In those days it was an obligation on the noble and spirited creatures – from whom is descended the weaker sex, the sex that today affects an extremity of softness and gentleness! – to be, as for instance at Sparta, before all and above all, brave and strong.
They alone in the midst of disasters, these children of the giants, in other words, these daughters of the Sword, refuse to weep.
Bandeio likewise mentions as cavalieressi or swordswomen “the very noble Luzia Stange, who, sword in hand, intimidates many brave men”; also the daughter of the gardener of the very learned Signor Alessandro Bentivoglio, who defended her father, the latter being unarmed, against two stirring (police agents). Having put hand to sword, she killed one of the constables and gave the other a sword thrust. Last,, he speaks of a beautiful Greek girl named Marcella, who, at the siege of Counio by the Turks, on seeing her father slain at her feet, seized his sword and rotella, and driving back the Turks, killed several of them, and finally drove them out of the island. In the northern regions of Europe hardly a single instance is to be found of a genuine martial heroine.
A progress of degradation with glowing phraseology, cajoleries and falsity. They put on exaggerated airs of mock-modesty, and assume a scornful pose before their admirers, all the time longing to be noticed. The old punctilious sense of honor have ceased to exist while finally the practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in.
What is lighter than a feather? A woman. What is lighter than a woman? Nothing. Phrase found in a Latin satire. It means nothing more nothing less than this: women have always hated morality and seriousness, precise knowledge and deliberate wisdom, which in their eyes are merely silly and hypocritical pretensions that mark the class of professional phrase-mongers.
Writers like Gorgias or Appolodorus, or orators like Hyperides, masters of the eloquence that thrills mankind.
The Gown, whence springs the type of creatures that tear each other to pieces with tongue and pen.
pg84
A kind o f a code of revenge, a guiding principle a point of honor that was held more sacred than life itself
Vulsenade
Pg94
Such extravagances were admitted by the principles of chivalry, an institution sane enough at its origins, but run mad before its end.” Dr Johannes Scheer, Society and Manners in Germany, Chivalry at Court
Pg138
And many another indiscreet, prying teller of naughty tales, are far and away more instructive than formal history, which is either pedantic by convention or else dumb by constraint.
In investigations of any kind details should be studied first, in order at a subsequent stage to elaborate the series of special observations made into a general survey of the subject. This is the only way to get good results
pg154
A phrase well expressing an easiness of morals at once very frank and very French.
Pg166
That treacherous gentleness women practice toward one another – every woman instinctively hates every other.
pg164
A woman will allow herself to be told: you belong to a sex possessing a small brain and a half-developed organization; your disposition and instinctive are all disproportionate, inconsequent hypocritical, illogical and futile; your moral sense is deformed, your selfishness without a scruple and your vanity without a limit. All this will hardly so much as annoy her; but dare to say: you have short legs, and you have committed a dire offense woman’s nature can never forgive. Further on, Schopenhauer adds another curiously insulting passage: “The ancients,”he says, “would have laughed at our gallantry of the old French fashion and our stupid veneration for number two of the perfect realization of German-Christian silliness.”
pg169
“A married woman’s first thought and care is to devise how to be a widow.” Brantley, Dames galantes, Fourth Discourse
Pg193
In the rein of ignorance, the constant state of war which lasted for twenty years did not stop a certain amount of rationality that allowed this writings.
pg200
And young men are accustomed from the first to idleness, effeminacy and frivolity, coming eventually to the business of life with empty heads and hearts crammed with false ideals…less credit and wealth, less dignity and prestige. They display vanity, but legitimate pride never. The men of pleasure are well received in society because they are light-hearted, gay, witty, dissipated, easy-going, amateurs of every pleasure.
Pg224
The fair dames of the period resorted to every means to stimulate their sensibilities. They seek excitement in dissecting dead bodies. “The young Contesse de Coigny was so passionately fond of this dreadful study (Anatomy), that she would never start on a journey without taking in the boot of her traveling carriage a corpse to dissect, just as one takes with one a book to read.” – Mme. de Gengis, Mémoires, vol I.
This mania for dissection was for some time extremely fashionable with ladies of quality.
Pg226
On these ridiculous types was built up the whole school of impotent and despairing lovers, who under a nauseous pretence of being so romantic and interesting, prolonged for half a century longer the silly affectation of sentimental melancholy, in other words, a green-sickness of skepticism complicated with pulmonary consumption!
Pg227
A familiar axiom of economic science declares that “every vicious act is followed by diminution of force.”
Pg229
The Mousquetaires had began by displaying a most laudable zeal, but it was soon discovered that these gentlemen were better at noise than real work.
Pg230
“The deterioration of type among noble families,” says Moreau de Tours, “is noted in numerous writers; Pope remarks to Spencer on the sorry looks of members of the English aristocracy in his day; and in the same way physiologists had even earlier noted the short stature of the Spanish grandees at the court of Philip V.” As for Frenchmen, long before 1789, they were amongst the poorest specimens of humanity, according to the testimony of many witnesses.
Pg237
The practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in.
Thus ends the Sword.
A progress of degradation with glowing phraseology, cajoleries and falsity. They put on exaggerated airs of mock-modesty, and assume a scornful pose before their admirers, all the time longing to be noticed. The old punctilious sense of honor have ceased to exist while finally the practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in.
INQUIRIM VITAE 