Saki
Known British writer Hector Hugh Munro under pen name Saki published his witty and sometimes bitter short stories in collections, such as
The Chronicles of Clovis
(1911).
His sometimes macabre satirized Edwardian society and culture. People consider him a master and often compare him to William Sydney Porter and Dorothy Rothschild Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. "The Open Window," perhaps his most famous, closes with the line, "Romance at short notice was her specialty," which thus entered the lexicon. Newspapers first and then several volumes published him as the custom of the time.
His works include
* a full-length play,
The Watched Pot
, in collaboration with Charles Maude;
* two one-act plays;
* a historical study,
The Rise of the Russian Empire
, the only book under his own name;
* a short novel,
The Unbearable Bassington
;
* the episodic
The Westminster Alice
, a parliamentary parody of
Alice in Wonderland
;
* and
When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns
, an early alternate history.
Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Rudyard Kipling, influenced Munro, who in turn influenced A. A. Milne, and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.
“In baiting a mousetrap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse.”
“I'm living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.”
“It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast.”
“And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:Sredni Vashtar went forth,His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.”
“I did it—I who should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops’ garden-party against his will. We all make mistakes occasionally.”
“Tampoco sugería su aspecto exterior la especie de hombre al que las mujeres están dispuestas a perdonarle un abundante grado de deficiencia mental.”
“Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.”
“To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening.”
“I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over,' said Amanda in a scandalized voice.'It's her own funeral, you know,' said Sir Lulworth; 'it's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains.' ("Laura")”
“Find yourself a cup of tea,the teapot is behind you.Now tell me abouthundreds of things.”
“What do you think of human intelligence?" asked Mavis Pellington lamely."Of whose intelligence in particular?" asked Tobermory coldly."Oh, well, mine for instance," said Mavis with a feeble laugh."You put me in an embarrassing position," said Tobermory, whose tone and attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. "When your inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it.”
“I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed presently. 'They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. ”
“Romance at short notice was her specialty.”
“Well in those parts (upcountry India) they have were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about three hundred years ago, we don’t like to have other people keeping on our discarded practices; it doesn’t seem respectful to our mental and moral position.”
“Never,” wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, “be a pioneer. It's the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion.”
“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.”
“Every reformation must have its victims. You can’t expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal’s return.”
“The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.”
“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.”
“I hate posterity - it's so fond of having the last word.”
“I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.”