The Adventures of Sir Frizzle Pumpkin, And, Nights at Mess: And Other Tales
James White
Paperback
(Forgotten Books, Oct. 24, 2017)
Excerpt from The Adventures of Sir Frizzle Pumpkin, And, Nights at Mess: And Other TalesCan find stories to tell; and, in the next place, how they can find words to tell them. For myself, I am as good as the best of them at an anecdote after dinner; my words come as pat to the purpose as possible but the moment I take my pen into my hand - presto all my power of story-telling is gone. Some word appears twice or thrice in the same sentence, my cha racters become confused, and the personages, whose -wit is sure to create a laugh as I tell the story to my friends at table, are the stupidest fellows I ever met, when I write down their facetious responses in black and white. My opportunities of observation have been as good as those of any officer of my standing, and, as I said before, how the devil it is that they ma nage to tell long stories of two or three volumes, while I can't muster a single page, I can by no means divine. But though I have hitherto failed in my attempts, I have not been altogether discouraged. Perseverance, they say, will conquer in the end; and some of these days, I doubt not, I shall be able to manufacture a warlike tale as well as my neighbours. Besides the honour and reputation, there are other considerations which, it may easily be imagined, would make a suc cessful novel by no means an unpleasant achievement to a captain on half-pay. Plutus, I am sorry to confess, mingles in all my dreams of fame. I envy Colonel.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.