Skip to content
quotesby

In Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for yourself are synonyms,: the tumblebug explained. - I know, for already we of Philistia have been pestered by three of these makers of literature. Yes, there was Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it: then I chased him up a back alley one night, and knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt, whom I chivvied and battered from place to place, and made a paralytic of him: and him, too, I labelled offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent. Then later there was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to play on me, I consider. Still, these are the only three detected makers of literature that have ever infested Philistia, thanks be to goodness and my vigilance, but for both of which we might have been no more free from makers of literature than are the other countries.:

James Branch Cabell#40

More from James Branch Cabell

  1. The insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect in horror. The bug cried to the three judges, - Now, by St. Anthony! this Jurgen must forthwith be rele…

    Permalink to quote #39
  2. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

    Permalink to quote #41
  3. James Branch Cabell made this book so that he who wills may read the story of mans [sic] eternally unsatisfied hunger in search of beauty. Ettarre stays inacce…

    Permalink to quote #38