Literary notes about Draft (AI summary)
The word “draft” in literature is remarkably versatile, carrying a range of meanings from the preliminary version of a text to a term for a beverage or even a current of air. It is often used to denote an early, unpolished manuscript—in works like [1], [2], and [3]—highlighting an author’s evolving thought process before final revisions. In other instances, “draft” describes a formal document such as a petition, treaty, or contract, as seen in [4], [5], and [6]. Additionally, the term appears in contexts where it signifies a military conscription ([7], [8]) or a call for a beverage, with several accounts by Pepys portraying a convivial morning draft ([9], [10], [11]). Even nature’s elements are captured through this multifaceted word, for example when it alludes to a cool current of air in [12].
- This remained for the present a mere draft.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner - He had painfully written out a first draft, and he intoned it now like a poet delicate and distrait: SAY, OLD MAN!
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - Pope consented, wrote his first draft of The Rape of the Lock , and passed it about in manuscript.
— from The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems by Alexander Pope - Here is the draft of the projected proclamation of the Convention on the Birmingham outbreak.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli - But if that draft treaty turns up—we’re done.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - I wrote as follows, for I have kept the rough draft of the letter to this day: “WARSAW, “March 5th, 1766.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - Voluntary enlistments had ceased throughout the greater part of the North, and the draft had been resorted to to fill up our ranks.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant - Our own country had gotten into the fight by that time, and I was caught in the first draft.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey - Then came Shaw and Hawly, and I gave them their morning draft at my house.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - Going to my office I met with Tom Newton, my old comrade, and took him to the Crown in the Palace, and gave him his morning draft.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - At Sir W. Batten’s with Sir W. Pen we drank our morning draft, and from thence for an hour in the office and dispatch a little business.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys - On a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
