A Novel Idea

My good friend Marjie has yet again tagged me with a great Meme. Here’s the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.


4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Good thing I’m not reading any D.H. Lawrence right now or the sentence would take up the whole page! However, I did cheat somewhat as I included sentence 5 and 6… One sentence just seemed too puny.

1. Early Modern Japan, Conrad Totman.

“The intensity of feeling notwithstanding, it was in everyone’s interest not to let rivalries get out of hand, lest, in the worse scenario, they provoke Edo to dissolve the domain and thus reduce an entire vassal force to ronin status. The combination of compelling reason to struggle for power and equally compelling reason to keep the struggle within bounds bred conflicts that sometimes simmered on and on, occasionally erupting in bursts of anger and even violence, but commonly persisting for years, controlled but unresolved.”

2. EMMA, by Jane Austen.

“There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole has heard from Mr. Elton since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went, and how full the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball had been; and she went through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet’s being obliged to say a word.”

3. The Lost Steps, by Alejo Carpenter.

“Now, hugging her knees, indifferent to what her tumbled skirt might reveal, she rocked herself gently on the cot, sipping brandy from a tin pitcher. She talked of pyramids of Mexico and the Incan fortress–which she knew only from photographs–of the stairways of Monte Alban and the adobe villages of the Hopis, lamenting the fact that in this country the Indians had erected no such wonders.”

Tagees: Helen, Eugene, Rebecca, Danny, & Nina.