Author: Paul

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Inducement

“I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves.”

 “I wonder, Madam,” replied the Doctor, “that you have not penetration to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

~ Samuel L. Johnson

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The Wolf-Leader, and changing writing styles

Earlier, I cited a passage from Beauty and the Beast as an example of how writing style has changed from then to now. I’m reading Alexandre Dumas’ The Wolf-Leader from 1857, and the following passage struck me in much the same way:

At times, when I have been loving and caressing my grandmother, Monsieur Thibault, and she takes me on her lap and clasps me in her poor weak trembling arms, and puts her dear old wrinkled face against mine, and I feel my cheek wet with the loving tears she sheds, I begin to cry myself, and, I tell you, Monsieur Thibault, so soft and sweet are my tears, that there is no woman or girl, be she queen or princess, who has ever, I am sure, known such a real joy as mine.

– Alexandre Dumas, The Wolf-Leader

Again, as with Beauty and the Beast, the above is… one sentence.