Here are a couple of my all-time favorite paragraphs. They’re from Booth Tarkington’s book Penrod–a story of a young, precocious boy named the same.
“The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother; and yet he is one the great trials of love–the immemorial burden of courtship. Tragedy should have found a place for him, but he has been left the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and real menace of lovers, his head is sacred and terrible, his power illimitable. There is one way–only one way–to deal with him; but Robert Williams, having a brother of Penrod’s age, understood that way.
Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately.”
and my favorite, favorite…
“In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have these wellings of pent melody: a wife can never tell when she is to undergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no security a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, at any time.”
Brother, sing on.
