AmusingAbsurdities

Some phrases from The Vicar of Wakefield, Oliver Goldsmith, 1766:

• "... Mr. Thornhill observed with an oath, that he never knew any thing more absurd than calling such a fright a beauty: 'For strike me ugly,' continued he, 'if I should not find as much pleasure in choosing my mistress by the information of a lamp under the clock at St. Dunstan's.' At this he laughed, and so did we: the jests of the rich are ever successful." (Chap VII)
• "His refusal appeared to me a little extraordinary, nor could I conceive how so sensible a girl as my youngest could thus prefer a middle-aged man of broken fortune to a sprightly young fellow of twenty-two. But as men are most capable of distinguishing merit in women, so the ladies often form the truest judgments upon us. The two sexes seem placed as spies upon each other, and are furnished with different abilities, adapted for mutual inspection." (Chap VIII)
• "Glorious liberty! that theme of modern declamation. I would have all men kings. I would be a king myself. We have all naturally an equal right to the throne: we are all originally equal. This is my opinion, and was once the opinion of a set of honest men who were called Levellers. They tried to erect themselves into a community, where all should be equally free. But alas! it would never answer; for there were some among them stronger, and some more cunning than others, and these became masters of the rest; for as sure as your groom rides your horses, because he is a cunninger animal than they, so surely will the animal that is cunninger or stronger than he sit upon his shoulders in turn. Since then it is entailed upon humanity to submit, and some are born to command and others to obey, the question is, as there must be tyrants, whether it is better to have them in the same house with us, or in the same village, or still farther off, in the metropolis. Now, sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me, the better pleased am I. The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people." (Chap XIX)
• "My remarks, however, were few: I found that monarchy was the best government for the poor to live in, and commonwealths for the rich. I found that riches in general were in every country another name for freedom; and that no man is so fond of freedom himself that he would not choose to subject the will of some individuals of society to his own." (Chap XX)
• "I armed her against the censures of the world, showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would teach us to endure it." (Chap XXII)
• "The consolations of philosophy are very amusing, but often fallacious. It tells us that life is filled with comforts, if we will but enjoy them; and on the other hand, that though we unavoidably have miseries here, life is short, and they will soon be over. Thus do these consolations destroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort, its shortness must be misery, and if it be long, our griefs are protracted." (Chap XXIX)

Saturday, December 02, 2000 at 21:00:40 (EST) = Datetag20001202

(see PunishmentAndCrime)

TopicLiterature

(correlates: InconspicuousNightclothes, PunishmentAndCrime, PublicGlimpses, ...)