Thursday, August 01, 2013

Epigraph from Page 100

Serious posting probably will be sporadic at best, but how about some idea-games? Here's one I occasionally play myself, which has come to mind since I will be moving an extraordinary number of books over the next week or so. I take the first full sentence off a given page (in this case, I'll use page 100, but it has to be a page that is actually numbered with that number) of several different books, and if they are interesting, try to think of what kind of treatise, poem, short story, or novel they might be epigraphs to, either singly or by mixing and matching. Close or elaborate detail is not necessary, nor do you have to worry about the original context, although you can if you want. Here are a few from my library; if they were epigraphs, what might their works be like?

James Boswell, Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764. Pottle, tr. (Yale 1953).
I said, "Madame, if I had stayed here longer, I am sure you would have liked me better."

George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul. (Augsburg 1994).
Remember, Lord, Thou hast not made me good.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. Kaufmann, tr. (Vintage 1966).
In short, moralities are also merely a sign language of the affects.

Haddon W. Robinson, What Jesus Said about Successful Living. (Discovery House 1988).
The mark of Palestinian cities is that they are always in view.

La Rouchefoucauld, Maxims. (Penguin 1959).
Young people making their début in society should be bashful or scatterbrained, for an efficient or assured manner usually looks like impertinence.

Lee Wyndham, Writing for Children & Teenagers. (Writer's Digest 1980).
While setting down chapter incidents, I try to think in terms of drama, scene interest, setting, action, emotion.

George MacDonald, Phantastes. (Eerdmans 1981).
"I will not wait to be willing," cried Cosimo, and sprang to the corner where the great sword stood.

Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock. (Harper Collins 1985).
When school started, Polly began training seriously to be a hero.

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature. (Oxford 1978).
We shadow out the objects of our faith, say they, in sensible types and images, and render them more present to us by the immediate presence of these types, than 'tis possible for us to do, merely by an intellectual view and contemplation.