Today’s Totally Random
Lines
And
what is a stone, William?
Sir Hugh Evans
The Merry Wives of Windsor Act IV, Scene i, Line 28
Well,
for three reasons I was sorely tempted to pick another page today: this is the
fifth time on this page, it’s Merry Wives (I’m not crazy about Merry Wives),
and it’s the second time I’ve been in this particular conversation (in fact,
I’ve picked the line following this one, so I’ve clearly spent time with
Today’s Line already). But I felt like not using the Random Line picked would
be a slippery slope, so I stuck with it.
Nonetheless,
I could use a good hard and fast rule about when I can pick another line. One
rule I stick with is to not use a line in the same paragraph that I’ve been in.
By paragraph I mean an uninterrupted block of text, prose or verse. Also, I’ve
more or less developed and stuck to the rule of only five Random Line picks to
a page, and then I pick another page. Is that enough? Let’s see, 5 X 1249 pages
= X, and X divided by 365 is 17 years and 40 days. So the 5 lines on a page
rule gives me Random Lines until I’m roughly 83. Hmmm. I guess I can stick with
that.
But
I’ll tell you, all of this makes me wonder: what is a stone?
2 comments:
Well, despite the fact that you are determined not to stick with this line, I do very much wonder what he's asking. Is he literally asking what a stone is? Is it some kind of metaphor?
He's a teacher and he's talking to a young student, so he's just testing the kid on simple facts or simple vocabulary. The question means exactly what it looks like it means. Surprise!
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