Kitchens were different then, too--not only what came out of them, but their smells and sounds. A hot pie cooling smells different... from a frozen pie thawing. Oilcloth and linoleum and apples in an open bowl and ruffled rubber aprons make a different aromatic mix from Formica and ceramic tile and mangoes in an acrylic fruit ripener and plastic-coated aprons printed with "Who invited all these tacky people?" And the kitchen sounds. I am not sure that today's kitchen is noisier. But the noises are different. Today you get the song of the food processor and the blender, the intermittent hum of the reefer and the freezer, the buzz-slosh-and-grunt of the dishwasher, the violently audible digestive processes of the waste disposal in the sink. Then it was the whir and clatter of the hand-powered eggbeater, the thunk-thunk-thunk of somebody mashing potatoes, or, in green-pea season, the crisp pop of pea pod and the rattle-rattle-rattle of peas into the pan.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch ji...g, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinquepace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Lord, crack their teeth! Lord, crush these lions' jaws! So let them sink as water in the sand;... When deadly bow their aiming fury draws, Shiver the shaft ere past the shooter's hand. So make them melt as the dishoused snailLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Positively I sit here, and look at Europe sink, first one deck disappearing, then another, and the whole ship slowly plunging bow-...down into the abyss; until the nightmare gets to be howling. The Roman Empire was a trifle to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But after a series of interludes In furnished rooms (describe wallpaper)... Transient hotels (mention sink and cockroaches) And spending the night with a beautiful married woman Whose husband was away in Centerville on business....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are prisoners of the world's demented sink. The soft enchantments of our years of innocence... Are harvested by accredited experience Our fondest memories soon turn to poison And only oblivion remains in season.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »