Now that I
may very well pass for 43 in the dusk with the light behind me (no
prizes for identifying that one), here to mark the occasion is a
quotations quiz. You are invited to guess, deduce, remember or
otherwise determine the sources of the following
quotations. Imaginative wrong guesses are particularly appreciated, as
then I can laugh at you.
1. 'How clever you must be!' said Stephen. 'I couldn't write a sermon for the world.'
'Oh, it's easy enough,' she said, descending from the pulpit and coming close
to him to explain more vividly. 'You do it like this. Did you ever play a game of
forfeits called "When is it? where is it? what is it?"'
'No, never.'
'Ah, that's a pity, because writing a sermon is very much like playing that game.
You take the text. You think, why is it? what is it? and so on. You put that down
under "Generally." Then you proceed to the First, Secondly, and Thirdly. Papa won't
have Fourthlys---says they are all my eye. Then you have a final Collectively, several
pages of this being put in great black brackets, writing opposite, "Leave this out if the farmers are falling asleep.
" Then comes your In Conclusion, then A Few Words And I Have Done. Well, all this
time you have put on the back of each page, "Keep your voice down
"---I mean,' she added, correcting herself, 'that's how I do in papa's sermon-book,
because otherwise he gets louder and louder, till at last he shouts like a farmer
up a-field. O, papa is so funny in some things!'
2. London feels his brain cut round: Edinburgh's heart is circumscribed: York & Lincoln hide among the flocks because of the griding Knife. Worcester & Hereford, Oxford & Cambridge reel and stagger Overwearied with howling. Wales & Scotland alone sustain the fight!
3. DO-IT-YOURSELF ENVOY IN SOCCER PROBE MARATHON
Rain horror ended Britain's miracle heatwave last night. Millions of viewers saw the
man they call Mr. X, the mystery man in the Sex-in-the-Snow case, mention the Royal
Family on T.V.
Mr X.---a Mayfair playboy well-known in Café Society and the International Set---will
pinpoint the area where shapely brunette "Mrs. Undies" says her wonder hubby sent
her to Coventry.
Police with tracker dogs and firemen with breathing apparatus fought to bring
the mini-miracle under control.
Thirty-two-year-old hole-in-the-head secrets man "Mr. Showbiz" collapsed after
a Dolce-Vita-type milk stout orgy. In a plush night-club doctors struggled desperately
to save his life.
But it overpowered them and escaped.
Top scientists threw a cordon round the doomed area. The trapped men retaliated
by throwing a dragnet round the scientists, and going through them with a fine-tooth
comb to locate the missing super-horror in a twelve-minute mini-marathon.
4. "One shouldn't snigger over Jeeves any more than one should snivel over Othello.
Perfect art is beyond these easy emotions. I think Jeeves---the whole book, preferably
with the illustrations---one of the final classic perfections of our time. It attains absolute being. Jeeves and his employer are one and yet diverse. It is the Don Quixote
of the twentieth century."
"I must certainly read it," Gregory said, laughing. "Tell me more about it while
we have tea."
5. So he determined on the near and straight path, through Long Stanton and Willingham,
down the old bridle-way from Willingham ploughed field; --- every village there,
and in the isle likewise, had and has still its "field," or ancient clearing of ploughed land, --- and then to try that terrible half-mile, with the courage and wit of a
general to whom human lives were as those of the gnats under the hedge.
6. 'Look for yourself. Here's the very last map in the whole flaming atlas! We went
off that over an hour ago!' He turned the page. As in all atlases, there were two
completely blank pages at the very end. 'So now we must be somewhere here,' he said,
putting a finger on one of the blank pages.
7. I have been practising a popular style of lecture, as yet confused
with memories of University College, but it's based on noticing that
there are students present. I shall cause a sensation by addressing a
remark to my neighbour at dinner in Hall. I am trying to think
of a remark. My reputation at Trinity is for censoriousness and
misanthropy. Some people say it's only shyness -- impudent
fools. Nevertheless, I am determined. Affability is only suffering
the fools gladly, and Cambridge affords endless scope for this
peculiar joy. I introduced crème brulée to Trinity, but if that
isn't enough I'll talk to people.
8. Music is no different from opium. Music affects the human mind in a way that makes
people think of nothing but music and sensual matters. Opium produces one kind of
sensitivity and lack of energy, music another kind. A young person who spends most
of his time with music is distracted from the serious and important affairs of life; he
can get used to it in the same way as he can to drugs. Music is a treason to the
country, a treason to our youth, and we should cut out all this music and replace
it with something instructive.
9. I don't make the effort to follow a French conversation between two other people.
But I can make pretty good time with a lecture or sermon, or even with conversation
addressed to me, as long as it doesn't exceed the speed limit. I have even heard
confessions in French, without having to fall back on the ingenious expedient of that legendary
English priest who, after listening to a stream of voluble self-accusation without
understanding one word of it, drew himself up judicially and said, "Oh, vous avez,
avez-vous?" This being so, or seeming to me to be so, my point is, Why is it that
I can't speak French?
10. So finally there was nothing. It was put inside nothing. Nothing was added to it. And to prove it didn't exist Squashed as flat as nothing with nothing. Chopped up with a nothing Shaken in a nothing Turned completely inside out And scattered over nothing--- So everybody saw that it was nothing And that nothing more could be done with it
And so it was dropped.