Mr Al-Khapoun's Christmas Quiz, 1998

1. The first of their line was the illustrious Manuel, who, in the reign of the second Basil, contributed by war and treaty to appease the troubles of the East: he left in a tender age two sons, Isaac and John, whom, with the consciousness of desert, he bequeathed to the gratitude and favour of his sovereign.

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2. Der wissenschaftlich-technische Fortschritt wird doch zweifellos zur Folge haben, daß die unabhängigen politischen Einheiten auf der Erde immer größer werden und daß ihre Zahl immer geringer wird; daß schließlich eine zentrale Ordnung der Verhältnisse angestrebt wird, von der wir nur hoffen können, daß sie noch genügend Freiheit für den Einzelnen und für das einzelne Volk läßt.

   [Progress in science and technology is bound to have the consequence that the independent political entities in the world become steadily bigger and fewer in number. In the end there will be a centralised ordering of matters and we can only hope that it will still leave enough freedom to individuals and individual peoples.]

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3. 
                         I have diplomas in Dragon
                         Management and Virgin Reclamation.
                         My horse is the latest model, with
                         Automatic transmission and built-in
                         Obsolescence.

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4. That's why I sent poor Virginia to put some ginger into our boy. He was pining rather. Now things are humming again - except for Virginia, of course. She was as sick as mud at having to go - Scunthorpe, Hull, Huddersfield, Halifax...

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5. `Oh, of course,' said Pete, `you wouldn't know Greg, would you? Greg is after your time. While you were away Greg came into the picture. He runs little parties, you know. Mostly wine-cup and word-games. But very nice, very pleasant, you know. Harmless, if you see what I mean.'

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6. 
                         His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
                         'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
                         Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
                         Cold in the many, anxious in the few.

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7. Petrarch complains, that `Nature had made him different from other people' - singular' d'altra genti. The great happiness of life, is, to be neither better nor worse than the general run of those you meet with. If you are beneath them, you are trampled upon; if you are above them, you soon find a mortifying level in their indifference to what you particularly pique yourself on. What is the use of being moral in a night-cellar, or wise in Bedlam?

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8. Usava spesso far minutamente digrassare e purgare le budella d'un castrato, e talmente venir sottili, che si sarebbono tenuto in palma di mano. Et aveva messo in un'altra stanza un paio di mantici da fabbro, ai quali metteva un capo delle dette budella, a gonfiandole ne riempiva la stanza, che era grandissima, dove bisognava che si recasse in un canto chi v'era, mostrando quelle trasparenti e piene di vento, dal tenere poco luogo in principio, esser venute a occuparne molto, agguagliandole alla virtù.

   [He often used to take the intestines of a wether and clean them and stretch them until they had become so thin that they could be folded up and held in the palm of a hand. And then he would put a pair of smith's bellows in the next room and attach one end of the gut to it, and blow it up, so that it filled the room and anybody who was in there got pushed into a corner. They thought it was miraculous that something so small and full of nothing could suddenly take up so much space.]

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9. 
                         The raid was profitable. It yielded fifteen slaves
                         to the slavers waiting up the coast. The brown river
                         in the silence rippled under the settlement in waves
   
                         of forgetful light. Swifts crossbowed across it, a quiver
                         of arrowheads.

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10. T. was a very good Mathematician, and a Linguist; could speak French and Spanish; and in the three days they remain'd in the Boat (for so long were they going from the Ship to the Plantation) he entertain'd O. so agreeably with his Art and Discourse, that he was no less pleas'd with T. than he was with the Prince; and he thought himself, at least, fortunate in this, that since he was a Slave, as long as he would suffer himself to remain so, he had a Man of excellent Wit and Parts for a Master.

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11. 
                          Beautiful winter! yea, the winter is beautiful, surely,
                          If one could only walk like a fly with one's feet on the ceiling.

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12. Lecteur, vous suspendez ici votre lecture; qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Ah! je crois vous comprendre, vous voudriez voir cette lettre. Mme Riccoboni n'aurait pas manqué de vous la montrer. Et celle que Mmm de La Pommeraye dicta aux deux dévotes, je suis sûr que vous l'avez regrettée. Quoiqu'elle fût autrement difficile à faire que celle d'Agathe, et que je ne présume pas infiniment de mon talent, je crois que je m'en serais tiré, mais elle n'aurait pas été originale; ç'aurait été comme ces sublimes harangues de Tite-Live, dans son Histoire de Rome, ou du cardinal Bentivoglio dans ses Guerres de Flandres. On les lit avec plaisir, mais elles détruisent l'illusion. Un historien, qui suppose à ses personnage des discours qu'ils n'ont pas tenus, peut aussi leur supposer des actions qu'ils n'ont pas faites. Je vous supplie donc de vouloir bien passer de ces deux lettres, et de continuer votre lecture.

    [Reader, you've stopped reading: what's up? Oh, I get it, you want to see that letter. Mme Riccoboni would have shown you it, for sure. And I'm convinced you're wanting the one that Mme de La Pommeraye wrote to the two pious women. Well, it'd have been a lot harder to do than Agathe's one, and I'm not so confident of my own ability, but I think I could have managed it. But it wouldn't be the real thing: it'd be like those wonderful speeches in Livy's History of Rome or Cardinal Bentivoglio's Flemish Wars. They're fun to read, but they spoil the effect. A historian who can give his characters speeches they didn't make can give them acts they didn't do. So please, forget the two letters, and read on.]

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