The Admirable Bashville; Or, Constancy Unrewarded: Being the Novel of Cashel Byron's Profession Done Into a Stage Play in Three Acts and in Blank Verse, with a Note on Modern Prizefighting

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Brentano's, 1907 - Boxing - 74 pages
 

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Page 37 - Are these anaemic dogs the English people? LUCIAN. Mislike us not for our complexions, The pallid liveries of the pall of smoke Belched by the mighty chimneys of our factories, And by the million patent kitchen ranges Of happy English homes. CETEWAYO. When first I came I deemed those chimneys the fuliginous altars Of some infernal god. I now perceive The English dare not look upon the sky. They are moles and owls: they call upon the soot To cover them. LUCIAN. You cannot understand The greatness...
Page 7 - My answer is that the operation of the copyright law of that time (now happily superseded) left me only a week to write it in. Blank verse is so childishly easy and expeditious (hence, by the way, Shakespear's copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within the week what would have cost me a month in prose.
Page 35 - ... [giving him her keys] Oh, what have you done ? CASHEL. Flush on the boko napped your footman's left. LYDIA. I do not understand. CASHEL. True. Pardon me. I have received a blow upon the nose In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else I shall be total gules. [He hurries out. LYDIA. How well he speaks ! There is a silver trumpet in his lips That stirs me to the finger ends.
Page 72 - Do thus and thus, or starve. It was easy for Ruskin to lay down the rule of dying rather than doing unjustly; but death is a plain thing: justice a very obscure thing. How is an ordinary man to draw the line between right and wrong otherwise than by accepting public opinion on the subject; and what more conclusive expression of sincere public opinion can there be than market demand? Even when we repudiate that and fall back on our private judgment, the matter gathers doubt instead of clearness.
Page 71 - ... and the destitute beauty are forced to choose between underpaid drudgery as industrial producers, and comparative self-respect, plenty, and popularity as prizefighters and mercenary brides, licit or illicit, it is idle to affect virtuous indignation at their expense. The word prostitute should either not be used at all, or else applied impartially to all persons who do things for money that they would not do if they had any other assured means of livelihood.
Page 58 - Championships was confined to the few amateurs who had some critical knowledge of the game of boxing, and to the survivors of the generation for which the fight between Sayers and Heenan had been described in The Times as solemnly as the University Boat Race. In short, pugilism was out of fashion because the police had suppressed the only form of it which fascinated the public by its undissembled pugnacity. All that was needed to rehabilitate it was the discovery that the glove fight is a more trying...
Page 27 - We must not fail in courage with a fighter. Unlock the door. LUCIAN. Stop. Like all women, Lydia, You have the courage of immunity. To strike you were against his code of honor; But me, above the belt, he may perform on T'th
Page 7 - It may be asked why I have written The Admirable Bashville in blank verse. My answer is that I had but a week to write it in. Blank verse is so childishly easy and expeditious (hence, by the way, Shakespear s copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do within the week what would have cost me a month in prose.
Page 8 - I like the melodious sing-song, the clear simple one-line and two-line sayings, and the occasional rhymed tags, like the half closes in an XVIII century symphony, in [George] Peele, [Thomas] Kyd, [Robert] Greene, and the histories of Shakespear.
Page 1 - Over Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight ; I dote on Bashville — I could read of him for ever ; de Bashville je suis le fervent — there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave ; Bashville est magnifique, mais il n'est guere possible.

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