What side of American life is not touched by this antithesis? What explanation of American life is more central or more illuminati...ng? In everything one finds this frank acceptance of twin values which are not expected to have anything in common: on the one hand, a quite unclouded, quite unhypothetical assumption of aesthetic theory ("high ideals"), on the other a simultaneous acceptance of catchpenny realities. Between university ethics and business ethics, between American culture and American humour, between Good Government and Tammany, between academic pedantry and pavement slang, there is no community, no genial middle ground. The very accent of the words "Highbrow" and "Lowbrow" implies an instinctive perception that this is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. For both are used in a derogatory sense. The "Highbrow" is the superior person whose virtue is admitted but felt to be an inept unpalatable virtue; while the "Lowbrow" is a good fellow one readily takes to, but with a certain scorn for him and all his works.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We all have known Good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes;... Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disembowelled for a tax; Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs; And damned the general world for standing up.-- Now, may the good God pardon all good men!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognised as such because it h...as achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the Other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Freudian psychoanalytical theory is a mythology that answers pretty well to Levi-Strauss's descriptions. It brings some kind of or...der into incoherence; it, too, hangs together, makes sense, leaves no loose ends, and is never (but never) at a loss for explanation. In a state of bewilderment it may therefore bring comfort and relief.... give its subject a new and deeper understanding of his own condition and of the nature of his relationship to his fellow men. A mythical structure will be built up around him which makes sense and is believable-in, regardless of whether or not it is true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... liberal intellectuals ... tend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping that... those in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the "establishment."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and not p...ure science, or are performing faithful but quite subordinate labors in particular departments. They make no steady and systematic approaches to the central fact.... There is wanting constant and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and discipline it. But, above all, there is wanting genius.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As we shoved away from this rocky coast, before sunrise, the smaller bittern, the genius of the shore, was moping along its edge, ...or stood probing the mud for its food, with ever an eye on us, though so demurely at work, or else he ran along over the wet stones like a wrecker in his storm-coat, looking out for wrecks of snails and cockles. Now away he goes, with a limping flight, uncertain where he will alight, until a rod of clear sand amid the alders invites his feet; and now our steady approach compels him to seek a new retreat. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the other elements; the relic of a twilight antediluvian age which yet inhabits these bright American waters with us Yankees. There is something venerable in this melancholy and contemplative race of birds, which may have trodden the earth while it was yet in a slimy and imperfect state. Perchance their tracks, too, are still visible on the stones.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The last public hanging in the State took place in 1835 on Prince Hill.... On the fatal day, the victim, a man named Watkins, peer...ing through the iron bars of his cell, and seeing the townfolk scurrying to the place of execution, is said to have remarked, 'Why is everyone running? Nothing can happen until I get there.'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Religious fervor makes the devil a very real personage, and anything awe-inspiring or not easily understood is usually connected w...ith him. Perhaps this explains why, not only in the Ozarks but all over the State, his name crops up so frequently.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The first general store opened on the 'Cold Saturday' of the winter of 1833 ... Mrs. Mary Miller, daughter of the store's promoter..., recorded in a letter: 'Chickens and birds fell dead from their roosts, cows ran bellowing through the streets'; but she failed to state what effect the freeze had on the gala occasion of the store opening.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »