Posted on 10/28/2001 5:10:30 PM PST by nunya bidness
What's your favorite passage?
This puts me in mind of another thought: He says that we're all skeptical today as a result. Uh-huh. Could you then explain to me email hoaxes and the incredible pervasiveness of urban legends?
" The author urges historically minded sharpshooters to draw their beads on this narrative, and wishes them good hunting. They will find certain licenses in my Libertine - as a small example, the unseasonably warm weather when everyone knows Elizabeth's suit for jactitation took place in February 1769 - and more power to them. When they are done, let them proceed to Aesop and delete everything they find there about talking to animals.
In Short, this is a fable, written by and for the dilettente of the fabulous. It was extraordinarily easy and pleasant to write and it is hoped that it is correspondingly easy and pleasant to read.
Acknowledgement must be made to those without whom the book and the author surely never would have been known at all. First there is Mr. T. H. White, whose Age of Scandal served up Elizabeth Chudleigh, hot and crackling in her transparent gown. Mr. Theodore Sturgeon assisted nobly with the research, Mr. Jean Shepherd pushed and pushed at the author until he was, in the world of books, born; and last mentioned but first of all, the Night People whose battle-cry is Excelsior, and whose humor and forbearance are really responsible for the work."
Excelsior!
"It was a gray Irish day, a good one for drinking mulled wine and taking in the training of our newest thoroughbreds from the enclosed porch."
I have it on good authority that Frederick R. Ewing was very good friends with Ted Nuget and in fact introduced him to bow hunting when he would vacation in the north country.
And when they would take trips to the fields Ewing would regale the boy with stories of slaying elephants and lions on the African savanna.
When I first read the book I was in my first year of boarding school. A few of the other chaps had been picking on me so I devised an elaborate plan that lead to their being soaked by a combination of chlorine gas and breakfast gruel. Needless to say they left me alone after that incident.
Set in England during the 1700s, "I, Libertine" chronicled the exploits of Lance Courtnay, by day a respected man about town, by night an uninhibited rake. Its author was Frederick C. Ewing, an acknowledged expert in 18th-century erotica who completed the book while serving as a British civil servant in Rhodesia.
I believe the complete quotation is "Excelsior You Fathead!!!"
God I do miss Shep, but I'm so glad to see how many Freepers miss him too. Makes my decision to join up in 2000 certainly the RIGHT thing to have done
BTW I'll give a brass figleeyee with bronze oakleaf palm to any one who can answer one of two Q's:
What brand of soap did Shep send his listeners out to buy to prove they existed?
What automobile was a prime sponsor throughout the sixties?
"It was a gray Irish day, a good one for drinking mulled wine and taking in the training of our newest thoroughbreds from the enclosed porch."
What splendid Bulwer-Lytton material!
It is needed at this time.
Sweetheart soap.
What automobile was a prime sponsor throughout the sixties?
I don't know. Which was it?
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