Not Punchy

I don't think I'm punchy enough for Twitter, but that being said, I do Tweet.

My Twitter handle is "Novelogism" . . . a combination of Neologism and Novelling. When I combine the definitions I get:

A new book that may be in the process of entering common use.

This morning I tweeted a passage from Les Miserables. Generally I tweet passages or words that strike my fancy. This one hit my fancy pretty hard. This passage occurs right as Fantine is on Death's door and Jean Valjean is about to be confronted by Javert.

The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time. The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul.

I think that's some amazing stuff. There is alot of writing in Les Miserables that would never make the cut these days. We are far too focused on getting to the heart of the matter. What Hugo takes three chapters to say would be written in a couple of sentences now days. But, there are those passages that can be separated from the rest, like this one, that really make the whole magilla so much better than the rest.