Thoughts & Quotes of Blupete:

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NATIONALISM:

§ See blupete's commentary of -- July, 1998.
NATURE:

§ See blupete's essay -- "On Nature."
NYMPHOLEPSY:

¶ "A state of rapture supposed to be inspired in men by nymphs; hence, an ecstasy or frenzy of emotion, esp. that inspired by something unattainable." (OED)

¶ "The most common disease to genius is nympholepsy---the saddening for a spirit that the world knows not." (OED: 1831 Lytton Godolphin xx.)

¶ "The science of nympholepsy is a precise science. Actual contact would do it in one second flat. An interspace of a millimeter would do it in ten." (OED: 1955 V. Nabokov Lolita (1958) i. 174.)

¶ "The poor dreamer hurried on by the nympholepsia of the ideal." (OED: 1885 F. B. Van Voorst Without a Compass 13.)
NINETEENTH CENTURY:

¶ "That [19th c.] was a period of revolution, social, industrial and political; men abandoned modes of life and ways of thought which had prevailed with little change for generations. It may be that such a period, when old beliefs are no longer unquestioningly accepted, when there is a great ferment in the air and life is a new and exciting adventure, is conducive to the production of exceptional characters and of exceptional works." (W. Somerset Maugham, Great Novelists.)
NORTH/SOUTH QUESTION:

¶ "The northern nations are hardy and industrious, because they must till the earth if they would eat the fruits of it, and because the temperature is too low to make an idle life enjoyable. In the south, the soil is more productive, while less food is wanted and fewer clothes; and, in the exquisite air, exertion is not needed to make the sense of existence delightful." (James Anthony Froude.)
NOTHING-TO-DO:

¶ "A man can never have too much time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would christen him Nothing-to-do; he should do nothing. Man I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am altogether for the life contemplative." [Charles Lamb, as quoted by Alfred Ainger, in Charles Lamb (London: MacMillan, 1882) at p. 151.]
NOTORIETY:

¶ "Unless an author has an establishment of his own, or is entered on that of some other person, he will hardly be allowed to write English or to spell his own name. To be well spoken of, he must enlist under some standard; he must belong to some coterie. He must get the esprit de corps on his side: he must have literary bail in readiness. Thus they prop up one another's rickety heads at Murray's shop, and a spurious reputation, like false argument, runs in a circle. Croker affirms that Gifford is sprightly, and Gifford that Croker is genteel; Disraeli that Jacob is wise, and Jacob that Disraeli is good-natured. A Member of Parliament must be answerable that you are not dangerous or dull before you can be of the entree. You must commence toad-eating to have your observations attended to; if you are independent, unconnected, you will be regarded as a poor creature. Your opinion is honest, you will say; then ten to one it is not profitable. It is at any rate your own. So much the worse; for then it is not the world's." (William Hazlitt, "On the Aristocracy of Letters.")
NOVELS:

¶ "I felt [as] ... Fielding told me, that there was more truth in the verisimilitudes of fiction than in the assumptions of history ..." [Leigh Hunt's Autobiography (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1870).]

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