Miskatonic University PressHarriet the Spy (1964) by Louise Fitzhugh is a masterpiece I have gone back to many times, but it was only on rereading it last week that I noticed that two of the greatest characters in fiction express themselves in small caps.
The first is Harriet M. Welsch, who does it when she writes in her notebook. This is the end of the first section of the book, after Harriet’s nanny Ole Golly has left to get married and Harriet is very alone.
i feel all the same things when i do things alone as when ole golly was here. the bath feels hot, the bed feels soft, but i feel like there’s a funny little hole in me that wasn’t there before, like a splinter in your finger, but this is somewhere above my stomach.
The other is Death in the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. This is an exchange with Rincewind in The Last Continent (1998):
“Is it true that your life passes before your eyes before you die?”
yes.
“Ghastly thought, really.” Rincewind shuddered. “Oh, gods, I’ve just had another one. Suppose I am just about to die and this is my whole life passing in front of my eyes?”
i think perhaps you do not understand. people’s whole lives do pass in front of their eyes before they die. the process is called “living.”