logoalt Hacker News

abecedarius • today at 3:07 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

This reminded me of a story/vignette which my fallible memory tags as by someone like Twain or Poe, about an automatic rewriting machine. It was put to work on the same passage with an ever higher intensity setting, becoming more and more gothic to the point of parody -- iirc the final output was verse including the line "to atoms dash the doubly damned".

Does anyone remember this?

Replies

nkurz • today at 3:19 AM

No memory, but searching says it was Lewis Carroll in Photography Extraordinary, published in 1885:

  The Milk-and-Water School 
  Alas! she would not hear my prayer!
  Yet it were rash to tear my hair;
  Disfigured, I should be less fair.

  She was unwise, I may say blind;
  Once she was lovingly inclined;
  Some circumstance has changed her mind.


  The Strong-Minded or Matter-of-Fact School 
  Well! so my offer was no go!
  She might do worse, I told her so;
  She was a fool to answer "No".

  However, things are as they stood;
  Nor would I have her if I could,
  For there are plenty more as good.


  The Spasmodic or German School 
  Firebrands and Daggers! hope hath fled!
  To atoms dash the doubly dead!
  My brain is fire--my heart is lead!

  Her soul is flint, and what am I?
  Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,
  Nothingness is my destiny!
https://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/carol47.pdf
➕ show 1 reply