The Old Book.

I had written before about in my family how before my Grandmother passed away, she had drawings for each one of her daughters and Fmom who is her only daughter in law. My aunts and my mother were bought together and each took their turn to pick what they wanted from my Grandmother and Grandfather’s life. I had written some about it here, The Pick. During one of the picks while my Grandmother was alive, she had all my brothers, sisters and cousins come in to pick what they would want. At that time I was living in Germany and obviously couldn’t get home for this. So since I’ve always like old books, I told the family I wanted all of Grandma and Grandpa’s old books. One of the books is what has me writing today.

The book is bound in black cloth with gold embossed letters on it. The name of the book is The Affinities by Alice Vivian Brownlee. It appears to be published in 1890 by the Constitution Publishing Co. of Atlanta, Ga. It was one of the many books I have in boxes stored away. I had gone through a lot of the books and I don’t know why I picked this one to read, but the farther I got into it, I wondered if people back at that time really wrote or even talked like this. I’m giving a conservation between a General and scout that he had saved. The General has a dangerous mission and Claude has volunteered.

“It shall be as you say, General. Your wish is law to me. It is not so easy to forget that when the savages, deeming life extinct, left me stretched upon a bloody plain, you had me carried to your home, and nursed me as tenderly as if I had been your own brother until health and strength returned. And when the lad, unfit for civil employment, was thrown upon a selfish world, it was you who gave me shelter; you who taught me how to earn my bread, and saved me from becoming a mendicant. The hand and brain of Claude Howell are therefore yours. What ever you command shall be done, if mortal man can effect it.”

Now that was a paragraph that’s actually clearer to read than many others were. For some reason when I’m reading this book, I somehow am picturing the old movies before sound was added. How the actors would make exaggerated gestures to try and get across some emotion. This author will go into some paragraphs that you wonder where the heck is she getting this from.

Anyway, it’s one of the few that I’ve read from my Grandparents library. I can see now that I’m going to have to get back into reading a good bit, and I’m going to try and get through some of these old books.

ADDED: During this whole post, I was trying to describe the writing style. I never could come up with the adequate words. Well thanks to FAR, Boran and IVG my vocabulary is starting to expand and the words they came up with fit it perfectly. Of course I had to look up four of the words before I knew what they meant.

FAR - Flowery
Boran - Stilted
IVG - Florid, Turgid, Convoluted, and Deliquescent
Puget - Grandly Poetic

Ok now who can add to those words to describe that one paragraph I have up top?