Don't cut my throat, sir

Hold your noise! cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror.

—Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Painting: Jozef Quisthoudt, Belgian (1883-1953); St. Peter's Church in Ypres;   Naïve style


Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique; and the artist appears to have little or no formal training. Above, the middle paragraph is loaded with images but lacks a complete sentence.

By the Dim and Yellow Light of the Moon

I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.

Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein

Painting: Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890)