humpty Dumpty relented.

`It's a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It's a present from the White King and Queen. There now!'

`Is it really?' said Alice, quite pleased to find that she HAD chosen a good subject, after all.

`They gave it me,' Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, `they gave it me -- for an un-birthday present.'

`I beg your pardon?' Alice said with a puzzled air.

`I'm not offended,' said Humpty Dumpty.

`I mean, what IS and un-birthday present?'

`A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course.'

Alice considered a little. `I like birthday presents best,' she said at last.

`You don't know what you're talking about!' cried Humpty Dumpty. `How many days are there in a year?'

`Three hundred and sixty-five,' said Alice.

`And how many birthdays have you?'

`One.'

`And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?'

`Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.'

Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. `I'd rather see that done on paper,' he said.

Alice couldn't help smiling as she took out her memorandum- book, and worked the sum for him:

365 1 ___ 364 ___

Humpty Dumpty took the book, and looked at it carefully. `That seems to be done right -- ' he began.

`You're holding it upside down!' Alice interrupted.

`To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for him. `I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that SEEMS to be done right -- though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just now -- and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents -- '

`Certainly,' said Alice.

`And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'

`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

`When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, _I_ can manage the whole of them! Impenetrability! That's what _I_ say!'

`Would you tell me, please,' said Alice `what that means?`

`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'

`Oh!' said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.

`Ah, you should see `em come round me of a Saturday night,' Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: `for to get their wages, you know.'

(Alice didn't venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I can't tell YOU.)

`You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. `Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'

`Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. `I can explain all the poems that were ever invented -- and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.'

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

`That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: `there are plenty of hard words there. "BRILLIG" means four o'clock in the afternoon -- the time when you begin BROILING things for dinner.'

`That'll do very well,' said Alice: and "SLITHY"?'

`Well, "SLITHY" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

`I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: `and what are "TOVES"?'

`Well, "TOVES' are something like badgers -- they're something like lizards -- and they're something like corkscrews.'

`They must be very curious looking creatures.'

`They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty: `also they make their nests under sun-dials -- also they live on cheese.'

`Andy what's the "GYRE" and to "GIMBLE"?'

`To "GYRE" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "GIMBLE" is to make holes like a gimblet.'

`And "THE WABE" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

`Of course it is. It's called "WABE," you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it -- '

`And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.

`Exactly so. Well, then, "MIMSY" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "BOROGOVE" is a thing shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round -- something like a live mop.'

`And then "MOME RATHS"?' said Alice. `I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'

`Well, a "RATH" is a sort of green pig: but "MOME" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home" -- meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'

`And what does "OUTGRABE" mean?'

`Well, "OUTGRIBING" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe -- down in the wood yonder -- and when you've once heard it you'll be QUITE content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?'

`I read it in a book,' said Alice. `But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by -- Tweedledee, I think it was.'

`As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, `_I_ can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that -- '

`Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning.

`The piece I'm going to repeat,' he went on without noticing her remark,' was written entirely for your amusement.'

Alice felt that in that case she really OUGHT to listen to it, so she sat down, and said `Thank you' rather sadly.

`In winter, when the fields are white, I sing this song for your delight --

only I don't sing it,' he added, as an explanation.

`I see you don't,' said Alice.

`If you can SEE whether I'm singing or not, you're sharper eyes than most.' Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent.

`In spring, when woods are getting green, I'll try and tell you what I mean.'

`Thank you very much,' said Alice. `In summer, when the days are long, Perhaps you'll understand the song: In autumn, when the leaves are brown, Take pen and ink, and write it down.'

`I will, if I can remember it so long,' said Alice.

`You needn't go on making remarks like that,' Humpty Dumpty said: `they're not sensible, and they put me out.'

`I sent a message to the fish: I told them "This is what I wish." The little fishes of the sea, They sent an answer back to me. The little fishes' answer was "We cannot do it, Sir, because -- "' `I'm afraid I don't quite understand,' said Alice.

`It gets easier further on,' Humpty Dumpty replied.

`I sent to them again to say "It will be better to obey." The fishes answered with a grin, "Why, what a temper you are in!" I told them once, I told them twice: They would not listen to advice. I took a kettle large and new, Fit for the deed I had to do. My heart went hop, my heart went thump; I filled the kettle at the pump. Then some one came to me and said, "The little fishes are in bed." I said to him, I said it plain, "Then you must wake them up again." I said it very loud and clear; I went and shouted in his ear.'

Humpty Dumpty raised his voice almost to a scream as he repeated this verse, and Alice thought with a shudder, `I wouldn't have been the messenger for ANYTHING!'

`But he was very stiff and proud; He said "You needn't shout so loud!" And he was very proud and stiff; He said "I'd go and wake them, if -- " I took a corkscrew from the shelf: I went to wake them up myself. And when I found the door was locked, I pulled and pushed and knocked. And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, but -- ' There was a long pause.

`Is that all?' Alice timidly asked.

`That's all,' said Humpty Dumpty. Good-bye.'

This was rather sudden, Alice thought: but, after such a VERY strong hint that she ought to be going, she felt that it would hardly be civil to stay. So she got up, and held out her hand. `Good-bye, till we meet again!' she said as cheerfully as she could.

`I shouldn't know you again if we DID meet,' Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone, giving her one of his fingers to shake; `you're so exactly like other people.'

`The face is what one goes by, generally,' Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.

`That`s just what I complain of,' said Humpty Dumpty. `Your face is that same as everybody has -- the two eyes, so -- ' (marking their places in the air with this thumb) `nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance -- or the mouth at the top -- that would be SOME help.'

`It wouldn't look nice,' Alice objected. But Humpty Dumpty only shut his eyes and said `Wait till you've tried.'

Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said `Good-bye!' once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but she couldn't help saying to herself as she went, `Of all the unsatisfactory -- ' (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort have such a long word to say) `of all the unsatisfactory people I EVER met -- ' She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.

I love this thread idea, long may it live.

Many of my favorite books are now in boxes. I'll try to nab a quote from some of my now rather short stack of reading matter.

I am twenty-six inches tall, shapely and well proportioned, my head perhaps a trifle too large. My hair is not black like the others', but reddish, very stiff and thick, drawn back from the temples and the broad but not especially lofty brow. My face is beardless, but otherwise just like that of other men. My eyebrows meet. My bodily strngth is considerable, particularly if I am annoyed. When the wrestling match was arranged between Jehoshaphat and myself I forced him onto his back after twenty minutes and strangled him. Since then I have been the only dwarf at this court.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, two of my favorit books.

I once started a thread called "the greatest paragraph ever written," and this is what I posted, from John Knowles' A Separate Peace.

"I could see both of them clearly enough because the sun was blazing all around them," a certain singsong sincerity was developing in his voice, as though he were trying to hold the interest of young children, "and the rays of the sun were shooting past them, millions of rays shooting past them like--like golden machine-gun fire." He paused to let us consider the profoundly revealing exactness of this phrase. "That's what it was like, if you want to know. The two of them looked as black as--as black as death standing up there with this fire burning all around them."

Perhaps the greatest lines ever written come from Shakespeare's Macbeth Act V....


The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where got'st thou that goose look?

Honk if you like that!

From The Guns of Avalon (book 2 of Roger Zelazny's Amber series):

What is that from???????

Oooh, I know! I know!!!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374521352/qid=1128845135/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4895556-2408109?v=glance&s=books&n=507846