Literary Oddments

Here are three quotations culled from my notes; all quotations are taken from www.gutenberg.org, except the last, which is taken from the New York Times.


An eighteenth-century novel . . .

"Oh words of transport and extacy!" cried the enraptured Delvile, "oh partner of my life! friend, solace, darling of my bosom! that so lately I thought expiring! that I folded to my bleeding heart in the agony of eternal separation!"

-- Cecilia, by Fanny Burney

two eighteenth-century courts . . .

Of Marie Antoinette:
"Her contempt of the vanities of etiquette became the pretext for the first reproaches levelled at the Queen. What misconduct might not be dreaded from a princess who could absolutely go out without a hoop! and who, in the salons of Trianon, instead of discussing the important rights to chairs and stools, good-naturedly invited everybody to be seated."

-- Memoirs of Mme. de Campan

"Fashion is always silly, for, before it can spread far, it must be calculated for silly people; as examples of sense, wit, or ingenuity could be imitated only by a few. All the discoveries that I can perceive to have been made by the present age, is to prefer riding about the streets rather than on the roads or on the turf, and being too late for everything. Thus, though we have more public diversions than would suffice for two capitals, nobody goes to them till they are over."

-- Letter from Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, 8th Sept. 1782 (Charles Duke Yonge, Ed.)

"I now do believe that the King [George III] is coming to _him_self: not in the language of the courtiers, to his senses--but from their proof, viz., that he is returned to his _what! what! what!_ which he used to prefix to every sentence, and which is coming to his nonsense. I am corroborated in this opinion by his having said much more sensible things in his lunacy than he did when he was reckoned sane, which I do not believe he has been for some years."

-- Letter from Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 12 1789 (Ibid.)

“A French Marquis,'[. . .] fell from a balcony at Versailles, and [. . .], as it was court politeness that nothing unfortunate should ever be mentioned in the King's presence, replied to His Majesty's inquiry if he wasn't hurt by his fall, "Tout au contraire, Sire"'.

-- Richard Lovell Edgeworth: A Selection from his Memoirs, Beatrix Tollemache, Ed.

. . . and twentieth-century wisdom

“We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world’s population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”

-- John F. Kennedy, quoted in article by Arthur M. Schlesinger


Correction to post below: The events were about East/West relations in general. And I did rather exaggerate the elevator-look thing -- it just happened once or twice. (c: