I am often criticised for run-on sentences, but I am not the only one guilty of this. Here is a quote from Earnest Hemingway's GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA. All 424 words of it!
"That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know truly, that it is as important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing---the stream."
So, if a 20th century literary master can write a sentence that long, I guess my run-on sentances are a-ok!
My favorite line of cigars, by my favorite cigar family, the Fuentes! These are all perfecto (closed foot) cigars, a style that I understand was very popular at the turn of the century. Some of these are very rare. Certainly not enough of any size are made to meet demand. There are many favorites among these, but it seems that the run away favorite with most people is the Short Story. My current favorite is the Work of Art with a Cameroon wrapper. If you have never tasted one, buy one the next time you see it, in any size, and set back and enjoy one of the most beautiful cigars ever made...an Arturo Fuente Hemingway. It will not disappoint!
