Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Quotes: Mood (3)

Mood 172 "…Marianne, too restless for employment, too anxious for conversation, walked from one window to the other, or sat down by the fire in melancholy meditation." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Mood 175 "…and for this party, Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or stayed, prepared, without one look of hope, or one expression of pleasure…sat by the drawing room fire after tea…without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude, lost in her own thoughts and insensible of her sister’s presence." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Mood 190 "Elinor was employed in walking thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire, without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning objects through the other." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Mood 201 "From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Mood 212 "Her mind did become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Quotes: Mood (2)

Mood 1429 "The old people shook their white heads, and said that the earth had grown aged, like themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile of summer on its face." “The Pomegranate-Seeds” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales. Nature mirrors age.

Mood 986 "He felt conscious of having put himself…within the influence of an unintelligible power…." Hawthorne: “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”

Mood 999 "…a thousand dim suspicions, which now grinned at him like so many demons." Hawthorne: “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”

Mood 1001 "Giovanni’s rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen insensibility." Hawthorne: “Rappaccini’s Daughter”

Mood 87 "On Edward’s side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that a lover ought to look and say on such an occasion…was confused, seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither rapturous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by questions, and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection…he was not in spirits." Austen, Sense and Sensibility. I'll say.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Quotes: Mood (1)

Mood 1371 "Caring little what might happen to him, he [Cadmus] took the first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace; for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste." “The Dragon’s Teeth” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales The meanderer.

Mood 1376 "It seemed as if he were doomed to lose everybody whom he loved, or to see them perish in one way or another." “The Dragon’s Teeth” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales. The pessimist.

Mood 1389 "This kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me before any wonderful occurrence." “Circe’s Palace” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales. Prelude.

Mood 1416 "…this tiresome magnificence." “The Pomegranate-Seeds” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales. Aristocrat.

Mood 1419 "The stupid people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew…." “The Pomegranate-Seeds” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales. Misanthrope.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Quotes: Montaigne

Montaigne xix "...distinguishing marks of an essay by Montaigne are intimacy and informality." Introduction. Gross, ed. Essays.

Montaigne xix "Montaigne...merely daring to tell us whatever passed through his mind." Introduction. Gross, ed. Essays.

Montaigne xix "[Montaigne’s] watchword was...what do I know?, not, what am I supposed to know?" Introduction. Gross, ed. Essays.

Montaigne xix "[Montaigne] ...refused to be hampered by preconceived notions." Introduction. Gross, ed. Essays. In other words he tried to be honest in revealing himself.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Quotes: Monsters.

Monster 1285 "The chimera…ugliest and most poisonous creature, and the strangest and unaccountablest and the hardest to fight with, and the most difficult to run away from…had a tail like a boa-constrictor…had three separate heads, one of which was a lion’s, the second a goat’s and the third an abominably great snake’s…a hot blast of fire came flaming out of each of its three mouths." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Monster 1296 "The snake’s head, however, (which was the only one now left) was twice as fierce and venomous as ever…belched forth shoots of fire, five hundred yards long, and emitted hisses so loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing…." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Monster 1297 "At their approach, it [the chimera] shot out a tremendous blast of its fiery breath, and enveloped Bellerophon and his steed in a perfect atmosphere of flame; singeing the wings of Pegasus, scorching off one whole side of the young man’s golden ringlets, and making them both far hotter than was comfortable, from head to foot." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls. Hawthorne painted a pretty vivid picture of this particular monster.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Quotes: Money

Money 181 "Money is either our master or our slave." Horace. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Use money or money will use us.

Money 124 Utopia. "…fraud, theft, plunder, quarrels, brawls, discord, sedition, murder, treachery, poisoning…if money is killed, they will die with it." Sir Thomas More, Utopia. Money is the root, etc., etc.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Quotes: Modern Life

Modern life 84 "[Your city] has standardized all the beauty out of life." Lewis, Babbitt.

Modern life 85 "…what I fight in Zenith is standardization of thought…." Lewis, Babbitt.

Modern life 128 "All about him the city was hustling, for hustling’s sake." Lewis, Babbitt.

Modern life 128 "…Babbitt hustled back to his office, to sit down with nothing much to do except see that the staff looked as though they were hustling." Lewis, Babbitt.

Modern life 129 "Every Saturday afternoon he hustled out to his country club and hustled through nine holes of golf as a rest after the week’s hustle." Lewis, Babbitt.

Modern life 241 "I tell you, Joe, you don’t appreciate how lucky you are to live in woods like this, instead of a city with trolleys grinding and typewriters clacking and people bothering the life out of you all the time!" Lewis, Babbitt.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Quote: Mob

Mob 82 "There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured." Marquess of Halifax. Late 17th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. The mob is cruel, but the individuals in it, by themselves, are not.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Quotes: Mistletoe.

Mistletoe 692 "Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough?…may be derived from the rich golden yellow which a bough of mistletoe assumes when it has been cut and kept for some months; the bright tint is not confined to the leaves but spreads to the stalks as well, so that the whole branch appears to be indeed a Golden Bough." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

Mistletoe 692 "Mistletoe is gathered either at Midsummer or Christmas—that is, at the summer and winter solstices—and it is supposed to possess the power of revealing treasures in the earth." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Quotes: Misfortune.

Misfortune 46 "Blessed is the misfortune that comes alone." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Think about that one.

Misfortune 239 "Yield not to misfortunes, but go more boldly to meet them." Vergil. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Interesting thought.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Quote: Misanthrope.

Misanthrope 852 "…this misanthrope had employed himself in accumulating motives for hating and despising his race—such as murder, lust, treachery, ingratitude, faithlessness or trusted friends, instinctive vices of children, impurity of women, hidden guilt in men of saint-like aspect—and, in short, all manner of black realities that sought to decorate themselves with outward grace or glory." Hawthorne: "The Christmas Banquet."

Monday, March 16, 2009

Quote: Minorities

Minorities. p. 197 "We’re tired of always deferring hope till the next generation." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Quotes: Military (5)

Military 347 "The goddam officers, Red snorted, a bunch of college kids who think it’s [war’s] like going to a football game." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The typical officer?

Military 393 T"he weight of their packs was crushing, but they considered them as part of their bodies, a boulder lodged in their backs." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. Routine in the military.

Military 12 "The result [of a standing army] is that they even have to seek out a war so as not to have unskilled soldiers, and wantonly to kill men so that…their hands or spirits may not grow dull through lack of practice." Sir Thomas More, Utopia. The result of standing armies.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Quotes: Military (4)

Military 237 The General at the front, noting that the men were settling in: "Once they halted and stayed in one place long enough for it to assume familiar connotations, it was immeasurably harder to get them to fight again." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. Probably true.

Military 250 The General: T"hey liked their bivouacs…there were methods of fixing that; tomorrow, there could be a general troop movement to one side or another, adjustments of a few hundred yards with new fox holes to be dug, new barbed wire to be laid, new tents to be put up." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Military 250 The General: "And if they started laying duck walks again, and improving their latrines, there could be still another movement…the American’s capacity for real estate improvement: build yourself a house, grow fat in it, and die." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Military 292 Red: "If they get ya to hate ‘em enough, you’ll crack a nut before you’ll go to ‘em and that way they keep you on the line…a guy dies now and then, but what the hell’s another guy to the Army…you’d think we weren’t men." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. They're not men. They are pawns in a game of chess.

Military 300 The General: "The men who would land at Botoi would be in the enemy rear without any safe way to retreat, and their only security would be to drive ahead and meet their own troops…would have to advance." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. Military psychology.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Quotes: Military (3)

Military 139 The General: "I don’t care what kind of man you give me; if I have him long enough, I’ll make him afraid…. In an army of injustice the enlisted man involved is confirmed a little more in the idea of his own inferiority…." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The psychology of the military.

Military 139 The General: "…to make an army work you have to have every man in it fitted into a fear ladder…army functions best when you’re frightened of the man above you, and contemptuous of your subordinates…. The hate just banks in them, makes them fight a little better…can’t turn it on us, so they turn it outward." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The psychology of the military.

Military 140 The General: "The machine techniques of this century demand consolidation, and with that you’ve got to have fear, because the majority of men must be subservient to the machine, and it’s not a business they instinctively enjoy." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The military as machine.

Military 143 The General: "…in the Army the idea of individual personality is a hindrance…I work with grosser techniques, common denominator techniques." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The psychology of the military.

Military 157 Red: "Don’t kid yourself…a man’s no more important than a goddam cow." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The enlisted man as cow.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Quotes: Military (2)

Military 43 Roth: "Did you notice how they treated the officers…slept in staterooms when we were jammed in the hold like pigs…to make them feel superior, a chosen group…the same device Hitler uses when he makes the Germans think they’re superior." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The military and the Nazis.

Military 102 Red: "As far as I’m concerned, it’s [the army’s] been a goddam mess ever since they put Washington on a horse." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The military mess goes a long way back in America.

Military 102 Red: "There ain’t a good officer in the world…they’re just a bunch of aristocrats, they think." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. Officers, the aristocrats of the military.

Military 138 The General: "And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past…why do you think a regiment of Southerners is worth two regiments of Easterners?" Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. Poverty makes the man.

Military 138 The General: "We have the highest standard of living in the world and, as one would expect, the worst individual fighting soldiers of any big power…they’re comparatively wealthy, they’re spoiled…the reverse of the peasant, and I’ll tell you right now it’s the peasant who makes the soldier…." Hearn: "So what you’ve got to do is break them down…." The General: "Every time an enlisted man sees an officer get an extra privilege, it breaks him down a little more…." Hearn: "They’d hate you more…." The General: "They do; but they also fear us more." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead. The psychology of the military mind.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Quotes: Military (1)

Military 196 "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms." Groucho Marx. Portable Curmudgeon. I'll say!

Military 224 "General Peckem even recommends that we send our men into combat in full dress uniform so they’ll make a good impression on the enemy when they’re shot down." Heller, Catch-22. What a terrific [military] idea. Like lining up the salt shakers in the mess hall.

Military 224 “Get word to the office right away to kill that directive I just issued ordering the men to wear neckties on the combat missions,” Colonel Cathcart whispered…. Heller, Catch-22. Ditto my last comment.

Military 116 "Looking down an aisle of the grove, the youth and his companion saw a jangling general and his staff almost ride upon a wounded man who was crawling on his hands and knees…general reigned strongly at his charger’s opened and foamy mouth and guided it with dexterous horsemanship past the man." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage. Concern for his men. That's why a general is a general.

Military 118 "…the youth felt that he had been made aged…new eyes were given to him…the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant…officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom…part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage. Military tactics.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Quotes: Middle Class

Middle Class 8 "…it [his lawn] delighted him as always; it was the neat yard of a successful business man…that is, it was perfection, and made him also perfect." Lewis, Babbitt. Middle class value: one's lawn.

Middle class 29 "It was big--and Babbitt respected bigness in anything; in mountains, jewels, muscles, wealth or words." Lewis, Babbitt. Middle class value: bigness.

Middle class 58 "He had enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices…his symbols of truth and beauty." Lewis, Babbitt. Middle class value: machines and mechanical devices.

Middle class 73 "I certainly do protest against any effort to get a lot of fellows out of barbershops and factories into the professions…too crowded already, and what'll we do for workmen if all those fellows go and get educated?" Lewis, Babbitt. We need laborers, not professionals.

Middle class 155 "…will our sons and daughters see that the ideal of American manhood and culture isn’t a lot of cranks sitting around chewing the rag about their rights and their wrongs, but a God-fearing, hustling, successful—two-fisted Regular Guy, who belongs to some church with pep and piety to it, who belongs to the Boosters or the Rotarians or the Kiwanis, to the Elks or Moose or Red Men or Knights of Columbus or any one of a score of organizations of good, jolly, kidding, laughing, sweating, upstanding, lend-a-handing Royal Good Fellows, who plays hard and works hard, and whose answer to his critics is a square-toed boot that’ll teach the grouches and smart alecks to respect the he-men and get out and root for Uncle Samuel, U.S.A.! Lewis, Babbitt. The American middle class creed.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Quote: The Middle Ages

Middle Ages 195 "We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity—gunpowder and romantic love." Andre Maurois. Portable Curmudgeon.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Quote: Middle Age

Middle age 308 "A little grimly he perceived that this had been his last despairing fling before the paralyzed contentment of middle-age." Lewis, Babbitt. Italics mine. The concept of middle age in America has never been better expressed.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Quotes: Midas and the Golden Touch

Midas and the Golden Touch 1207 "Which of these two things do you think is really worth the most—the gift of the Golden Touch, or one cup of clear, cold water?" Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Midas and the Golden Touch 1207 "A piece of bread, answered Midas, is worth all the gold on earth." Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Midas and the Golden Touch 1258 "Perceiving a violet, that grew on the bank of the river, Midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight." Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Monday, March 2, 2009

Quotes: Microbes.

Microbes 9 Beasts these were of a kind that ravaged and annihilated whole races of men ten million times larger than they were themselves…silent assassins that murdered babes in warm cradles and kings in sheltered places." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters. The unseen killers.

Microbes 11 "He [Leeuwenhoek] gaped at their enormous littleness…found many thousands of them did not equal a grain of sand in bigness." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters. The littleness of microbes.

Microbes 54 "…these wretched microbes could kill their millions of human beings mysteriously and silently…were much more efficient murderers than the guillotine or the cannons of Waterloo." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters. Efficient murderers.

Microbes 72 "Pasteur…first attempts at showing that microbes are the real murderers of the human race." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Microbes 113 "Why, this disease is too terrible to be caused by such a wretched little creature as a twenty-thousandth-of-an-inch-long bacillus!" DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.