Gems to Enthrall* & Inspire
Gems to Enthrall* & Inspire
*Enthrall: To hold spellbound; captivate; charm.
Learning, in any endeavor, is inspired — and accelerated — by example.
The craft of writing is no exception. The more we expose ourselves to that
which is exemplary (worthy of being imitated, commendable), the better we
ourselves will write. In this spirit, we offer you the following collection
of gems from our files.
“I remembered a sparkling autumn day in England when I was a little
girl, a new day after a night of bombs and ack-ack batteries and fire-filled
skies. The grass was studded with dew and hung with exquisite little
jeweled cobwebs; I had recently learned how to bend a green twig, slip it
under the web and gently lift it up. By blowing gently on it, the surface
could be changed to a shimmering expanse of vapor that shone like a mirror.
This is what I was intent on when I looked up and saw, across my field of
vision, a young soldier in full panoply of war crawling over the grass.
He was in camouflage, his face blackened; I saw the sun striking off steel,
so I suppose his bayonet was fixed. Our eyes met, he winked at me and then
drew his hand sharply across his throat and wriggled away into the
rhododendrons.”
The passage above appeared on page 43 of the September 1989 issue of
“The Monthly,” published in Emeryville, California. We are in the
process of trying to get the full citation, so as to give the author proper
credit.
“By 1830, when revolution revisited Paris, the elephant was in an
advanced state of decomposition. One tusk had dropped off, and the other
was reduced to a powdery stump. Its body was black from rain and soot
and its eyes had sunk, beyond all natural resumblance, into the furrows
and pockmarks of its large, eroded head.”
Who says writing about history has to be boring? The above introductory passage
to Simon Schama’s “Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution”
(Knopf, 1989) gives the lie to this most unfortunate fallacy.
“I once sat next to New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan at a formal dinner
and watched him consume three double Scotches, five glasses of red wine and three
glasses of port, after which he got up and gave the after-dinner speech.
The 6-ft. 4-in. Senator swayed above me as if in a high wind and delivered
a swoopingly post-Modernist oration that sounded like James Joyce addressing
a Rotary luncheon on the planet Mars. His extraterrestrial gibberish nonetheless
communicated to the diners an elegant music that left them well pleased
and warmly mystified. Do not attempt this feat yourself. Moynihan is a trained
professional.”
Lance Morrow, in “Monica Who?” Time magazine, 22 June 1998, page 86.
To be continued . . .
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