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Sep. 29th, 2004 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bodldopsBefore I actually get down to the business of writing an actual entry, I'm sticking some of my favorite scenes from the M&C series in here, for safe keeping. I lost one of my books, and unfortunately it's the one that one of my more violent plotbunnies wants a fic from. I want to prevent further plotbunny-starving. So the stuff behind the cuts is vaguely spoilerish, if anyone actually cares.
Weevils, p54
Two weevils crept from the crumbs. "You see those weevils, Stephen?" said Jack solemnly.
"I do."
"Which would you choose?"
"There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them."
"But suppose you had to choose?"
"Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth."
"There I have you," cried Jack. "You are bit - you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha ha ha!"
Paying the Devil p280
On the Sunday moruning, with the Otter in her final stage of refitting but with the Windham still heaved down, he was taking a very late breakfast after four hours of the deepest sleep he had known, taking it in the company of Stephen Maturin, whom he saw but rarely these days: he had resolutely dismissed the problems of the deck-yard from his mind for twenty minutes, when Stephen involuntarily brought them back by asking the significance of the devil, among those that followed the sea, as in the devil to pay, a phrase he had often heard, particularly of late - was it a form of propitiation, a Manichaean remnant, so understandable (though erroneous) upon the unbridled elements?
"Why the devil, do you see", said Jack, "is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the devil for the caulkers to come at: in full we say, the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done - must be done - and nothing to do it with. It is a figure."
Stephen Isn't Pleased p309
He reached the deck at last, more dead than alive, oozing blood from scratches inflicted by the marnacles; the emptied some of the water out of him, carried him below, and plucked off his clothes.
"There, there, take it easy," said Jack, looking anxiously into his face and speaking in that compassionate protective voice which has vexed so many invalids into the tomb.
"There is not a moment to lose," cried Stephen, starting up.
Jack pressed him back into the cot with irresistible force, and still in the same soothing voice he said "We are not losing any time at all, old Stephen. Not a moment. Do not grow agitated. All is well. You are all right now."
"Oh your soul to the devil, Jack Aubrey," said Stephen, and in an even stronger tone, "Killick, Killick you mumping villain, bring in the coffee, will you now, for the love of God. And a bowl of sweet oil. Listen, Jack" - writhing from beneath his hand and sitting up - "you must press on, crack on, clap on, as fast as ever you can go. There are two frigates out there battering one of ours. And one of them, the Venus has lost masts, rigging - Bonden will tell you the details - and you may catch her, if only you will make haste, and not sit there leering like a mole with the palsy."
Jack Isn't Pleased p98
"Listen now, will you?" he said. "Bonden, Killick and some others are aboard the Nereide, and wish to return to you. All tastes are found in nature, we are told; and it is to be presumed that they like the brutal, arbitrary, tyrannical exercise of power."
"Oh," cried Jack, "how very, very pleased I am! It will be like old times. I have rarely regretted anything so much as having to part with them. But will Corbett ever let them go? He's devilish short-handed; and it's only a courtesy, you know, except to a flag. Why, a man like Bonden is worth his weight in gold."
"Corbett does not seem to be aware of his value, however: he gave him fifty lashes."
"Flogged Bonden?" cried Jack, going very red. "Flogged my cox'n? By God, I..."
Unicorns? p112-3
Jack wanted no more unpleasantness in the squadron than already existed; and even on the grounds of common humanity he did not wish to leave Clonfert under what he evidently considered a great moral disadvantage; so pacing over to a fine narwhal tusk leaning in a corner he said, in an obliging manner, "This is an uncommonly fine tusk."
"A handsome object, is it not? But with submission, sir, I believe horn is the proper term. It comes from a unicorn. Sir Sydney gave it to me. He shot the beast himself, having singled it out from a troop of antelopes; it led him a tremendous chase, though he was mounted on Hassan Bey's own stallion - five and twenty miles through the trackless desert. The Turks and the Arabs were prefectly amazed. He told me they said they had never seen anything like his horsemanship, nor the way he shot the unicorn at full gallop. They were astounded."
"I am sure they were," said Jack. he turned it in his hands, and said, with a smile, "So I can boast of having held a true unicorn's horn."
"You may take your oath on it, sir. I cut it out of the creature's head myself."
"How the poor fellow does expose himself," thought Jack, on his way back to the Raisonable: he had had a narwhal tusk in his cabin for months, bringing it back from the north for Stephen Maturin, and he was perfectly acquainted with the solid heft of its ivory, so very far removed from horn.
Weevils, p54
Two weevils crept from the crumbs. "You see those weevils, Stephen?" said Jack solemnly.
"I do."
"Which would you choose?"
"There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them."
"But suppose you had to choose?"
"Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth."
"There I have you," cried Jack. "You are bit - you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha ha ha!"
Paying the Devil p280
On the Sunday moruning, with the Otter in her final stage of refitting but with the Windham still heaved down, he was taking a very late breakfast after four hours of the deepest sleep he had known, taking it in the company of Stephen Maturin, whom he saw but rarely these days: he had resolutely dismissed the problems of the deck-yard from his mind for twenty minutes, when Stephen involuntarily brought them back by asking the significance of the devil, among those that followed the sea, as in the devil to pay, a phrase he had often heard, particularly of late - was it a form of propitiation, a Manichaean remnant, so understandable (though erroneous) upon the unbridled elements?
"Why the devil, do you see", said Jack, "is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the devil for the caulkers to come at: in full we say, the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done - must be done - and nothing to do it with. It is a figure."
Stephen Isn't Pleased p309
He reached the deck at last, more dead than alive, oozing blood from scratches inflicted by the marnacles; the emptied some of the water out of him, carried him below, and plucked off his clothes.
"There, there, take it easy," said Jack, looking anxiously into his face and speaking in that compassionate protective voice which has vexed so many invalids into the tomb.
"There is not a moment to lose," cried Stephen, starting up.
Jack pressed him back into the cot with irresistible force, and still in the same soothing voice he said "We are not losing any time at all, old Stephen. Not a moment. Do not grow agitated. All is well. You are all right now."
"Oh your soul to the devil, Jack Aubrey," said Stephen, and in an even stronger tone, "Killick, Killick you mumping villain, bring in the coffee, will you now, for the love of God. And a bowl of sweet oil. Listen, Jack" - writhing from beneath his hand and sitting up - "you must press on, crack on, clap on, as fast as ever you can go. There are two frigates out there battering one of ours. And one of them, the Venus has lost masts, rigging - Bonden will tell you the details - and you may catch her, if only you will make haste, and not sit there leering like a mole with the palsy."
Jack Isn't Pleased p98
"Listen now, will you?" he said. "Bonden, Killick and some others are aboard the Nereide, and wish to return to you. All tastes are found in nature, we are told; and it is to be presumed that they like the brutal, arbitrary, tyrannical exercise of power."
"Oh," cried Jack, "how very, very pleased I am! It will be like old times. I have rarely regretted anything so much as having to part with them. But will Corbett ever let them go? He's devilish short-handed; and it's only a courtesy, you know, except to a flag. Why, a man like Bonden is worth his weight in gold."
"Corbett does not seem to be aware of his value, however: he gave him fifty lashes."
"Flogged Bonden?" cried Jack, going very red. "Flogged my cox'n? By God, I..."
Unicorns? p112-3
Jack wanted no more unpleasantness in the squadron than already existed; and even on the grounds of common humanity he did not wish to leave Clonfert under what he evidently considered a great moral disadvantage; so pacing over to a fine narwhal tusk leaning in a corner he said, in an obliging manner, "This is an uncommonly fine tusk."
"A handsome object, is it not? But with submission, sir, I believe horn is the proper term. It comes from a unicorn. Sir Sydney gave it to me. He shot the beast himself, having singled it out from a troop of antelopes; it led him a tremendous chase, though he was mounted on Hassan Bey's own stallion - five and twenty miles through the trackless desert. The Turks and the Arabs were prefectly amazed. He told me they said they had never seen anything like his horsemanship, nor the way he shot the unicorn at full gallop. They were astounded."
"I am sure they were," said Jack. he turned it in his hands, and said, with a smile, "So I can boast of having held a true unicorn's horn."
"You may take your oath on it, sir. I cut it out of the creature's head myself."
"How the poor fellow does expose himself," thought Jack, on his way back to the Raisonable: he had had a narwhal tusk in his cabin for months, bringing it back from the north for Stephen Maturin, and he was perfectly acquainted with the solid heft of its ivory, so very far removed from horn.
