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Post passages of English that you find enjoyable, if you're so inclined. I just read this last night in "The Unfortunate Fursey" (Mervyn Wall) and it [the style, most of all] amused me greatly - |
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"You must know," began Bishop Flanagan, "that our minds have recently been exercised by certain untoward happenings which gave rise to the conviction that there were sorcerers in the neighbourhood. For many nights King Cormac had been deprived of his rest by the hideous caterwauling of a platoon of cats, who mustered on the roofs surrounding the royal dwelling, and there raised a clamour so uncouth and deformed that it was speedily doubted whether their behaviour did not proceed from the operation of a powerful spell. On the fourth night, King Cormac told me, he had drunken deeply of brown ale in an endeavour to forget his cares; and, enraged by the persistence of the persecution to which he was being subjected, he seized his sword and rushed out into the garden in his night attire. To his horror he beheld several felines engaged in what appeared to be animated conversation, while on the wall sat a brindled tom of monstrous size with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs, who grinned sarcastically at the King and waved his paw in derision. There could be no further doubt but that these were enchanted cats; and on my advice, two conjurors and a ventriloquist who had come to the town for the annual fair, were immediately seized. As they persisted obstinately in denial, they were put to the question." "With favourable results?" asked the friar, whose professional interest was aroused. "Yes," said the Bishop with satisfaction. "After three days' application of the best available monkish tortures, they agreed to admit anything. Further proof of their guilt was afforded by the fact that no sooner had they been apprehended by the King's men, than the enchanted cats ceased to trouble the royal repose." "Unfortunately," said the Bishop, "the two conjurors and the ventriloquist, having been crippled in the course of the judicial examination, had to be carried to the stake. The burning was a colourful ceremony, but I should have wished that they could have walked." "It's more impressive certainly |
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"It's more impressive certainly," agreed the friar. |
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I strongly recommend P G Wodehouse and the Flashman books for examples of sublime humorous prose. |
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Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not—some people of course never do,—the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony I have mentioned. - first bit of Portrait of a Lady by Henry James... you have to love it :) |
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Guys, no-one is going to read long paragraphs of prose.... Remember Shakespeare and one of my personal favourite quotations: Brevity is the soul of wit. |
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It's how it was written! Not our fault if this is how zilty displays text. I'm not going to bastardize Wall's work by cutting it up into my own paragraphs. Go on, persevere despite the annoyance, it's good stuff!!! |
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I have plenty of passages I could paste but, alas, I'm working on a little tune right now (Super Metal Power III), and crossing to my library would entail... moving. Which I'm not at liberty to do until I brew a nice cup of Earl Grey. |
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entail.en-tail. excellent word. |
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"The most graceful body is the naked body whose acts inclose it with an invisible visible garment while entirely disrobing its flesh, while the flesh is totally present to the eyes of the spectators." |
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I'm sorry, I find that to be awful prose. :) |
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Give me back my broken night my mirrored room, my secret life it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture Give me absolute control over every living soul And lie beside me, baby, that's an order! Give me crack and anal sex Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture Give me back the Berlin wall give me Stalin and St Paul I've seen the future, brother: it is murder. - Leonard Cohen |
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Awesome song. Fairly disappointing album :( |
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pretty intense |
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You should download that song, it's immense: very ominous. Features on Natural Born Killers. |
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It's not prose, it's an enjoyable passage of English. It made me laugh the first time I read it. |
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i winced |
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i doth poopth qouth teh omni hannibal lazagne lazagne olives does he for thou as y too bien how. for i too partake ein this enjoyenementable nut clusters. |
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Actually the electric retard forums have some nice prose going. ha ha ha, concentrate on 'going' awhile... going, going, boing?, goy-oy-oy-oy-oing? Anyways, like I was saying about lazagne, they substitute words for example: jews = jedis forum = gay bar and everybody talks like that. It is, for lack of a better word, blufinkimonahasiminymonie. yoo no waht eim sain word up peas |
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CUP |
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...my god. |
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I began to feel my misery in pallet on floor, listening to music, my misery, that's why I want to sing. The room closed down on me, I expected the presence of the Creator, I saw my gray painted walls and ceiling, they contained my room, they contained me as the sky contained my garden, I opened my door |
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"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous." - H P Lovecraft. |
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Douglas Adams |
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I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king- dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5 As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10 Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. "the windhover," gerard manley hopkins |
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!blac k agains t (whi) te sky ?t rees whic h fr om droppe d , le af a:;go e s wh IrlI n .g — E.E.Cummings, !blac |
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You mean e. e. cummings? |
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it . |
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"I... butt y too Romeo... for thou butt est stinkier thun myne. For at what height dost thy poopth thy pantelonies uponeth me? And I, good syre, shall smell thee pants of thee in a fortnight, e too!" |
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haha, fair enough - the book of poetry I have has lower case :) |
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that sounds like theory. you said it was english... so... who is it? |
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Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet! Engage! Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth! Scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principal upon which Starfleet is based! Now if you can't find it within yourself to stand up for the truth, You don't deserve to wear that uniform! Is this becoming a speech? You're the Captain Sir. You're entitled. Hmm. I'm entitled to ramble on about something everyone knows? Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic, so that no one had the chance to interrupt him. But really quite hypnotic. Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic, Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic. Moving from topic to topic. Quite hypnotic. Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic, Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic. Moving from topic to topic. Quite hypnotic. Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic, Incredibly unbroken sentence, Moving from topic to topic. Moving from topic to topic. Quite hypnotic. notic-notic-notic-notic Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. You'll have to call again, I'm just leaving. I'm ah, not dressed properly. My-My-My-My My love, here's your creeper. Long until for that which, long |
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...longer mercied with disease. Tell me more. You'll have to call again. In faith, I do not love thee, with mine eyes. They thee, a thousand errors see. But 'tis my heart, that loves, what they despise. Whom you despise. If you, are pleased to go, Shall I compare thee, to a summer's day? Tell me more. You'll have to call again. Darmok. And Jalad. At Tenagra. Darmok. (Engage) And Jalad. At Tenagra. (This is the Captain speaking.) Darmok. And Jalad. At Tenagra. Darmok. (Engage) Angelad. At-tanagra. (This is the Captain speaking.) I am Locutus of Borg. You will respond to my questions. I am Locutus of Borg. You are Borg. I am Locutus of Borg. You will assist us. I am Locutus of Borg. You are Borg. I am Locutus of Borg. Lock phasers on that vessel. I am Locutus of Borg. There are FOUR LIGHTS! Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. (Jean-Luc Picard.) Make it so. Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma-Make it so. |
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(In Stephen Hawking voice) Jennifer wrestled her friend playfully to the ground In front of the snowcone stand and began licking at the Girls eyeballs, as if they were sugar cubes. Their Bodies convulsed and flailed with an almost seizure Like intensity. At times their pale limbs seeming to Shift back and forth from one torso to the other. A Crowd gathered almost immediately to watch these two Girls tie and untie their bodies like a pair of Pit-vipers. They were confused, or concerned, or Shocked, or aroused, or all of the above. But no-one Dared interfere with the performance. Jennifer's long Ashen hair hung down concealing the girls face like a Curtain around a hospital bed. No one had any idea That the girls eyes were revolving under her ruby Tongue. "This is disgusting, it's pornography" Exclaimed a pasty slut white woman in a fur coat, Vanilla ice-cream smeared across her double chin like A money shot. Counting a balding professor type in his Mid-forties, his left hand stuffed crassly down the Front of his pants "No, no, no. This is beautiful, This is art." 'Jennifer' - Pig Destroyer |
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It's originally French, but I can't read French, so I've got the English translation. It's Sartre. |
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They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within Im coming now, Im coming to reward them First we take manhattan, then we take berlin |
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I guess I tried to show you how I'd take the crowd with my guitar And business men would clap their hands And clip another fat cigar And publishers would spread the news And print my music far and wide And all the kids who played the blues Would learn my licks with a bottle neck slide But now it seems the bubble's burst Although you know there was a time When love songs gathered in my head With poetry in every line And strong men strove to hold the doors While with my friends I passed the age When people stomped on dirty floors Before I trod the rock'n'roll stage I'll thank the man who's on the 'phone And if he has the time to spend The problem I'll explain once more And indicate a sum to lend That ten percent is now a joke Maybe thirty, even thirty-five I'll say my daddy's had a stroke He'd have one now, if he only was alive I like the way you look at me You're laughing too down there inside I took my chance and you took yours You crewed my ship, we missed the tide I like the way the music goes There's a few good guys who can play it right I like the way it moves my toes Just say when you want to go and dance all night... |
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Opening paragraph of Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard: The first person I met at Eden-Olympia was a psychiatrist, and in many ways it seems only too apt that my guide to this 'intelligent' city in the hills above Cannes should have been a specialist in mental disorders. I realize now that a kind of waiting madness, like a state of undeclared war, haunted the office buildings of the business park. For most of us, Dr Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight. I remember his eager smile when we greeted each other, and the evasive eyes that warned me away from his outstretched hand. Only when I learned to admire this flawed and dangerous man was I able to think of killing him. |
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thank you for actually "getting" what this thread is about |
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Ah, so you don't actually want enjoyable passages of English? |
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"He hit a tire on the car because I saw dust blowing in a spurt on the street as the air came out, and at ten feet the nigger shot him in the belly with the Tommy gun, with what must have been the last shot in it because I saw him throw it down, and old Pancho sat down hard and went over forwards. He was trying to come up, still holding onto the Luger, only he couldn't get his head up, when the nigger took the shotgun that was lying against the wheel of the car by the chauffeur and blew the side of his head off. Some nigger." |
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I've not read it in its entireity, but Robert Burton's "The Anatomy Of Melancholy" has some choice bits in it. |
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