J.,

I now think this passage must be the one I've been looking for.  I'm not
clear why I recall a lecture from Dr. Hughes about a panoramic to specific
pattern,  but that lecture must have happened in 1983, my first year as a
teaching fellow. Hence why neither Peter nor I could find any references in
the 1985 Bedford Reader which must have changed its essays in a new edition.

In a week or so, I'll send a note revealing why I went on this hunt. While
my memory may have been defective, the use of it had some useful fruit for
me.

Thanks to all who joined in this quest!
 
Dr. Wesley Britton
Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
www.drwesleybritton.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of J. Dean
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Life on the Mississippi passage

This passage does have some of the characteristics you mentioned, and is
fro= m "Life on the Mississippi".  Has it been mentioned?

http://www.bartleby.com/library/prose/5348.html




Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 27, 2016, at 12:05 PM, Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>=20
> To my surprise, absolutely none of the candidates proposed so far are 
>the  passage I'm hunting. They don't have the Ariel view that narrows 
>down,  narrows down even tighter, and finally focuses on one man.
>=20
> I'm beginning to wonder if my memory has sprung a huge leak.   But I
vivid=
ly
> remember such a passage used in an old textbook called the Bedford 
> Reader.=

> Back when we taught freshman English using modes, the excerpt was an 
> examp=
le
> in the "Description" section.   I vividly remember Dr. Hughes discussing
t=
he
> Twain passage as it was a perfect lesson plan for beginning teachers 
> who h=
ad
> no lesson plans in our files yet.
>=20
> I obviously can't swear the excerpt came from LOM, judging from my
> inability to find it there.   I doubt it is in Huck as the description
> wouldn't really fit his voice. While the first chapter of Pudd'nhead 
>Wilso=
n
> is wonderfully descriptive, the narrator moves from street to street, 
>but  not using the pattern I'm talking about.
>=20
> Sigh. I never thought in a million years this hunt would be for such an
> elusive description.   Or confound this august company.
>=20
>=20
> Dr. Wesley Britton
> Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
> www.drwesleybritton.com
>=20
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter 
>Salwen=

> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 11:05 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Life on the Mississippi passage
>=20
> I've got another candidate -- one that wouldn't be known to the 
>general  public, but might be familiar to Wesley and other members of 
>this weirdly  specialized group.
>=20
> I'm thinking of the opening pages of "Which Was it?" -- that strange, 
>angr=
y,
> unfinished guilt-laden novel Twain was blazing through in Maine in the 
> summer of 1902, just before the sudden onset of Livy's final illness.
> The following descriptions occur over the course of some three book 
> pages,=

> interspersed with expository matter that introduces Twain's cast of
> characters:
> ____________________
>=20
> Indiantown was a village of twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants. It 
>was  away out of the world, and sleepy and peaceful, and had no 
>newspaper, and  was comfortable and content. Its climate was a pleasant 
>one; sometimes the=
re
> was a winter, but this did not happen every year. It was a 
> corn-growing country, and from the village-edges the great fields 
> stretched mile upon mile to the north and to the south up the valley 
> and down it, each with it=
s
> family house in a big yard; the cluster of slave cabins a hundred 
> yards behind it; around and beyond the cabins, the orchards and 
> gardens and melo=
n
> patches. Indiantown's Christianity was of the usual Southern breeds -- 
> Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist -- and each sect had a church which 
> was commodious but not architectural. There was a court house; also, a 
> jail; f=
or
> this was the county seat. [ . . . ]
>=20
> Indian River ran by the town. It was not a great stream, but it was 
>clear  and clean and bright, and its banks were beautiful in summer 
>with  overhanging willows and with curving meadow-vacancies cushioned 
>with grass=

> and sprinkled as with fire-coals when the prairie-pink was in bloom. 
> The stage road ran along the river, and one of these meadow-stretches 
> occurred=

> at the northern edge of the village. In the middle of it was the mill, 
> on the bank; close to it, on the south side, was the dwelling of the 
> salaried=

> mill-hand -- that German, Jake Bleeker; close to the mill on its 
> northern side was the house of its owner, the venerable Andrew 
> Independence Harriso=
n,
> with garden and orchard behind it. [ . . . ]
>=20
> The Fairfax house, which was a spacious old-fashioned mansion, stood 
>fifty=

> or sixty yards back from the river road, and was nearly hidden from 
> sight among shade-trees. Behind it its fields stretched a mile to the 
> hills, and=

> in their midst was the hamlet of white-washed log cabins called the 
> "nigger-quarter." The mansion was a short mile northward from the 
> mill; between was the country blacksmith shop, on the river bank. It 
> stood under=

> the vast spread of an ancient live-oak, and was the 
> intelligence-centre of=

> the northward-lying farming region. It did the horse-shoeing and 
> wagon-mending for fifteen or twenty farms, and under the tree in 
> summer an=
d
> in the shop in winter was usually to be found a company of waiting 
> gossips=
.
>=20
>=20
> To return to the Fairfax house. On entering, one passed a couple of 
>rooms o=
n
> the right hand side of the hall; then came a third, on the same side, 
> -- t=
he
> Squire's work-room -- and it is with this one that we have to do, now 
> that=

> we are ready to begin. There is a grand wood fire flaming there in a 
> spacious fireplace, for it is cold weather and a blustering day. The 
> date i=
s
> Saturday, November the third.
>=20
> Two men sat in that room.
> ____________________
>=20
> . . . and so on. Probably not what you had in mind, now that I think 
>of it=

> (no sleeping man on a porch, for one thing) but it is interesting to 
>see  Twain playing again with that same cinematic dollying-in approach.
>=20
> *_________________________________*
>=20
> *Peter Salwen /* salwen.com
> 114 W 86, NYC 10024 | 917-620-5371
>=20
>=20
> *_________________________________*
>=20
> *Peter Salwen /* salwen.com
> *114 W 86, NYC 10024 | 917-620-5371*
>=20
>=20
>> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 6:07 PM, Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]> 
>> wro=
te:
>>=20
>> Thanks, Richard. However,  this isn't the passage I'm hunting. It=20  
>>doesn't have the bird's eye view that narrows in focus to a town to 
>>a=20  street to a house.
>>=20
>> I'm starting to think my memory has gone bad and the description 
>>comes
> from
>> a different book completely.    Huck, maybe?
>>=20
>> Tells you how long it's been since I read these books--
>>=20
>>=20
>> Dr. Wesley Britton
>> Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
>> www.drwesleybritton.com
>>=20
>>=20
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of=20  
>>[log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 2:33 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Life on the Mississippi passage
>>=20
>> Duh. Wrong link. Here, please attempt this one...
>>=20
>> http://www.richardhenzel.com/Steamboat_A-Comin.mp3
>>=20
>> sorry for the confusion.
>>=20
>> Richard
>=20