I have been meaning to post this quote for quite a while now, for no other reason than I found it amusing. It is from R.M. Ballantyne's novel The Gorilla Hunters;
"And in the first place-""O Ralph, I entreat you," interrupted Peterkin, "do not begin with a 'first place.' When men begin a discourse with that, however many intermediate places they may have to roam about and enlarge on, they never have a place of any kind to terminate in, but go skimming along with a couple of dozen 'lastlies,' like a stone thrown over the surface of a pond, which, after the first two or three big and promising bounds, spends itself in an endless succession of twittering ripples, and finally sinks, somehow or nohow, into oblivion."
Humanities & Social Science
Having problems commenting? (UPDATED)