"In the midst of danger and pain, my contemplations have ever been cheered by your image. Every object in competition with you, was worthless and trivial. No price was too great by which your safety could be purchased." - Pleyel in confession of his love for Clara Wieland; 179
I am currently reading the gothic novel, Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown - it's dark, romantic, and mysteriously intriguiging. I don't know why, but while I was trying to accomplish my 40 minute/night reading goal*, this passage jumped out at me. You rarely hear such passionate declarations for love any more - and that kind of makes me sad. What was it about the 18th century that made men swoon? Does anyone else agree that over the past four centuries the art of romance in language has certainly fallen? Poe, Hemingway, Melville, Brown ... they all would be turning in their graves if they were aware of the effort (or lack thereof) put into modifying the written word to fit into 140 characters or less on Twitter. #tragedy.
*(English 313 is taking over my life)
PS - My oldest cousin Billy proposed to his girlfriend, Jen this past weekend! I wonder how eloquently he asked for her hand in marriage... At least I know he didn't use any social networking sites (#phew. )
PPS - I obviously jumped on the Twitter bandwagon recently, hence the abundance of "#." ... At least I'm still able to write more than 140 characters (#phew.)
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