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Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey
page 96 of 204 (47%)

[NOTE 6.

Our sisters are always rather uneasy when we say anything of them in Latin
or Greek. It is like giving sealed orders to a sea captain, which he is not
to open for his life till he comes into a certain latitude, which latitude,
perhaps, he never _will_ come into, and thus may miss the secret till he is
going to the bottom. Generally I acknowledge that it is not polite before
our female friends to cite a single word of Latin without instantly
translating it. But in this particular case, where I am only iterating a
disagreeable truth, they will please to recollect that the politeness lies
in _not_ translating. However, if they insist absolutely on knowing this
very night, before going to bed, what it is that those ill-looking lines
contain, I refer them to Dryden's Virgil, somewhere in the 6th Book of the
Æneid, except as to the closing line and a half, which contain a private
suggestion of my own to discontented nymphs anxious to see the equilibrium
of advantages re-established between the two sexes.]

[NOTE 7.

Amongst the many ebullitions of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English,
are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the more
conspicuous in collision with the justice which he sometimes does us, and
the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us.

1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He
pronounces it "fine and sombre," but, I lament to add, "sceptical, Judaic,
Satanic--in a word, Anti-Christian." That Lord Byron should figure as a
member of this diabolical corporation, will not surprise men. It _will_
surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many are
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