cabell miniver "And I, who prattle to you, very candidly confess that I have no patience with other people’s ideas unless they coincide with mine: for if the fellow be demonstrably wrong I am fretted by his stupidity, and if his notion seem more nearly right than mine I am infuriated.… Yet I wish I could acquire urbanity, very much as I would like to have wings. For in default of it, I cannot even manage to be civil to that piteous thing called human nature, or to view its parasites, whether they be politicians or clergymen or popular authors, with one-half the commiseration which the shifts they are put to, quite certainly, would rouse in the urbane." 010108 ... miniver "'But, man, how strange you are!' said Koshchei, presently; and life flowed back into his eyes, and Jurgen ventured the liberty of breathing. 'Inside, I mean. Why, there is hardly anything left. Now rules are rules, of course; but you, who are the remnant of a poet, may depart unhindered whenever you will, and I shall take nothing from you. For really it is necessary to draw the line somewhere." 010108 ... Quintessensual Yeah, Cabell's a writer, some would say an excellent one. For my taste he uses anagrams and similar tricks, that can be sophomoric, too much. It's like too much salt on the potatoes. He's also a curmudgeon (see curmudgeon). Not every writer is a curmudgeon (see curmudgeon). Oh, what the hell, have another potato: "I bleach. In time I shall bleach that garment you are wearing. For I take the color out of all things. Thus you see these stuffs here, as they are now. Clotho spun the glowing threads, and Lachesis wove them, as you observe, in curious patterns, very marvelous to see: but when I am done with these stuffs there will be no more color or beauty or strangeness anywhere apparent than in so many dish-cloths... "....For mine are all the sapphires and turquoises and whatever else is this dusty world is blue; and mine likewise are all the Wednesdays that have ever been or ever will be: and any one of these will I freely give you in return for your fine speeches and your tender heart." Sereda to Jurgen, in "Jurgen," Chap. 6 010108 what's it to you? who go blather from