I am reading a "can't put it down" book. It's Life on the Mississippi, Samuel Langhorne Clemens' great memoir of riverboat piloting. Published in 1883, it's so modern and witty in language usage as to be timeless, with some exceptions.
He actually uses the word irrupt, too. At least twice. It appears in Chapter 45 and also in an early chapter (which is where I noticed it, but the book is upstairs and I need to get to work).
He actually uses the word irrupt, too. At least twice. It appears in Chapter 45 and also in an early chapter (which is where I noticed it, but the book is upstairs and I need to get to work).
In the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every five of my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farming as an occupation. Of course this was not because they were peculiarly gifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as farmers than in other industries: the reason for their choice must be traced to some other source. Doubtless they chose farming because that life is private and secluded from irruptions of undesirable strangers-- like the pilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they also chose it because on a thousand nights of black storm and danger they had noted the twinkling lights of solitary farm-houses, as the boat swung by, and pictured to themselves the serenity and security and coziness of such refuges at such times, and so had by-and-bye come to dream of that retired and peaceful life as the one desirable thing to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last enjoy.I really think Missouri missed the boat when it did not allude to Mark Twain on its State Quarter. Any state that can lay claim to this singular man should do so at every opportunity.