Word: rule
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...think these principles will commend themselves to every artist of sense and feeling; and yet how often are they flagrantly violated! Let us consider them separately. The death must be inflicted cleanly. It is plain that any departure from this rule tends to reduce murder to butchery. It is only a vulgar mind which can delight in blood or in mutilation; we may compare a piece of work treated in a bloody, filthy, or mutilating manner to the ranting of a poor tragedian. There is also another reason for this first principle: if the work is not done cleanly...
Secondly, unnecessary cruelty must be avoided. Surely, in these days of compassion it needs not to plead for this principle; it will at once be approved by all true artists. I thought at first that the rule should read "all cruelty"; but it is clear that the art of murder, like that of medicine (in the matter of vivisection), sometimes demands the infliction of pain; cruelty, in this sense, is not always avoidable. For instance, in that admirable and truly Gothic bit of art related by De Quincey, - the killing of the baker, - no inconsiderable amount of distress...
...Then shall we be called holy, and obtain reverence of them that pass by; and let us establish it as a rule by which all but the rulers shall be bound...
...part of it was; but the jokes were better to hear than to read, and of course an audience, for the most part excited by Adam's ale, ice-cream, and the sight of two quart bottles of champagne, was not calm enough to be very discriminating. As a rule, the essays were by no means equal to the subjects, but, fortunately, many of them were unheard on account of the numerous witticisms which the members volunteered, and indeed a great part of the pleasure of the evening was due to these spontaneous jokes...
Gave him, in parting, this one rule...