This passage does have some of the characteristics you mentioned, and is from "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: > > 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. > > I'm beginning to wonder if my memory has sprung a huge leak. But I vividly > 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 example > in the "Description" section. I vividly remember Dr. Hughes discussing the > Twain passage as it was a perfect lesson plan for beginning teachers who had > no lesson plans in our files yet. > > 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 Wilson > is wonderfully descriptive, the narrator moves from street to street, but > not using the pattern I'm talking about. > > Sigh. I never thought in a million years this hunt would be for such an > elusive description. Or confound this august company. > > > Dr. Wesley Britton > Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles > www.drwesleybritton.com > > -----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 > > 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. > > I'm thinking of the opening pages of "Which Was it?" -- that strange, angry, > 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: > ____________________ > > 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 there > 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 its > 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 melon > 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; for > this was the county seat. [ . . . ] > > 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 Harrison, > with garden and orchard behind it. [ . . . ] > > 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 and > in the shop in winter was usually to be found a company of waiting gossips. > > > To return to the Fairfax house. On entering, one passed a couple of rooms on > the right hand side of the hall; then came a third, on the same side, -- the > 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 is > Saturday, November the third. > > Two men sat in that room. > ____________________ > > . . . 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. > > *_________________________________* > > *Peter Salwen /* salwen.com > 114 W 86, NYC 10024 | 917-620-5371 > > > *_________________________________* > > *Peter Salwen /* salwen.com > *114 W 86, NYC 10024 | 917-620-5371* > > >> On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 6:07 PM, Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> Thanks, Richard. However, this isn't the passage I'm hunting. It >> doesn't have the bird's eye view that narrows in focus to a town to a >> street to a house. >> >> I'm starting to think my memory has gone bad and the description comes > from >> a different book completely. Huck, maybe? >> >> Tells you how long it's been since I read these books-- >> >> >> Dr. Wesley Britton >> Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles >> www.drwesleybritton.com >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of >> [log in to unmask] >> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2016 2:33 PM >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Subject: Re: Life on the Mississippi passage >> >> Duh. Wrong link. Here, please attempt this one... >> >> http://www.richardhenzel.com/Steamboat_A-Comin.mp3 >> >> sorry for the confusion. >> >> Richard >