/lit/ - Literature

‘Desert Island Discs’ has been running on BBC Radio since the 1940s. Each week a celebrity is asked to pick eight pieces of music to take to a desert island. These castaways are also allowed to take one luxury item and one book (the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare are given as a default).

Here are one hundred extracts to identify from books chosen. No author is repeated. (Some reference works have no single author.)

<Pic attached> gives the celebrities who chose the works. Of course, many books have been chosen more than once over the years. (Proust and Tolstoy are the current leaders, IIRC.) In these instances I just picked one celebrity.

Anons are welcome to try to guess who chose what, although it’s very tricky in most cases (there are lots of unexpected choices). Once a work is identified I’ll say who chose it.

Translated works denoted with [*]. Hints on request.


The authors (none repeated):

W. H. Auden, Dante Alighieri, Clifford Ashley, Jane Austen

Charles Baudelaire, Max Beerbohm, Isabella Beeton, John Betjeman, Ronald Blythe, Jorge Luis Borges, James Boswell, Mikhail Bulgakov, Richard Francis Burton, Lord Byron

Miguel de Cervantes, Italo Calvino, Lewis Carroll, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Cheever, Anton Chekhov, Winston Churchill, James Clavell, Confucius, Hart Crane, e. e. cummings

Daniel Defoe, Don DeLillo, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle

George Eliot

William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anne Frank, James Frazer

John Galsworthy, Edward Gibbon, Kahlil Gibran, Kenneth Grahame, J. W. von Goethe, Otto Goldschmidt, Robert Graves

Thomas Hardy, Joseph Heller, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Herbert, Herodotus, Homer

Jerome K. Jerome, Samuel Johnson, James Joyce, Carl Jung

C. S. Lewis, William Barry Lord

William Manchester, Peter Matthiessen, Herman Melville, H. L. Mencken, A. A. Milne, John Milton, Margaret Mitchell, Michel de Montaigne

Vladimir Nabokov

Konstantin Paustovsky, Mervyn Peake, Samuel Pepys, Plato, Marcel Proust

Ayn Rand, P. M. Roget, Bertrand Russell

A. de Saint-Exupéry, Duc de Saint-Simon, J. D. Salinger, George Bernard Shaw, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift

Rabindranath Tagore, W. M. Thackeray, Dylan Thomas, Alvin Toffler, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy

Virgil, Kurt Vonnegut

Eudora Welty, E. B. White, T. H. White, John Wiseman, P. G. Wodehouse, William Wordsworth, Johann Wyss

1)
1. a. A piece of land completely surrounded by water.
Formerly used less definitely, including a peninsula, or a place insulated at high water or during floods, or begirt by marshes, a usage which survives in particular instances, as Portland Island, Hayling Island, Mochras or Shell Island, etc.


2)
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York — and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.


3)
Look, stranger, on this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
Might wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.


4)
The valet, Pork by name, shining black, dignified and trained in all the arts of sartorial elegance, was the result of an all-night poker game with a planter from St. Simons Island, whose courage in a bluff equaled Gerald’s but whose head for New Orleans rum did not. Though Pork’s former owner later offered to buy him back at twice his value, Gerald obstinately refused, for the possession of his first slave, and that slave the “best damn valet on the Coast,” was the first step upward toward his heart’s desire. Gerald wanted to be a slave owner and a landed gentleman.


5)
“ . . . It wasn’t long before we started to like each other. In fact I think my own feelings about General Walker may have influenced Lee to take a shot at him.”

“But you’re not absolutely sure.”

“Not absolutely.”

“He hasn’t said he did it.”

“He hasn’t said anything. But there were indications, certain signs, an atmosphere, you know? Plus a curious photograph he sent me. I’m frankly sorry he missed.”

They returned to their food, their lunch. The voices and noise around them became apparent once more, a tide of excited news, a civilized clamor. George said something perfectly right about the wine, swirling it in the high-stemmed tulip glass. An attractive woman hurried toward a table, showing the happy exasperation that describes a journey through traffic snarls and personal dramas to some island of prosperous calm. There were times when Larry thought lunch in a superior restaurant was the highlight of Western man.

“You mentioned politics,” he said. “How far left is this young friend of yours?”

6)
IT HAS BEEN ASSERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this, we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half philosophers, half chefs, that we are the worst cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the “broth” of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place to the *bouillon*, or common soup of France. “Three hot meals of broth and meat, for about the price of ONE roasting joint,” our Scottish brothers and sisters get, they say; and we hasten to assent to what we think is now a very well-ascertained fact. We are glad to note, however, that soups of vegetables, fish, meat, and game, are now very frequently found in the homes of the English middle classes, as well as in the mansions of the wealthier and more aristocratic; and we take this to be one evidence, that we are on the right road to an improvement in our system of cookery.


7)
. . . he started again just whimpering at first until she touched him then he yelled she stood there her eyes like cornered rats then I was running in the grey darkness it smelled of rain and all flower scents the damp warm air released and crickets sawing away in the grass pacing me with a small travelling island of silence . . .


8)
EVIL: I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, void of all hope of recovery.
GOOD: But I am alive; and not drowned, as all my ship’s company were.


9)
After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britain possessed valor without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconsistency; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.


10)
“But, aunt, she is really so very ignorant! — Do you know, we asked her last night which way she would go to get to Ireland; and she said, she should cross to the Isle of Wight. She thinks of nothing but the Isle of Wight, and she calls it *the Island*, as if there were no other island in the world. I am sure I should have been ashamed of myself, if I had not known better long before I was so old as she is. I cannot remember the time when I did not know a great deal that she has not the least notion of yet. How long ago it is, aunt, since we used to repeat the chronological order of the kings of England, with the dates of their accession, and most of the principal events of their reigns!”

11)
Pythagoras, whose influence in ancient and modern times is the subject in this chapter, was intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived, both when he was wise and when he was unwise. Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive argument, begins with him, and in him is intimately connected with a peculiar form of mysticism. The influence of mathematics on philosophy, partly owing to him, has, ever since his time, been both profound and unfortunate.

Let us begin with what little is known of his life. He was a native of the island of Samos, and flourished about 532 B.C. Some say he was the son of a substantial citizen named Mnesarchos, others that he was the son of the god Apollo; I leave the reader to take his choice between these alternatives.


12)
“ . . . This solitary island, all around
Its shoreline where the breakers ebb and flow,
Bears rushes on its soft and muddy ground.

No other plant which puts forth leaf will grow
In such a place, because it will not bend,
And therefore breaks beneath the waves’ harsh blows.

When that task’s done, do not again attend
Me here; the rising sun will show a route
By which the mountain’s easier to ascend.”


13)
Mr. Erskine told us, that when he was in the island of Minorca, he not only read prayers, but preached two sermons to the regiment. He seemed to object to the passage in scripture where we are told that the angel of the Lord smote in one night forty thousand Assyrians. ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) you should recollect that there was a supernatural interposition; they were destroyed by pestilence. You are not to suppose that the angel of the Lord went about and stabbed each of them with a dagger, or knocked them on the head, man by man.”


14)
The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff.


15)
I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the cross piece; but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing.

[*]

11)
Pythagoras, whose influence in ancient and modern times is the subject in this chapter, was intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived, both when he was wise and when he was unwise. Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive argument, begins with him, and in him is intimately connected with a peculiar form of mysticism. The influence of mathematics on philosophy, partly owing to him, has, ever since his time, been both profound and unfortunate.

Let us begin with what little is known of his life. He was a native of the island of Samos, and flourished about 532 B.C. Some say he was the son of a substantial citizen named Mnesarchos, others that he was the son of the god Apollo; I leave the reader to take his choice between these alternatives.


12)
“ . . . This solitary island, all around
Its shoreline where the breakers ebb and flow,
Bears rushes on its soft and muddy ground.

No other plant which puts forth leaf will grow
In such a place, because it will not bend,
And therefore breaks beneath the waves’ harsh blows.

When that task’s done, do not again attend
Me here; the rising sun will show a route
By which the mountain’s easier to ascend.”

[*]


13)
Mr. Erskine told us, that when he was in the island of Minorca, he not only read prayers, but preached two sermons to the regiment. He seemed to object to the passage in scripture where we are told that the angel of the Lord smote in one night forty thousand Assyrians. ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) you should recollect that there was a supernatural interposition; they were destroyed by pestilence. You are not to suppose that the angel of the Lord went about and stabbed each of them with a dagger, or knocked them on the head, man by man.”


14)
The lake below was only a thin steel ring that cut the rocks in half. The rocks went on into the depth, unchanged. They began and ended in the sky. So that the world seemed suspended in space, an island floating on nothing, anchored to the feet of the man on the cliff.


15)
I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached the island of the two Sirens, for the wind had been very favourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the cross piece; but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing.

[*]

16)
‘Why, bless you mistress, I’ve the tenderest heart alive. I love all the ladies, ma’am,’ said Hugh, turning to the locksmith’s wife.

Mrs Varden opined that if he did, he ought to be ashamed of himself; such sentiments being more consistent (so she argued) with a benighted Mussulman or wild Islander than with a stanch Protestant. Arguing from this imperfect state of his morals, Mrs Varden further opined that he had never studied the Manual. Hugh admitting that he never had, and moreover that he couldn’t read, Mrs Varden declared with much severity, that he ought to be even more ashamed of himself than before, and strongly recommended him to save up his pocket-money for the purchase of one, and further to teach himself the contents with all convenient diligence.


17)
Within a deep recess there is a place
Where with its jutting sides an island forms
A port, by which the rolling ocean waves
Are broken, and divide in lesser curves.
On either side vast rocks and twin-like cliffs
Threaten the sky; beneath whose towering tops
The sea lies safe and tranquil all around.

[*]


18)
It is with roses and locomotives(not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls)that my “poems” are competing.

They are also competing with each other,with elephants,and with El Greco.


19)
His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round, he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid irritability. . . .

[*]


20)
MRS. HIGGINS [at last, conversationally]:
Will it rain, do you think?

LIZA:
The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.

FREDDY:
Ha! ha! how awfully funny!

LIZA:
What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.

21)
My memories begin with my second or third year. I recall the vicarage, the garden, the laundry house, the church, the castle, the Falls, the small castle of Worth, and the sexton’s farm. These are nothing but islands of memory afloat in a sea of vagueness, each by itself, apparently with no connection between them. One memory comes up which is perhaps the earliest of my life, and is indeed only a rather hazy impression. I am lying in a pram, in the shadow of a tree. It is a fine, warm summer day, the sky blue, and golden sunlight darting through green leaves. The hood of the pram has been left up. I have just awakened to the glorious beauty of the day, and have a sense of indescribable well-being. I see the sun glittering through the leaves and blossoms of the bushes. . . .

[*]


22)
‘Our position right now is excellent. Reinforcements like yourself keep arriving, and we have more than enough time to plan our entire strategy carefully. Our immediate goal,’ he said, ‘is right here.’ And General Peckem swung his pointer south to the island of Pianosa and tapped it significantly upon a large word that had been lettered on there with black grease pencil. The word was DREEDLE.


23)
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!


24)
CHAP. IX.
1. The grand music master, Chih, went to Ch’i.
2. Kan, the master of the band at the second meal, went to Ch’u. Liao, the band master at the third meal, went to Ts’ai. Chueh, the band master at the fourth meal, went to Ch’in.
3. Fang-shu, the drum master, withdrew to the north of the river.
4. Wu, the master of the hand drum, withdrew to the Han.
5. Yang, the assistant music master, and Hsiang, master of the musical stone, withdrew to an island in the sea.

[*]


25)
Upstream from the camp, cut off by a thick underbrush, there was an oxbow where the river bent around an island of massed driftwood, and here Andy had gone to bathe alone. All had agreed that they would bathe out of pails of water, less because of caimans or piranhas — the caimans this far upstream were very small, and the piranhas, so long as one had no open wounds, were harmless — than because both the whereabouts and attitude of the savages were still uncertain. But the longing to feel clean and private, if only for a few minutes, had eroded Andy’s morale, and finally she had disobeyed the rule. Taking a cake of soap, she had slipped away behind the huts and made her way to the deep pool.

26)
“How is it possible for one to own the stars?”

“To whom do they belong?” the businessman retorted, peevishly.

“I don’t know. To nobody.”

“Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it.”

“Is that all that is necessary?”

“Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is yours. So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of owning them.”

[*]


27)
Another thing he told me, how the Duke of York did give Sir G. Carteret and the Island his profits as Admirall, and other things, toward the building of a pier there. But it was never laid out, nor like to be. So it falling out that a lady being brought to bed, the Duke was to be desired to be one of the godfathers; and it being objected that that would not be proper, there being no peer of the land to be joyned with him, the lady replied, “Why, let him choose; and if he will not be a godfather without a peer, then let him even stay till he hath made a pier of his own.”


28)
It was rather jolly to look down into the valleys and see the water all round him, but it rained so hard that he stayed indoors most of the time, and thought about things. Every morning he went out with his umbrella and put a stick in the place where the water came up to, and every next morning he went out and couldn’t see his stick any more, so he put another stick in the place where the water came up to, and then he walked home again, and each morning he had a shorter way to walk than he had had the morning before. On the morning of the fifth day he saw the water all round him, and knew that for the first time in his life he was on a real island. Which was very exciting.


29)
. . . so I carried him about the island, like a captive slave, and he bepissed and conskited my shoulders and back, dismounting not night nor day; and whenas he wished to sleep he wound his legs about my neck and leaned back and slept awhile, then arose and beat me; whereupon I sprang up in haste, unable to gainsay him because of the pain he inflicted on me.

[*]


30)
“I left home and wife and children to come and serve your worship, trusting to do better and not worse; but as covetousness bursts the bag, it has rent my hopes asunder, for just as I had them highest about getting that wretched unlucky island your worship has so often promised me, I see that instead and in lieu of it you mean to desert me now in a place so far from human reach: for God’s sake, master mine, deal not so unjustly by me, and if your worship will not entirely give up attempting this feat, at least put it off till morning, for by what the lore I learned when I was a shepherd tells me it cannot want three hours of dawn now, because the mouth of the Horn is overhead and makes midnight in the line of the left arm.”

[*]

31)
The first Boy Scout summer camp was held in 1907. Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, brought together a group of twenty-two Scouts on Brownsea Island off the coast of England. They were divided into four patrols — the Wolves, Bulls, Curlews, and Ravens. After setting up their tents and cooking areas, they devoted seven days to woodcraft, nature observation, lifesaving, and Scout skills. . . .


32)
The gift of ratiocination and making syllogisms —— I mean in man — for in superior classes of being, such as angels and spirits —— ’tis all done, may it please your worships, as they tell me, by INTUITION; — and beings inferior, as your worships all know —— syllogize by their noses: though there is an island swimming in the sea (though not altogether at its ease) whose inhabitants, if my intelligence deceives me not, are so wonderfully gifted, as to syllogize after the same fashion, and oft-times to make very well out too: —— but that’s neither here nor there ——


33)
What of the fact that our spiritual and bodily physicians, as if by a conspiracy, find no way to a cure, no remedy for the diseases of the body and the soul, but by torment, misery, and pain? Vigils, fasts, hair shirts, remote and solitary exiles, perpetual imprisonments, scourges, and other afflictions have been introduced to this end; but on this condition, that they shall really be afflictions involving bitterness and sting, and that it shall not come out as it did to one Gallio, who had been sent in exile to the island of Lesbos. News came to Rome that he was giving himself a good time, and that what had been imposed on him as a penalty was turning out to be a pleasure; wherefore they changed their minds and recalled him to his home with his wife, and ordered him to stay there; suiting their punishment to his feeling of it.

[*]


34)
Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.

[*]


35)
‘ . . . I wonder if you recall a visit we once paid to the residence of my Aunt Agatha at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts. To refresh your memory, it was the occasion on which, in company with the Right Honourable A. B. Filmer, the Cabinet Minister, I was chivvied on to the roof of a shack on the island in the lake by an angry swan.’

‘I recall the incident vividly, sir.’

‘So do I. And the picture most deeply imprinted on my mental retina — is that the correct expression?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘ — is of you facing that swan in the most intrepid ‘You-can’t-do-that-there-here’ manner and bunging a raincoat over its head, thereby completely dishing its aims and plans and compelling it to revise its whole strategy from the bottom up. It was a beautiful bit of work. I don’t know when I have seen a finer.’

36)
The notion that James was a master mind is confined to the sort of persons who used to regard Browning as the greatest of poets. He was a superb technician, as Joseph Conrad has testified, but his ideas were always timorous; he never overcame his bashfulness in the presence of such superior fauna as the Lord Chancellor, the Master of Pembroke and Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Thus his painful psychologizings, when translated into plain English, turn out to be chiefly mere kittenishness — an arch tickling of the ribs of elderly virgins — the daring of a grandma smoking marijuana. But I believe that the makings of a genuinely first-rate artist were in James, and that Chicago would have developed him. What he needed was intimate contact with the life of his own country. He was unhappy in New England because he was an American, and New England, then as now, was simply a sort of outhouse of old England — a Devil’s Island of intellectual poor relations, eternally wearing out the English chemises and pantaloons of season before last. A very defective psychologist, he made the blunder of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The West would have amused, intrigued and finally conquered him. He would have been a great artist in his own country.


37)
The goat-man politely asked how she had arrived at the river and on hearing that she had ridden there on a broom he cried:

‘Oh, how uncomfortable!’

In a moment he had twisted two branches into the shape of a telephone and ordered someone to send a car at once, which was done in a minute.

A brown open car flew down to the island. Instead of a driver the chauffeur’s seat was occupied by a black, long-beaked crow in a check cap and gauntlets. . . .

[*]


38)
In the island of Timor, while war is being waged, the high-priest never quits the temple; his food is brought to him or cooked inside; day and night he must keep the fire burning, for if he were to let it die out, disaster would befall the warriors and would continue so long as the hearth was cold. Moreover, he must drink only hot water during the time the army is absent; for every draught of cold water would damp the spirits of the people, so that they could not vanquish the enemy.


39)
Mr. Standish was not a man who varied his manners: he behaved with the same deep-voiced, off-hand civility to everybody, as if he saw no difference in them, and talked chiefly of the hay-crop, which would be “very fine, by God!” of the last bulletins concerning the King, and of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of him, and just the man to rule over an island like Britain.


40)
When, eyes closed, on a sultry autumn night,
I breathe the warming fragrance of your breast,
I see expansive shores before me, dressed
In summer’s dazzling unrelenting light:

A lazy isle, where Nature sets in sight
Exotic trees, and fruits of luscious zest,
And slender-bodied men with vigour blessed,
And women too with candid gaze and bright.

[*]

41)
Islands offer a special challenge to the survivor, especially small islands and those lacking resources. The feeling of loneliness is emphasised on an island and the sense of isolation acute. The problems are mental as well as physical. To help overcome them explore the island thoroughly and establish a daily routine.

Climb to the highest point to make a sketch of the island and get a mental picture of the terrain. Explore every creek, cranny, bay and beach of the coastline. Then take your reconnaissances inland until the island is familiar.

The island may have been inhabitated in the past — remains of buildings offer a basis for shelter. Fence posts and wire will be useful to repair your boat or build a raft. Vegetables may still be found growing . . .


42)
One of the peaks of the migration came when they passed a rock-cliff of the ocean. There were other peaks, when, for instance, their line of flight was crossed by an Indian file of Bewick Swans who were off to Abisko, making a noise as they went like little dogs barking through handkerchiefs, or when they overtook a horned owl plodding manfully along — among the warm feathers of whose back, so they said, a tiny wren was taking her free ride. But the lonely island was the best.


43)
For its size, the house was commodious; there were countless nooks resembling birds’ nests, and little things made of silver were deposited like eggs.

In this general perfection two kinds of fastidiousness were at war. There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily on a desert island; a master whose daintiness was, as it were, an investment, cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in accordance with the laws of competition.


44)
This Cheops, the Egyptians said, reigned fifty years; and after he was dead his brother Chephren succeeded to the kingdom. This king followed the same manner as the other, both in all the rest and also in that he made a pyramid, not indeed attaining to the measurements of that which was built by the former (this I know, having myself also measured it), and moreover there are no underground chambers beneath nor does a channel come from the Nile flowing to this one as to the other, in which the water coming through a conduit built for it flows round an island within, where they say that Cheops himself is laid: but for a basement he built the first course of Ethiopian stone of divers colours; and this pyramid he made forty feet lower than the other as regards size, building it close to the great pyramid. . . .

[*]


45)
2721. A TAIL SPLICE, that is said to have originated in Bristol, Rhode Island, was shown to me by Arthur Carlsen.

Seize a one-half-inch (diameter) wire rope at three feet from the end. Lay back three alternate strands to the seizing and lay out one half of each. Lay in the three remaining halves for nine inches, seize the rope a second time and lay out the three remaining half strands. . . .

46)
Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she murmured to herself:

“You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, and so clever.”

“‘An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by water,’” he read aloud.

“An island is a piece of land,” she repeated, and this was the first opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after so many years of silence and dearth of ideas.

[*]


47)
A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive. . . .


48)
Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought. If she made herself miserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to them — “Ah, she makes herself unhappy.” If she tried to be cheerful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to them — “Ah, she bears it very well.” Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her? Not greatly. If she could have been but just created, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, would the position have caused her to despair? No, she would have taken it calmly, and found pleasure therein. . . .


49)
Asleep on the raft and forced far out to sea
By an irresistible current:
No good, no good!

O for a sister island! Ships were scarce
In that unhomely latitude,
And he lacked food.


50)
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

51)
It not unfrequently happens that there is greater difficulty in transporting the baggage of an expedition across a river than in getting over the men and animals. This was the case in the following instance. We were exploring the Victoria River, in North Australia, when we came to a branch of one of its tributaries (Jasper Creek) so much swollen that it was unsafe to attempt crossing it with loaded horses. We found, however, a passage to an island, on which stood a couple of tall overhanging gum trees. We had with us several fathoms of Manilla line, about ½in. in diameter, this was passed over a fork of one of the highest and most projecting branches. Mr. Gregory swung himself across, we followed; and while our head stockman, with a fatigue party of five horses, brought the packs to the island, one man lifted the pack that had been bent on to the line as high as possible; another gave an extra pull upon the other part to lift it as clear of the water as possible during its passage, letting go by the run as it swung to the other shore, where one of the party stood ready to catch the pack, while we, making a sharp run with a small line, helped it across, and checked any tendency to swing back again. In this manner we brought over a ton and a half of provisions and stores in between two and three hours; the unloaded horses found a practicable ford a little higher up.


52)
#346. Island.
—N. island, isle, islet, eyot[obs], ait[obs], holf[obs], reef, atoll, breaker; archipelago; islander.
Adj. insular, seagirt; archipelagic[obs].


53)
‘Look over there, Linc, that’s Castle Tok!’ Castle Tok was a vast, incongruous house that looked like a Norman castle and was perched on the cliffside high over the water. ‘During the war the Canadians — Canadian soldiers — were defending this part of the Island against the invading Japanese and they all retreated to Castle Tok for a last stand. When they were overwhelmed and surrendered there were about two hundred and fifty of them left alive. The Japanese herded them all onto the terrace of Castle Tok and drove them by bayonet over the terrace wall to the rocks below.’


54)
After dinner, I proposed that we should give names to all the parts of our island known to us, in order that, by a pleasing delusion, we might fancy ourselves in an inhabited country. My proposal was well received, and then began the discussion of names. . . .

[*]


55)
Bower on bower!
Tendrils unblighted!
Lo! in a shower
Grapes that o’ercluster
Gush into must, or
Flow into rivers
Of foaming and flashing
Wine, that is dashing
Gems, as it boundeth
Down the high places,
And spreading, surroundeth
With crystalline spaces,
In happy embraces,
Blossoming forelands,
Emerald shore-lands!
And the winged races
Drink, and fly onward —
Fly ever sunward
To the enticing
Islands, that flatter,
Dipping and rising
Light on the water!

[*]

56)
Given the state of maps then, it is hardly surprising that so many ships failed to return; the wonder is that any of them found anything. Africa was shown as adjacent to India. The Indian Ocean and the Red Sea were small bodies of water. Egypt was placed in Asia; so was Ethiopia. Navigators poring over charts found such bewildering legends as “India Ethiope” and “India Egyptii,” and the fourteenth-century Catalan Atlas, which may be seen today in Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale, is a farrago of distortions and inventions, including islands of griffins, the realm of Gog and Magog, a land of pygmies placed between India and China, an island called “Iana” where Malaya should be, and another island, “Trapabona,” where there is nothing but open sea.


57)
. . . You see other female figures appear and disappear: in the island in the Indian Ocean, a woman on a beach “dressed in a pair of big dark glasses and a smearing of walnut oil, placing between her person and the beams of the dog days’ sun the brief shield of a popular New York magazine.”

[*]


58)
The children play recorders, model Stonehenge out of balsa-wood, do algebra for homework, write poems and stories and like Science best. They all read a comic, seventy-five per cent of them go to chapel or church Sunday-school, sixty per cent have been to London — up the Post Office Tower, down the river on a waterbus, fed and photographed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square; though none had been to Westminster Abbey, the Zoo, the Tower or St Paul’s — they all possessed animals and all spoke with restraint, shyness and delicacy. Not communicators. Remote children. Children on an island. Their mother’s sons? Their father’s daughters? Or leaven for a new kind of rural bread?


59)
The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in the ear sometimes. Well, it’s a sea. Corpuscle islands.


60)
He had managed to get five of the six sacks upstairs intact, and he was just busy pulling up number six, when the bottom seam of the sack split and a shower — no, a positive hailstorm of brown beans came pouring down and rattled down the stairs. There were about fifty pounds in the sack and the noise was enough to wake the dead. Downstairs they thought the old house with all its contents was coming down on them. (Thank God there were no strangers in the house.) It gave Peter a moment’s fright. But he was soon roaring with laughter, especially when he saw me standing at the bottom of the stairs, like a little island in the middle of a sea of beans! I was entirely surrounded up to my ankles in beans. Quickly we started to pick them up. But beans are so slippery and small that they seemed to roll into all the possible and impossible corners and holes. Now, every time anyone goes downstairs they bend down once or twice, in order to be able to present Mrs. Van Daan with a handful of beans.

[*]

61)
‘How soon’ll they be here?’

“Has not the sun risen? They are on their way.’

‘Well, I hope they’ll hurry. The sooner we’re off this cursed island of yours the better. Take all those things out,’ Mr Williams added, pointing to the merchandise, ‘and arrange them — neatly, mind you!’

In certain circumstances it is right that a man be humoured in trifles. Mahamo, having borne out the merchandise, arranged it very neatly.


62)
I took this opportunity, before the three days were elapsed, to send a letter to my friend the secretary, signifying my resolution of setting out that morning for Blefuscu, pursuant to the leave I had got; and, without waiting for an answer, I went to that side of the island where our fleet lay. I seized a large man of war, tied a cable to the prow, and, lifting up the anchors, I stripped myself, put my clothes (together with my coverlet, which I carried under my arm) into the vessel, and, drawing it after me, between wading and swimming arrived at the royal port of Blefuscu, where the people had long expected me: they lent me two guides to direct me to the capital city, which is of the same name.


63)
. . . . When summer came,
Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays,
To sweep, along the plain of Windermere
With rival oars; and the selected bourne
Was now an Island musical with birds
That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle
Beneath the oaks’ umbrageous covert, sown
With lilies of the valley like a field;
And now a third small Island, where survived
In solitude the ruins of a shrine
Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served
Daily with chaunted rites. . . .


64)
The necessity of succouring the Elector of Bavaria, molested by the Imperial army, and that also of being reinforced by him, led to a decision to endeavour to cross the Rhine. It was proposed to Maréchal Catinat, perhaps with too few troops and too little means. I say perhaps, because I do not know it to have been so; I only suspect it from his refusal to undertake the move. On his default, Villars, who saw fortune on the other side of that passage, accepted the enterprise, sure of risking nothing if he failed where Catinat had refused the attempt. But, like an able man, he chose to be in force, and he waited for a large detachment from the army of Flanders. He then marched straight to Huningue, reconnoitred the banks of the Rhine, chose the place for his bridge directly opposite Huningue where a large island would be useful to him, the broadest arm of the river being between him and the island, the narrowest between the island and the other bank of the Rhine, on which was the little town of Neubourg, held and intrenched by the Imperial forces. He arrived at Huningue on the 30th of September; making the bridge was an affair of twenty-four hours.

[*]


65)
When she passed by me with quick steps, the end of her skirt touched me.
From the unknown island of a heart came a sudden warm breath of spring.

[*]

66)
“Three years ago an old man dressed as a Taoist came here with a girl just fifteen years old. She was a ravishing beauty, just like a Bodhisattva Guanyin. He presented her to our present king, who was so smitten by her charms that she became the favorite of all his women. She was given the title Queen Beauty. For some time now he’s had no eyes for any of his other queens or consorts. He’s so insatiable that he’s been at it day and night. The result is nervous exhaustion and physical collapse. He’s eating and drinking next to nothing. He might die at any moment. The Royal College of Physicians has tried every possible medicine without any success. The Taoist who presented the girl to the king was rewarded with the title of Elder of the Nation. He has a secret foreign formula for making people live a great deal longer. He’s been to ten continents and the three magic islands to collect the ingredients. Everything is ready. The only problem is that it needs a terrible adjuvant to help it — a potion made from the hearts of 1,111 little boys. When he’s taken it he’ll have a thousand years of vigorous life ahead of him.”

[*]


67)
CHAPTER X.

Our first night. — Under canvas. — An appeal for help. — Contrariness of tea-kettles, how to overcome. — Supper. — How to feel virtuous. — Wanted! a comfortably-appointed, well-drained desert island, neighbourhood of South Pacific Ocean preferred. — Funny thing that happened to George’s father. — a restless night.


68)
Kilgore Trout was released by the Police Department of the City of New York like a weightless thing — at two hours before dawn on the day after Veterans’ Day. He crossed the island of Manhattan from east to west in the company of Kleenex tissues and newspapers and soot.


69)
Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. . . .

[*]


70)
When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley
And electric trains are lighted after tea
The poplars near the Stadium are trembly
With their tap and tap and whispering to me,
Like the sound of little breakers
Spreading out along the surf-line
When the estuary’s filling
With the sea.

Then Harrow-on-the Hill’s a rocky island
And Harrow churchyard full of sailors’ graves
And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing
Is the level to the Wealdstone turned to waves
And the rumble of the railway
Is the thunder of the rollers
As they gather up for plunging
Into caves.

71)
As we neared the Cascade, I adopted a more confidential tone:—

“I know you have a boy-friend in the post-office who’s mad about letting you whip him . . . ”

She was feeling too good just then to prevaricate or protest. She told me the whole thing straight. But when we arrived at the Pré Catalan she was afraid to go any farther, the dark frightened her. She had an idea I was leading her in among the trees to beat her up. She felt in my pockets to see if I had a jack on me. I hadn’t. She kept fingering and prodding me about the hips, so I suggested we should go on to the Island, where it would be easier to talk. She was such a howling bitch it was difficult for her to get any ordinary kick; danger fascinated her. . . .

[*]


72)
From World’s End then he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.


73)
Mr. and Mrs. Antolini had this very swanky apartment over on Sutton Place, with two steps that you go down to get in the living room, and a bar and all. I’d been there quite a few times, because after I left Elkton Hills Mr. Antolini came up to our house for dinner quite frequently to find out how I was getting along. He wasn’t married then. Then when he got married, I used to play tennis with he and Mrs. Antolini quite frequently, out at the West Side Tennis Club, in Forest Hills, Long Island. Mrs. Antolini belonged there. She was lousy with dough. She was about sixty years older than Mr. Antolini, but they seemed to get along quite well.


74)
In al that lond no cristen durste route,
Alle cristen folk ben fled fro that contree
Thurgh payens, that conquereden al aboute
The plages of the North, by land and see;
To Walis fled the cristianitee
Of olde Britons, dwellinge in this yle;
Ther was hir refut for the mene whyle.


75)
“ . . . Or we could think up a new game. It would be called ‘The Butterfly from the Island of Borneo’!”
“Yes!” I said, taking fire. “We would go looking in an enchanted forest for a well with living water.”
“In great danger of our lives, of course?”
“Naturally, in terrible danger!”
“We would carry this water in our hands,” she said, and she turned up her little veil. “When one of us would get tired, he would carefully pour the water into the palm of the other one.”
“And when we pour the water,” I pointed out, “one or two drops absolutely must fail on the ground, and in those spots . . . ”
“In those places,” she interrupted, bushes will grow with big white flowers. And then what will happen? What do you think?”
“We’ll sprinkle the water on the butterfly, and it will live again.”
“And be turned into a beautiful girl?” the woman asked, and she laughed. “Well, it’s time to go. They’re probably waiting for you at home.”

[*]

76)
Island, any area of land smaller than a continent and entirely surrounded by water. Islands may occur in oceans, seas, lakes, or rivers. A group of islands is called an archipelago. Islands may be classified as either continental or oceanic. Oceanic islands are those that rise to the surface from the floors of the ocean basins. Continental islands are simply unsubmerged parts of the continental shelf that are entirely surrounded by water. Many of the larger islands of the world are of the continental type. . . .


77)
“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
“They are merely conventional signs!

“Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank:”
(So the crew would protest) “that he’s bought us the best —
A perfect and absolute blank!”


78)
“Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour boarder,” Emmy said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton’s academy.

“The very name,” George said. “Her father was a German Jew — a slave-owner they say — connected with the Cannibal Islands in some way or other. He died last year, and Miss Pinkerton has finished her education. She can play two pieces on the piano; she knows three songs; she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for her; and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a sister.”


79)
He ceased ascending about half-way up the hill and began walking to his right, keeping a constant distance from the shore. He said to himself that he was having a look at the island, but his feeling was rather that the island was having a look at him. . . .


80)
“Some of the perils and ridicule which attend the missionary position adopted for mating purposes by our puritanical intelligentsia and so justly derided by the ‘primitive’ but healthy-minded natives of the Begouri Islands are pointed out by a prominent French orientalist [thick footnote, skipped here] who describes the mating habits of the fly *Serromyia amorata* Poupart. Copulation takes place with both ventral surfaces pressed together and the mouths touching. When the last throb (*frisson*) of intercourse is terminated the female sucks out the male’s body content through the mouth of her impassioned partner. One supposes (see Pesson et al.) [another copious footnote] that the titbits, such as the juicy leg of a bug enveloped in a webby substance, or even a mere token (the frivolous dead end or subtle beginning of an evolutionary process — *qui le sait!*) such as a petal carefully wrapped up and tied up with a frond of red fern, which certain male flies (but apparently not the *femorata* and *amorata* morons) bring to the female before mating, represent a prudent guarantee against the misplaced voracity of the young lady.”

81)
Nick kept his direction by the sun. He knew where he wanted to strike the river and he kept on through the pine plain, mounting small rises to see other rises ahead of him and sometimes from the top of a rise a great solid island of pines off to his right or his left. He broke off some sprigs of the heathery sweet fern, and put them under his pack straps. The chafing crushed it and he smelled it as he walked.


82)
When Club Méditerranée sells a package holiday that takes a young French secretary to Tahiti or Israel for a week or two of sun and sex, it is manufacturing an experience for her quite as carefully and systematically as Renault manufactures cars. Its advertisements underscore the point. Thus a two-page spread in The New York Times Magazine begins with the headline: “Take 300 men and women. Strand them on an exotic island. And strip them of every social pressure.” Based in France, Club Méditerranée now operates thirtyfour vacation “villages” all over the world.


83)
“Our second meeting with Jenny Lind,” continues the Queen, “took place several years later, in the island of Norderney, where she, in company with a dear old friend from Hamburg, spent the season with us.

“This was the highest point of our friendship with this gifted soul; for she came to us daily in the morning, telling us stories out of her full life, or interchanging ideas with us whereby we could fully estimate the depth and purity of her feelings, the greatness of her mind. Often in the midst of our conversation, she jumped up and sat down at the piano, and her singing at that time was more full of soul, if possible, than at other times.

“What a powerful effect the following little episode had on us! My youngest daughter, Mary, then scarcely three years old, was on my arm while I stood beside the piano. The child listened attentively to the heavenly song, then suddenly she threw her arms round my neck and burst into tears! ‘That is my greatest triumph!’ cried Jenny Lind, greatly moved.”

[*]


84)
Was it the sun or the fog, the time of day, that most often changed things, by changing their appearances? He supposed he had a horror of closed-in places and of being shut in, but in late afternoon he had seen Alcatraz light as a lady’s hat afloat on the water, looking inviting, and he would almost wish to go to that island himself, and say to people, “Convicts are Christ,” or the like. . . .


85)
Where birds ride like leaves and boats like ducks
I heard, this morning, waking,
Crossly out of the town noises
A voice in the erected air,
No prophet-progeny of mine,
Cry my sea town was breaking.
No Time, spoke the clocks, no God, rang the bells,
I drew the white sheet over the islands
And the coins on my eyelids sang like shells.

86)
When it was known how many men had been rescued from Dunkirk, a sense of deliverance spread in the Island and throughout the Empire. There was a feeling of intense relief, melting almost into triumph. The safe homecoming of a quarter of a million men, the flower of our Army, was a milestone in our pilgrimage through years of defeat. The troops returned with nothing but rifles and bayonets and a few hundred machine-guns, and were forthwith sent to their homes for seven days’ leave. Their joy at being once again united with their families did not overcome a stern desire to engage the enemy at the earliest moment. Those who had actually fought the Germans in the field had the belief that, given a fair chance, they could beat them.


87)
Propped upon his elbow with his back to her, his aloneness touched her sharply. It was wrong that he should be so single; so contained, so little merged into her own existence.

He was an island surrounded by deep water. There was no isthmus leading to her bounty; no causeway to her continent of love.

There are times when the air that floats between mortals becomes, in its stillness and silence, as cruel as the edge of a scythe.


88)
I listened with honourable veneration to those ancient fictions, which were themselves perhaps not as remarkable as the fact that a man of my blood had invented them and a man of a distant empire was restoring them to me on an island in the West in the course of a desperate mission. I recall the final words, repeated in each version like some secret commandment: “Thus the heroes fought, their admirable hearts calm, their swords violent, they themselves resigned to killing and to dying.”

From that moment on, I felt all about me and within my obscure body an invisible, intangible pullulation — not that of the divergent, parallel, and finally coalescing armies, but an agitation more inaccessible, more inward than that, yet one those armies somehow prefigured. . . .


89)
My Splendors, are Menagerie —
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass —
Whom none but Beetles — know.


90)
I turned on the television set to a commercial that, like so much else I had seen that day, seemed terribly funny. A young woman with a boarding-school accent was asking, “Do you offend with wet-fur-coat odor? A fifty-thousand-dollar sable cape caught in a thundershower can smell worse than an old hound dog who’s been chasing a fox through a swamp. Nothing smells worse than wet mink. Even a light mist can make lamb, opossum, civet, baum marten, and other less costly and serviceable furs as malodorous as a badly ventilated lion house in a zoo. Safeguard yourself from embarrassment and anxiety by light applications of Elixircol before you wear your furs...” She belonged to the dream world, and I told her so before I turned her off. I fell asleep in the moonlight and dreamed of an island.

91)
They glided lower... lower...

There came a rushing sense of motion to their passage — blurred shadows of dunes, rocks lifting like islands. The ’thopter touched a dune top with a soft lurch, skipped a sand valley, touched another dune.

*He’s killing our speed against the sand*, Jessica thought, and permitted herself to admire his competence.


92)
. . . . or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.


93)
Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and, deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that “the battle field was superb,” because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St. Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:

The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.

[*]


94)
“If you have ever aided him in evil, help us now and so atone.”

“There is but one place where he can have fled,” she answered. “There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. It was there that he kept his hound and there also he had made preparations so that he might have a refuge. That is where he would fly.”


95)
A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.

Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken, tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. . . .

96)
The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were attended by Imlac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself approached with respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the exchange of the first civilities he was timorous and bashful; but when the talk became regular, he recollected his powers, and justified the character which Imlac had given. Inquiring of Pekuah what could have turned her inclination towards astronomy, he received from her a history of her adventure at the Pyramid, and of the time passed in the Arab’s island. She told her tale with ease and elegance, and her conversation took possession of his heart. The discourse was then turned to astronomy. Pekuah displayed what she knew. He looked upon her as a prodigy of genius, and entreated her not to desist from a study which she had so happily begun.


97)
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.


98)
And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom. You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.

[*]


99)
Then it befell the Maison Dorée, as it had befallen the Island in the Bois, that gradually its name ceased to trouble him. For what we suppose to be our love, our jealousy are, neither of them, single, continuous and individual passions. They are composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multitude they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity.

[*]


100)
. . . It is at times —

In dusk, as though this island lifted, floated
In Indian baths. At Cuban dusk the eyes
Walking the straight road toward thunder —
This dry road silvering toward the shadow of the quarry
— It is at times as though the eyes burned hard and glad
And did not take the goat path quivering to the right,
Wide of the mountain — thence to tears and sleep —
But went on into marble that does not weep.

2) Great Gatsby
15) The Odyssey
35) Wooster and Jeeves, though I can't name the specific title.
50) Moby Dick
52) Is this a thesaurus, maybe Roget?
67) Three Men in a Boat
92) Paradise Lost?
93) War and Peace?

>>22625222
7 reads like Faulkner, so I think it's TSATF
>>22625234
12 sounds like Dante. Gonna play the odds and guess it's Inferno (being the most popular one)
>>22625240
22 is Catch-22 (I feel like it's always 22)
>>22625263
59 is Ulysses; I think this comes from Proteus.
This is a good one. How many of these have you made now?

>>22625341

Yes, all correct. A fine start.


>2) Great Gatsby
Chosen by Anthony Hopkins.

>15) The Odyssey
Chosen by lots of people, but Michael Tippet is the one I put in the picture.

>35) Wooster and Jeeves, though I can't name the specific title.
It's The Code Of The Woosters. PGW has been pretty popular over the years. (Although people rarely pick just one book. They normally say "The Jeeves Novels" or something. The rules have been relaxed so more than one book seems to be OK these days.) Anyway, Richard Dawkins is the featured celebrity.

>50) Moby Dick
Patricia Highsmith chose this. (It's less popular than I expected. Only a few other people have gone for it.)

>52) Is this a thesaurus, maybe Roget?
Right. Several people have picked it, but I went for Bing Crosby.

>67) Three Men in a Boat
Edward Woodward.

>92) Paradise Lost?
Alex Guinness. (And a few others.)

>93) War and Peace?
A popular choice. Ian Fleming is the one I went with. He asked for it in German, weirdly.

>>22625428

Another good haul. All correct, more or less.


>7 reads like Faulkner, so I think it's TSATF
Good guess, insofar as it's a guess. Celebrity = John Malkovich.

>12 sounds like Dante. Gonna play the odds and guess it's Inferno (being the most popular one)
Dante, yes. Inferno, no. The clue is in the bit about ascending a mountain. It's Purgatorio. Several celebrities have gone for this, not surprisingly. Luciano Pavarotti is the guy I chose. (Perhaps guessable, given he's Italian.)

>22 is Catch-22 (I feel like it's always 22)
I might have had it once or twice before. Can't remember if it was #22 though. Celebrity = Billy Connolly.

>59 is Ulysses; I think this comes from Proteus.
A very popular choice, maybe third after Proust & Tolstoy. (The dictionary might have been third actually.) Celebrity = Seamus Heaney. (Again guessable because of the nationality, maybe.)


>This is a good one. How many of these have you made now?
It feels like hundreds but I think it's about 35.

>>22625537
Which translation of Purgatorio is it?

>>22625221
5 - Libra by Don DeLillo
>>22625222
8 - Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
9 - Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
>>22625234
13 - James Boswell's Life of Johnson
>>22625237
20 - Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw
>>22625240
23 - Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron?
>>22625248
32 - Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne?
>>22625265
62 - Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
63 - The Prelude by William Wordsworth
>>22625272
74 - Chaucer, one of the Canterbury Tales?
>>22625278
89 - Emily Dickinson
>>22625282
96 - Samuel Johnson's Rasselas
97 - One of John Donne's sermons

>>22625625
Mine.

>>22625638


Another goodly haul. All correct, including your tentative ones. My usual strategy is to give animated cute anime girls for multiple answers, and single image girls for single answers. But I only have about four animated girls :( We'll see how we go.

The celebrities who picked the works:

>5 - Libra by Don DeLillo
James Ellroy. A relatively tricky one I thought.

>8 - Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Shirley Bassey.

>9 - Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Peter Shaffer.

>13 - James Boswell's Life of Johnson
Alfred Ayer. (Probably one of the least-recognized 'celebrities' these days. He was a philosophy professor.)

>20 - Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw
Philip Larkin. (He actually asked for Shaw's complete works. The rules soon got relaxed from the original 'one book'. Several celebrities have asked for "Complete Works", "Complete Poems", etc.)

>23 - Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron?
Derek Jacobi.

>32 - Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne?
James Cameron. This surprised me. I wouldn't have put him as a Sterne guy. Stern, yes.

>62 - Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
John Schlesinger.

>63 - The Prelude by William Wordsworth
Ken Russell.

>74 - Chaucer, one of the Canterbury Tales?
We'll see if another anon can pinpoint the tale. David Frost.

>89 - Emily Dickinson
ED didn't name her poems so it's a bit tricky identifying them specifically. Nicole Kidman. (As mentioned above, she asked for the Complete Poems, as you would expect, rather than just this one.)

>96 - Samuel Johnson's Rasselas
Brian Aldiss.

>97 - One of John Donne's sermons
Yehudi Menuhin.

Bump.

Bump.

A hint:
4, 6, 10, 14, 39, 60, 84, 89 are female authors.
(Not a huge hint, admittedly, especially since some have already been identified.)

I also just noticed, the author of #66 isn't included in the list at the beginning. Mea culpa.

30 is Don Quixote (Sancho speaking).

>>22628821

>30 is Don Quixote (Sancho speaking).
It is, and it is. More than one celebrity has picked this, but it's Placido Domingo in the picture. (He's Spanish, so fair enough.)

Bump.

Bedtime bump.

Bump. Hang in there, thread. Someone will come and answer fourteen questions any minute now.

Bump.

>>22625234
14 is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Would be interested to know what douchebag chose that as his desert island book.

>>22625242
>26)
I know this lil nigga. It's The Little Prince.

>>22625242
I'd imagine 29 is Robinson Crusoe

>>22625234
>15)
Homers Odyssey when Odysseus deals with he Sirens.

>>22625251
>37)
I remember this scene from Master and Margarita

>>22625280
>94)
Reminds of Sherlock Holmes Hound of Baskerville

Bump to find out if my answer is correct

>>22625221
2 - The Great Gatsby
>>22625222
8 - Robinson Crusoe
9 - Gibbon
>>22625234
11 - Bertrand Russell?
12 - Dante?
15 - Homer
>>22625237
19 - Pretty sure this is Dostoevsky
>>22625242
30 - Don Quixote
>>22625256
50 - Moby Dick
>>22625269
69 - Plato's Critias
>>22625278
86 - guessing Churchill
>>22625282
96 - Rasselas

I listed all I know — some are in common with other anons. I really enjoyed reading some of these excerpts and have decided to read them. Thanks for posting OP.

>>22633911
>14 is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
Correct. Howard Roark diving into a pool in an ubermensch way at the beginning.

>Would be interested to know what douchebag chose that as his desert island book.
Michael Caine. A surprising choice. (Martina Navratilova also chose it but she didn't get chosen. It does seem to fit her a bit better to be honest.)

>>22633971
>26)
>I know this lil nigga. It's The Little Prince.
Sure is. Quite a few people have chosen this. Doesn't seem like a good choice to me because even if you like it, it's just too short. Anyway, it's Omar Sharif.

>>22633994
>I'd imagine 29 is Robinson Crusoe
Nope. The [*] means it's a translated work, and Robinson Crusoe was written in English. Also, the only person that could be would be Man Friday, and he is really deferential. He always calls R. C. "master". If he climbed on his back and pissed on him it would be a very different sort of book.

>>22634057
>15)
>Homers Odyssey when Odysseus deals with he Sirens.
Correct, although this guy
>>22625341
already got it. Michael Tippet picked it (and lots of other people, unsurprisingly).

>>22634082

>37)
>I remember this scene from Master and Margarita
Correct. Garry Kasparov's choice. (Guessable perhaps, given he's Russian.)

>>22634133

>94)
>Reminds of Sherlock Holmes Hound of Baskerville
Correct. Jeffrey Bernard chose the Complete Works Of Arthur Conan Doyle. (Another not-so-famous "celebrity", I guess. He was a drunk guy who hung around in London and wrote a weekly column for some newspaper.)

>>22633994
Also I should have mentioned, Robinson Crusoe has already been guessed. (It's #8.)

>>22635140

Yes, all correct.


Someone else already got them:

>2 - The Great Gatsby
>8 - Robinson Crusoe
>9 - Gibbon
>12 - Dante?
>15 - Homer
>30 - Don Quixote
>50 - Moby Dick
>96 - Rasselas


You're first:

>11 - Bertrand Russell?
History of Western Philosophy. Alan Clark picked it. (A random English politician. Definitely one of the least famous celebrities now-a-days. He's fifth in the top row, on Michael Caine's left.)

>19 - Pretty sure this is Dostoevsky
It's Crime and Punishment. Donald Pleasence.

>69 - Plato's Critias
More-or-less. It's Timaeus, which introduces the Atlantis myth. Critias talks about it in more depth but doesn't have this exact wording, IIRC. They're basically the same dialogue anyway. John Huston picked Plato's Dialogues.

>86 - guessing Churchill
Pretty logical guess. "The Second World War." Birgit Nilsson picked it, which is sort of interesting, given she's famous for singing Wagner.

>>22632295
>answer fourteen questions
So there are 6 left unanswered?

>>22635708
No, fourteen was just a random number. Current progress is 34/100.

>>22625274
>77)
>“What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
>Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
>So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
>“They are merely conventional signs!
I was sure that the Lewis Carrol book someone would take to a deserted island was going to be Alice in Wonderland.
But the light verse style here and rhythm along with the mention of Bellman and an absurd blank map makes me think Hunting of the Snark. Did someone choose Hunting of the Snark?

>>22635770

>77)
>Hunting of the Snark
Correct. John Hurt chose The Complete Works Of Lewis Carroll. (They relaxed the rules, so loads of celebrities now pick authors rather than specific titles.)

Bump.

>>22635685
awesome, have a bump

>>22625256
46 is Chekhov, My Darling
>>22625282
90 is Swanns Way by Proust

I tried for ages to find the Calvino one because I thought I knew him very well

>>22638517
Typo, I meant 99 was Proust

>>22635915
>Complete Works
And you were cheeky and didn't use the obvious Alice. But I saw through your sneaky quiz with my expert Carroll knowledge.

>>22638517
>>22638568

>46 is Chekhov, My Darling
Correct. Several notable people chose the collected Chekhov. Kazuo Ishiguro in the picture.

>99 is Swanns Way by Proust
Right. As mentioned, one of the most popular choices. I think he's dead wrong about love and jealousy here, but never mind. John Updike.

>I tried for ages to find the Calvino one because I thought I knew him very well
The asterisks for translated works are a help.

>>22638896
>And you were cheeky and didn't use the obvious Alice.
Well there was a vocabulary reason why I couldn't use the Alice books even if I'd wanted to.

>>22638517
>I tried for ages to find the Calvino one because I thought I knew him very well
Me with Tolkien

>>22639273
Every time someone skips a Tolkien song, Tom Bombadil cries.

I'll try to fill some gaps
>>22625237
17) is Virgil
>>22625248
34) is from Isiah, but I thought that the Bible was already given to them? If it's a book that quotes the Bible so directly, then that's a bit too cheeky.
>>22625253
44) This is another ancient historian, is it Herodotus?
>>22625263
57) Is Calvino, you actually made me get out my copy of "If On Winter's Night A Traveller" to look for it, I had a hunch that's the book they would've chosen
>>22625274
>>22625272
73) Is Salinger, I know Catcher in the Rye like the back of my hand
78) is Vanity Fair by Thackery, it's somewhere near the start, I recognise Amelia and Miss Swartz

I haven't actually read most of the other authors on the list, so you guys are on your own after this.

>>22639826

>17) is Virgil
Correct. Aeneid. Read your classics, gentlemen.

>34) is from Isiah, but I thought that the Bible was already given to them? If it's a book that quotes the Bible so directly, then that's a bit too cheeky.
Indeed, Isaiah isn't in the author list, and they get the Bible anyway, so what's going on? You're right it would be unfair to quote someone quoting Isaiah without giving a bit round the edge to show it's a quotation. The answer is that Enoch Powell asked for the Old Testament in Greek and Hebrew as his extra book. (Perhaps I should have given it in the original, but the font would probably not work.)

>44) This is another ancient historian, is it Herodotus?
It sure is. Princess Michael of Kent asked for it. (Not sure why they named a girl "Michael", but there we are.)

>57) Is Calvino, you actually made me get out my copy of "If On Winter's Night A Traveller" to look for it, I had a hunch that's the book they would've chosen
Correct. Malcolm Bradbury (not a very famous person, but never mind).

>73) Is Salinger, I know Catcher in the Rye like the back of my hand
Correct. Diane Cilento. (Random actress who married Sean Connery.)

>78) is Vanity Fair by Thackery, it's somewhere near the start, I recognise Amelia and Miss Swartz
Correct. Michael Palin.


A good haul, definitely deserving an animated girl. Sadly I don't have any more animated girls. (Must find some more.) Anyway, Best Girl Haruhi should do. A god is as good as a gif any day.

>>22625240
>24)
>CHAP. IX.
These are some very Chinese names and also it is translated perhaps from Chinese.
Confucius is the only Chinese writer I see. Using my superior skills of deductive reasoning I conclude Confucius and his book Sayings of Confucius.

>>22639965

>24)
>Confucius and his book Sayings of Confucius.
Yes indeed, although it's generally called the Analects of Confucius. Lang Lang chose it.

Actually there ought to have been a second Chinese author in the author list, but I forgot him. I owned up to it here:
>>22628456

>>22628456
>female authors.
Of these only 60 has an astrix meaning Translated. Which means only 60 could be the foreign language female Anne Frank who wrote Diary of Anne Frank

>>22625242
>28)
As a well read and finely educated individual I recognize this passage from the great classic Winnie the Pooh.
Who was the patrician individual that requested Pooh bear?

>>22640069
>female authors.
>Of these only 60 has an astrix meaning Translated. Which means only 60 could be the foreign language female Anne Frank who wrote Diary of Anne Frank
Quite right. An intersection of two minorities. Joan Baez chose her.

>>22640106
>28)
>As a well read and finely educated individual I recognize this passage from the great classic Winnie the Pooh.
Correct. "It rained and it rained and it rained."

>Who was the patrician individual that requested Pooh bear?
It was of course the patrician gentleman Oliver Reed. Well done Oliver.

>>22639898
Enoch Powell is a total geed. What kind of guy, when asked an interesting hypothetical question, just asks for the same thing he already asked for, again. Ridiculous zealotry, I think even the Pope would ask for a more interesting book

>>22639986
Who is the missing author?

>>22641768
I was reluctant to give the name since I've given the number, but I agree that's a bit unfair. I should have just given the name and not said the number. It's Wu Cheng'en.

>>22641871
Oh yeah that makes 66 easy since he basically only wrote Journey to the West. If it makes a difference I had narrowed down the unknown Chinese narrative story to a 50/50 guess of either that or Three Kingdoms since those are the main two anyone ever cares about.

>>22641943
>Oh yeah that makes 66 easy since he basically only wrote Journey to the West.
Right. If he ever appears in the author list you know that's going to be the work.

Yoko Ono picked it.

>>22625240
21 - Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung. I guess it's an interesting book to bring with you. Realistically he's one of those authors whose collected works you'd want.
>>22625280
91 - Dune.

>>22641980
>Yoko Ono picked it.
Didn't know she was a Dragon Ball fan

>>22642109

>21 - Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Jung.
Correct. John Boorman.

>I guess it's an interesting book to bring with you. Realistically he's one of those authors whose collected works you'd want.
Yes, in quite a few of these the celebrity asked for the complete works. Not this one though.


>91 - Dune.
Correct. Charlotte Rampling. An oddball one.

>>22625218
Hey quiz anon,

Thanks again for being an absolute bright spot of the board. Do you have a contact email? Would love to get in touch regarding a project

>>22643716
>Do you have a contact email?
BlankieM0nster@protonmail.com, although I have to say I'm not very good at projects, or indeed structured activity of any kind.

>>22643785
You’re selling yourself short. Will shoot you a message tomorrow!

Bump.

Have any of the quizzes ever had all questions answered?

>>22646008
Just one so far — "Starring Santa", December last year. The first lines of a hundred works, rewritten to involve Father Christmas. Archived here:

https://archived.moe/lit/thread/21423044


In the King James Bible one a couple of months back, someone said he knew all the answers and would give them after everyone else had had a good go, but he left it too late and the thread died.

>>22643785
Sent.

Bump.