Re: I Now Pronounce You Chuck (May) and Larry (Mike McDonnell)
Kitty Genovese(s) Of Omaha (OLL Parish)
330. The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the
people, and specially on their folly. The greatest and most important thing
in the world has weakness for its foundation, and this foundation is
wonderfully sure; for there is nothing more sure than this, that the people
will be weak. What is based on sound reason is very ill-founded as the
estimate of wisdom.
331. We can only think of Plato and Aristotle in grand academic robes. They
were honest men, like others, laughing with their friends, and, when they
diverted themselves with writing their Laws and the Politics, they did it as
an amusement. That part of their life was the least philosophic and the
least serious; the most philosophic was to live simply and quietly. If they
wrote on politics, it was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum; and
if they presented the appearance of speaking of a great matter, it was
because they knew that the madmen, to whom they spoke, thought they were
kings and emperors. They entered into their principles in order to make
their madness as little harmful as possible.
332. Tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope.
There are different assemblies of the strong, the fair, the sensible, the
pious, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. And sometimes they
meet, and the strong and the fair foolishly fight as to who shall be master,
for their mastery is of different kinds. They do not understand one another,
and their fault is the desire to rule everywhere. Nothing can effect this,
not even might, which is of no use in the kingdom of the wise, and is only
mistress of external actions.
Tyranny--... So these expressions are false and tyrannical: "I am fair,
therefore I must be feared. I am strong, therefore I m
Kitty Genovese(s) Of Omaha (OLL Parish)
its kind; even so there is a perfect relation between things made after a
bad model. Not that the bad model is unique, for there are many; but each
bad sonnet, for example, on whatever false model it is formed, is just like
a woman dressed after that model.
Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a false sonnet than
to consider nature and the standard and, then, to imagine a woman or a house
made according to that standard.
33. Poetical beauty.--As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak
of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and the
reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it
consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists
in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object
of poetry. We do not know the natural model which we ought to imitate; and
through lack of this knowledge, we have coined fantastic terms, "The golden
age," "The wonder of our times," "Fatal," etc., and call this jargon
poetical beauty.
But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in saying
little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors and
chains, at whom he will smile; because we know better wherein consists the
charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who are ignorant would
admire her in this dress, and there are many villages in which she would be
taken for the queen; hence we call sonnets made after this model "Village
Queens."
34. No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has put up the
sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc. But educated people do not want a sign
and draw little distinction between the trade of a poet and that of an
embroiderer.
People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but they
are all these and judges of all these. No one guesses what they are. When
they come into soci