The great find that inspired this piece was a bit of text in a real bodice-ripper of a vintage novel that is my absolute favorite source of melodramatic verbiage: “At last, after his hostess had swallowed many yawns, Sam reluctantly said good night.”
I suddenly feel the need to explain myself to the horrified bibliophiles out there. Let me just say that I long ago got over my guilt about cutting up certain old books. My justification, should you be interested, is that I work with these chosen victims the way sausage makers work with a pig – they use everything but the squeal. But let’s get that unpleasant image out of our minds and get back to my story.
Actually, it was one Margaret Deland’s story, a 1906 novel she called “The Awakening of Helen Richie” and saw fit to populate with more tormented characters than I’ve ever found between two covers. Along with Margaret’s fine prose I chose to use pieces of a charming old autograph book from my collection as well a picture from a 1950s magazine of a suitably smarmy young man.
While I’ve harvested bits of dialogue and narrative far more dramatic and florid than this particular one, Margaret’s depiction of this poor sap (with his high hopes but low probability of ever scoring) spoke to me of every unbearable, glacial evening anyone’s ever spent in the presence of the relentlessly boring.
i am quite often jumping all over the net nearly all of the morning thus I have a tendency to peruse a whole lot, which unfortunately isnt normally a good factor as nearly all of the internet sites I see are constructed of useless garbage copied from various other internet websites a zillion times, but I have to give you credit this website is really decent and seems to have a bit of authentic information, so thanks for splitting the trend of simply just replicating other people’s blogs, in case you ever wanna play a few hands of facebook poker with me just gimme a shout – you have my e mail
Thank you for the kind words — being regarded as decent and authentic is a high compliment in my book — and thank you, also, for taking the time to leave a comment behind. The other thing I’ve noticed about the internet, myself included, is the tendency to flit here and there as an unseen observer and not contribute anything. Your gift of an anonymous hello and “well done” is most appreciated, and I hope you visit again some time. (And if I ever learn to play poker, I know where to go!)