Mr Al-Khapoun's Christmas Quiz, 2009

See amid the winter snow Mr Al-Khapoun, of the Philistine/Liberace Organisation, trying to warm things up in the way that he has done for twenty-one years now. It makes him more unpopular each year, but he doesn't care. He invites you to identify, using no technology unavailable to Caxton, the ten quotations that follow. Some approximate translations are given for the non-English ones. There are now some clues, not that they are likely to help much if Mr Al-Khapoun has anything to do with it, and the answers, which show that they didn't.

"The thing that was utterly abhorrent to him," said one of his friends, "was to stop short." Given the premises, he would follow out their implications with the mercilessness of a medieval monk, and when he had reached the last limits of argument be ready to maintain whatever propositions he might find there with his dying breath. He had the extreme innocence of a child and a mathematician.
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The Church of Rome is to be respected as the only Hebraeo-christian church extant; all other churches established by the Hebrew apostles have disappeared, but Rome remains; and we must never permit the exaggerated position which it assumed in the middle centuries to make us forget its early and apostolical character, when it was fresh from Palestine, and as it were fragrant from Paradise.
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            Down the river did glide, with wind and tide,
                        A pig with vast celerity;
            And the Devil looked wise as he saw how the while,
            It cut its own throat. "There!" quoth he with a smile,
                        "Goes England's commercial prosperity."
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Abgesehn von diesem Ursprunge der ritterlichen Ehrenprincips, ist seine Tendenz zunächst diese, daß man, durch Androhung physischer Gewalt, die äusserlichen Bezeugnungen derjenigen Achtungen erzwingen will, welche wirklich zu erwerben man entweder für beschwerlich, oder für überflüssig hält. Dies ist ungefähr so, wenn Jemand, die Kugel des Thermometers mit der Hand erwärmend, am Steigen des Quecksilbers darthun wollte, daß sein Zimmer wohlgeheizt sei.
[Separate from this origin of the idea of chivalrous honour is the following tendency: to attempt by physical force to maintain the outward signs of a condition whose genuine achievement has been found to be either extremely difficult or unnecessary. It is like someone who warms the bulb of the thermometer with his hand and watches the mercury rise, happy that his room is so well heated.]
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-- Les vacances, à présent, c'est affaire d'un mois et demi, quoi!...
-- Un mois, dit Vinca. Tu sais bien que je serais le 20 septembre à Paris.
-- Pourquoi? Ton père est libre jusqu'au 1er octobre, tous les ans.
-- Oui, mais maman et moi, et Lisette, nous n'avons pas trop de temps, du 20 septembre au 4 octobre, pour les affaires d'automne -- une robe pour aller au cours, un manteau, un chapeau pour moi, et la même chose pour Lisette...Je voulais dire nous, les femmes, enfin...
Phil, couché sur le dos, jeta des poingées de sable en l'air.
-- Ah! la la..."Vous, les femmes..." Vous en faites des embarras, pout tout ça!
-- Il faut bien...Toi, tu trouves ton complet préparé sur ton lit. Tu t'occupes juste de tes chaussures, parce que tu les achètes chez un marchand où ton père te défend d'aller; le reste, ça te pousse tout seul. C'est bien commode, vous, les hommes!...
["We've another month and a half of the holdays, haven't we?"
"One month," said Vinca."As you know, I'm going back to Paris on September 20th."
"Why? Your father is never needed until the first of October."
"Yes, but mother and I, and Lisette, we shan't have much time between the 20th of September and the fourth of October for those autumn things -- a dress for the races, an overcoat, a hat for me and the same for Lisette...I mean, we women..."
Phil, lying on his back, hurled fistfuls of sand into the air.
"Oh, yes, yes! You women!...you do make those things so difficult!"
"We have to! It's all right for you, you find your clothes all ready on your bed. It's only shoes you worry about, and then only because you like to get them from a shop your father won't let you go to. Everything else just appears for you. You men have it easy!..."]
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The whole case seems to have been quite ludicrous, with everyone but the neighbour being very funny. But father made the mistake of being funnier than the judge and, as there was no doubt whatever that he had seriously damaged the neighbour, he was sent to prison for three months.
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This is the third anniversary of our felicitous union. It is now two months since our guests left us to the enjoyment of each other's society; and I have had nine weeks' experience of this new phase of conjugal life -- two persons living together, as master and mistress of the house, and father and mother of a winsome, merry little child, with the mutual understanding that there is no love, friendship or sympathy between them. As far as in me lies, I endeavour to live peacably with him: I treat him with unimpeachable civility, give up my convenience to his, wherever it may be reasonably done, and consult him in a business-like way in household affairs, deferring to his pleasure and judgment, even when I know the latter to be inferior to my own.
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If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes.
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            Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore,
            i'vo' con voi de la mia donna dire,
            non perch'io creda sua lauda finire,
            ma ragionar per isfogar la mente.
[Oh women, who understand love, I will speak to you of my lady; not because I think to finish praising her, but to talk in order to unburden my mind.]
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            Then the sky spoke to me in language clear,
            familiar as the heart, than love more near.
            The sky said to my soul, "You have what you desire!"

            "Know now that you are born along with these
            clouds, winds, and stars, and ever-moving seas
            and forest dwellers. This your nature is."

            "Lift up your heart again without fear,
            sleep in the tomb, or breathe the living air,
            this world you with the flower and the tiger share."
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