"Language cannot describe the scene that followed; the shouts, oaths, frantic gestures, taunts, replies, and little fights; and therefore I shall not attempt it"
About this Quote
A writer’s most theatrical move is sometimes to swear he won’t be theatrical. Longstreet’s refusal to “attempt it” is a wink that doubles as a dare: imagine chaos so rich in “shouts, oaths, frantic gestures” that prose supposedly can’t hold it. The sentence performs what it denies. By piling up a quick inventory of noise and motion, he gives a vivid, kinetic snapshot, then pretends to slam the door on the full spectacle. That mock modesty is a classic comic strategy, less about linguistic limits than about control.
The lawyer’s mind shows in the staging. He doesn’t describe feelings; he itemizes evidence: taunts, replies, “little fights.” It reads like testimony, a clerk’s summary of disorder, but with the rhythm of a crowd scene. The phrase “and therefore” is deliciously legalistic, as if the decision not to narrate were a logical conclusion rather than a stylistic trick. He’s also sanitizing and amplifying at once. “Oaths” signals profanity without printing it; “cannot describe” shields him from decorum while letting readers supply the filth and heat.
Contextually, Longstreet sits in an early-19th-century American culture hungry for local color and rowdy masculine performance, yet still policed by respectability. The subtext: the brawl is both indictment and entertainment. By declining to paint every punch, he preserves a veneer of propriety, even as he turns the reader into an accomplice, forced to complete the riot in their own imagination.
The lawyer’s mind shows in the staging. He doesn’t describe feelings; he itemizes evidence: taunts, replies, “little fights.” It reads like testimony, a clerk’s summary of disorder, but with the rhythm of a crowd scene. The phrase “and therefore” is deliciously legalistic, as if the decision not to narrate were a logical conclusion rather than a stylistic trick. He’s also sanitizing and amplifying at once. “Oaths” signals profanity without printing it; “cannot describe” shields him from decorum while letting readers supply the filth and heat.
Contextually, Longstreet sits in an early-19th-century American culture hungry for local color and rowdy masculine performance, yet still policed by respectability. The subtext: the brawl is both indictment and entertainment. By declining to paint every punch, he preserves a veneer of propriety, even as he turns the reader into an accomplice, forced to complete the riot in their own imagination.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Georgia Scenes: Sketches of Country Life in the State of Georgia (1835). Passage appears in Longstreet's 'Georgia Scenes' sketches. |
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