|
|
David Wilson's Literary Quiz
A new literary quiz at irregular intervals, usually with a theme. This week: Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they
first drive mad. Despite the fact that my Quiz on the subject of Decent Proposals still bobs proudly at its moorings
like some proudly-bobbing thing, Ferret now comes before you with her own Modest Proposals. When you submit your score
for judgement, please attach a brief statement saying which Quiz you found infinitely superior to the other. This will affect
your placing.
The quotations in these quizzes reflect my own tastes - Dead White Males, for the most part (Jane Austen,
of course, counts as an honorary DWM). There will never be anything wilfully obscure. If you're the sort of person who sneers
at the naïveté of the reviewers in the TLS and New York Review of Books, you'll recognize them at once.
I welcome suggestions and insults. You'll find an e-mail tag lying around somewhere. Please put QUIZ in the subject line.
David J Wilson.
Quiz No. 140
1)
“Affery,” he said, “now I am going to tell you something. What do you think of the
name of Flintwinch?” “What do I think of it?” I says. “Yes,” he said, “because you’re
a-going to take it. Affery, you and me must be married. So if you’ll put your bonnet on next Monday morning at eight,
we’ll get it over.”
Answer
2)
"You - you strange, you almost unearthly thing! I love you as my own flesh. You - poor and obscure
and small and plain as you are - I entreat to accept me as a husband."
Answer
3)
“Come here – you. I’ll take you instead. Aye, dirt as you are, I’ll take you,
and we’ll sink into th’mud together. Come, my beauty – my handful of dirt. I mun carry thee up to Ticklepenny’s
and show ‘ee to the water-voles.”
Answer
4)
“Well, never mind about that,” said his lordship. “It’s no use your saying
that you’d prefer to be a governess to marrying me because it’s absurd! No one would. Dash it, I don’t want
to talk like a coxcomb, and I dare say I may want for principle, and have libertine propensities, and spend all my time in
gaming hells, besides being the sort of ugly customer no woman of sensibility could stomach, but you can’t pretend that
you wouldn’t be far more comfortable with me than at the curst school you keep prosing about!”
Answer
5)
I speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee that
I shall die is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thus livest dear Ferret, take a fellow
of plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places ....
a good heart, Ferret, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes,
but keeps his course truly. If thou wouldst have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a
king. And what sayest thou then to my love? Speak my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
Answer
6)
Bernard placed one arm tightly round her. When will you marry me Ethel he uttered. You must be my
wife it has come to that. I love you so intensly that if you say no I shall perforce dash my body to the brink of yon muddy
river he panted wildly.
Oh don’t do that, implored Ethel, breathing rather hard.
Then say you love me he said.
Oh Bernard, she sighed fervently, I certainly love you madly you are to me like a Heathen god she
cried at his manly form and handsome flashing face. I will indeed marry you.
Answer
7)
“Ah now Peter!” she said. “You can’t sit there and say you don’t remember
what happened after that! I did think that maybe you were a little tight at dinner – but you were serious from the time
you fell down .... Oh Peter I couldn’t bear it, if you didn’t remember that lovely long ride we took together
in the taxi! .... you said such lovely, lovely things .... Oh Peter dear I think that taxi ride was the most important thing
that ever happened to us in our lives. And we’re going to be so happy. Oh I just want to tell everybody!”
Answer
8)
I have a house and land in Kent
And if you love me, love me now
Two pence, half penny is my rent,
I cannot come every day to woo.
I am my father’s eldest son
My mother she does love me well.
For I can bravely tie my shoe
And I can, full well, ring a bell.
My father gave to me a hog
My mother gave to me a sow
I have a god-father dwells nearby
And on me he bestowed a plough.
Once time I gave thee a paper of pins
Another time a tawdry lace
And if you will not be my love
Then may I die before your face.
I have been, twice, our Whitsun Lord,
I have had ladies, many fair,
And yet you have my heart to hold
Which to my mind seems passing rare.
I will put on my best white slop
And I will wear my yellow hose.
And on my head a good grey hat
In it I’ll stick a lovely rose.
Wherefore cease off, make no delay,
And if you love me, love me now.
Or else I’ll seek some other heart
For I cannot come every day to woo.
Answer
9)
“Miss Ferret, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little
shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is, you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you
quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?”
Answer
10)
“What I mean to say is, when all this is over, I want to marry you, if you can put up with me
and all that.”
“Oh, are you another of them? That makes forty-seven.”
“Forty-seven?”
“Proposals. They come in by every post. I suppose there are a lot of imbeciles who want to marry
anyone who’s at all notorious.”
“Oh. Dear me that makes it very awkward. As a matter of fact, you know, I don’t need any
notoriety. I can get into the papers off my own bat. It’s no treat to me. Perhaps I’d better not mention it again.”
“I’m sorry – but one gets rather a bruised sort of feeling in my position. There
have been so many beastlinesses.”
“I know. It was stupid of me.”
“No, I think it was stupid of me. But why - ?”
“Why? Oh, well – I thought you’d be rather an attractive person to marry. That’s
all. I mean, I sort of took a fancy to you. I can’t tell why. There’s no rule about it, you know.”
Answer
1)
Little Dorrit, C. Dickens. Affery tells Arthur Clennam (the young master) of the less than romantic proposal from Jeremiah
Flintwinch which led to their marriage. [An easy one to start you off!]
Back to Question 1
2)
Jane Eyre, C. Brontë. Mr Rochester proposes bigamous marriage to his illegitimate daughter's governess. And in
spite of this, reader she married him .... [If there were no other indicators of the superiority of the male sex, this
would suffice: that, with a few eccentric exceptions, men have no difficulty in determining the utter meretriciousness of
this silly book.]
Back to Question 2
3)
Cold Comfort Farm, S. Gibbons. Urk Starkadder proposes marriage to Meriam Beetle, the hired girl (they settle down
in a villa called "Byewaies" bought with savings from the water vole trade .... ) [Another frightful book, whose popularity
with women astonishes the discriminating male.]
Back to Question 3
4)
Friday's Child, G. Heyer. Lord Sheringham proposes marriage to young Miss Hero Wantage. Astonishingly, she says yes.
[Garbage. Sheer garbage.]
Back to Question 4
5)
Henry V, E. Vere. The King proposes marriage to Katherine of France. [He'd have done better marrying Doll
Tearsheet. What a wimp their marriage brought forth!]
Back to Question 5
6)
The Young Visiters, D. Ashford. Bernard proposes marriage to Ethel. The spelling and punctuation is unchanged. [Anyone
who believes that a child wrote this book would believe anything.]
Back to Question 6
7)
You Were Perfectly Fine, D. Parker. And well may Peter's reaction be "Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear .... " in
this short story, in which an unnamed young girl reminds her companion of what he did - and perhaps more important - what
he said on the previous evening when he was ver' ver' drunk. He is probably not going to get out of this one .... [If
this reminds you of a scene in a novel by Evelyn Waugh, where another Peter's marital destiny is settled in a taxicab, then
you may take a fifty-point bonus.]
Back to Question 7
8)
A Wooing Song of a Yeoman of Kent's Son (1611), Thomas Ravenscroft (or perhaps collected by Ravenscroft, an early gatherer
of folk music). "I cannot come every day to woo", and the present of a "paper of pins" are recurring elements in this kind
of wooing song - quoted in full because I loved it so much. Who could resist the young man's proposal - he's got regular
money coming in, some breeding stock, generous relatives and he can tie his own shoe-laces .... this probably puts him streets
ahead of the opposition. [He certainly seems to possess every advantage.]
Back to Question 8
9)
Dracula, B. Stoker. Quincey P. Morris proposes to Lucy Westenra. His allusion to the "seven young women with the lamps"
is opaque - unless he is somehow thinking of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, but there were ten of them. Five of each. Understandably,
she refuses him. [These young girls take themselves far too seriously, in my opinion. They should think themselves lucky
if a respectable man pays any attention to them.]
Back to Question 9
10)
Strong Poison, D. Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey, it his own inimitably English way, proposes to Harriet Vane. She (Harriet)
is currently on trial for the murder of her lover, which explains all those other proposals .... [If you don't find this
stuff repellent, you have no literary taste whatsoever. BLECCCCHHHHH! Well, thank you, Ferret, darling! A for Effort!
Smoooooch!]
Back to Question 10
Don't bottle up your contempt and fury. Mail to davidjw@mindspring.com
Return to Start
Last Updated: 22 May 2009
|
|
|