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06886c8
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"More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte--my old friends--with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me."
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jane-austen
feminism
elizabeth-browning
female-authors
female-empowerment
female-writers
george-eliot
mary-shelley
virginia-woolf
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Catherine Lowell |
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031875e
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Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim--one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. . Compare with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while . The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart. We have advanced. .
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heroic
bravery
sacrifice
heart
king-william
benefit
ernst-haeckel
haeckel
homage
eliot
glory
george-eliot
queen-victoria
chance
genius
sublime
intellect
colossus
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Robert G. Ingersoll |
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d75ba4f
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startled the world many years ago by stating in effect that if the amount of pleasure obtained from each be equal there is nothing to choose between poetry and push-pin. Since few people now know what push-pin is, I may explain that it is a child's game in which one player tries to push his pin across that of another player, and if he succeeds and then is able by pressing down on the two pins with the ball of his thumb to lift them off the table he wins possession of his opponent's pin. [...] The indignant retort to 's statement was that spiritual pleasures are obviously higher than physical pleasures. But who say so? Those who prefer spiritual pleasures. They are in a miserable minority, as they acknowledge when they declare that the gift of aesthetic appreciation is a very rare one. The vast majority of men are, as we know, both by necessity and choice preoccupied with material considerations. Their pleasures are material. They look askance at those who spent their lives in the pursuit of art. That is why they have attached a depreciatory sense to the word aesthete, which means merely one who has a special appreciation of beauty. How are we going to show that they are wrong? How are we going to show that there is something to choose between poetry and push-pin? I surmise that chose push-pin for its pleasant alliteration with poetry. Let us speak of lawn tennis. It is a popular game which many of us can play with pleasure. It needs skill and judgement, a good eye and a cool head. If I get the same amount of pleasure out of playing it as you get by looking at 's 'Entombment of Christ' in the Louvre, by listening to 's 'Eroica' or by reading 's 'Ash Wednesday', how are you going to prove that your pleasure is better and more refined than mine? Only, I should say, by manifesting that this gift you have of aesthetic appreciation has a moral effect on your character.
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benthem
eliot
jeremy-bentham
ludwig-van-beethoven
titian
utilitarianism
george-eliot
pleasure
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W. Somerset Maugham |