The field maneuvers may be different from those in Holmes's day, and the villain is more socially mobile, but since Sir Arthur we ...have not changed the three essential ingredients of the private eye. He must be a bachelor, with the bachelor's harum-scarum availability at all hours (William Powell's marriage to Myrna "Nora" Loy, a wistful concession to the family trade, fooled nobody). He must have an inconspicuous fund of curious knowledge, which in the end is always crucially relevant. He must pity the official guardians of the law. Of course, the twentieth century has grafted some interesting personality changes on the original. Holmes was an eccentric in the Victorian sense, a man with queer hobbies--cocaine was lamentable but pardonably melodramatic--whose social code was essentially that of the ruling classes. He was, in a way, the avenging squire of the underworld ready to administer a horsewhipping to the outcasts who were never privileged by birth to receive it from their fathers. Bogart is a displaced person whose present respectability is uncertain, a classless but well-contained vagabond who is not going to be questioned about where he came from or where he is going. ("I came to Casablanca for the waters." "But there are no waters in Casablanca." "I was misinformed.")LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nobody who has any kind of creative imagination can possibly be anything but disappointed with real life.... Of course, you could ...always argue that you live more intensely in your mental world-substitute than we who only wallow in the real thing.... But the trouble is that you can't be content to stick to your beautiful ersatz. You have to descend into evening clothes and Ciro's and chorus girls--and perhaps even politics ... with lamentable results. Because you're not at home with these lumpy bits of matter. They depress you, they bewilder you, they shock you and sicken you and make a fool of you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Thus roving on In confus'd march forlorn, th' adventrous Bands,... With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast View'd first thir lamentable lot, and found No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vale They pass'd, and many a Region dolorous, O'er many a Frozen, many a fierie Alpe, Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death, A Universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good, Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation makin...g such a claim. The pursuit of happiness ... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase "the pursuit of happiness" is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To be worst, The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,... Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace! The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst Owes nothing to thy blasts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Quince. Marry, our play is "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe." Bottom. A very good piece... of work, I assure you, and a merry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"What are ye doing?" cried Manfred, wrathfully: "Where is my son?" A volley of voices replied, "Oh, my lord! the prince! the princ...e! the helmet! the helmet!" Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he advanced hastily--But what a sight for a father's eyes!--He beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »