INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: A Traveller's Perspective on Irish Men & English Women

People who travel do so for reasons as distinct as each individual.  Even so, the reasons for travelling can (somewhat awkwardly) be categorized.  The more stereotypical objectives include the honeymooner’s all-inclusive, or the family trip to Disneyland. And though modern travellers now spread about the globe in ways far removed and advanced from those of the past, tourists travel for the same basic reasons that they always have: fun, relaxation, and/or adventure.

An interesting case in point originates from the 18^th century personal papers of the aristocratic Roche family of Ireland.  In the postscript of a letter written to his brother on 6 January 1771, Edward Roche of Trabolgan relates his disappointment with one of the great tourist cities of England.  Apparently drawn to Bath due to its reputation for sexual adventure, Edward tells his brother that in spite of all the talk there is no place worse for it (MacLysaght, 151).  This is not because English women are unresponsive, he goes on to say; it is rather that the city itself does not give prospective lovers a suitable opportunity.  In fact on the subject of English women’s natural inclination for amour, the writer makes an interesting observation.  He tells his brother that “English women have a greater propensity for it than” Irish women and follows this comment with a popular aphorism of the day concerning the similarities between the women of England and the Celtic men of Ireland. “It’s a saying here: ‘English women and Irish men’ for that sport against the world” (Maclysaght, 151).

"And you thought your Irish husband and my English wife wouldn't get along!"

MacLysaght, Edward. “Roche Papers.”  Analecta Hibernica, Survey of Documents in

             Private Keeping: First Series, No. 15 (Nov. 1944), pp. 143, 145-152. 

            The Irish Manuscripts Ltd. JSTOR. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.

VALENTINE: "Private Words Given to You in Public"

                                            For Tünde, On a Summer Day

  

                                               I hear

                                                  The sparrow chirp,

                                                  The bee hum,

                                               and the grasshopper spread its wings.

                                               I see

                                                  The sun,

                                                  The blue,

                                               and the flowers full-blown:

                                               But I only think of you.

                                                                            - Glen Paul Hammond

LITERARY CORNER: Stendhal & Unrequited Love

Marie-Henri Beyle, also known as Stendhal, was born in Grenoble on 23 January 1783.  Before becoming a famous writer, he took part in Napoleon’s campaigns in Italy, Germany, Russia and Austria as aide-de-camp to General Michoud.  Known for such masterpieces as The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse Parma, Stendhal always considered his treatise on Love to be his principal work.

Inspired by his own obsession for Mathilde Viscontini Dembowski, the great French author dissects his own passion and through his knowledge of history, literature and philosophy objectively examines the phenomenon of love. 

In one of his most provoking chapters, he analyzes his own experience of loving passionately for many years someone who did not return his love and so places Unrequited Love as one of the phenomenon’s most powerful forms.  He says:

            The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in Nature or the arts, makes you

            think instantly of your beloved…Everything sublime and beautiful becomes

            a part of your beloved’s beauty and the unexpected reminder of happiness

            fills your eyes with tears on the instant.  In this way a love of the beautiful,

            and love itself, inspire each other (Stendhal, 62).

One of the reasons this form of love remains so powerful for so long, according to Stendhal, is that as the real memories of the beloved fade into the unconscious past, only the sensations the beloved inspired remains in the present consciousness of the unhappy lover.  Not being able to diffuse sensation with recollection, makes the senses of the unhappy lover vulnerable to physical stimuli randomly encountered (such as a scent that reminds a man of his beloved’s perfume) and by the very nature of its unexpectedness recalls the passion more vividly.  The unhappy lover then learns to pair exhilaration with the contemplation of his beloved and eventually comes to despair the loss of his unhappy love.  On this potential loss, Stendhal says:

                You no longer enjoy thinking of your mistress, and even though you are

                prostrated by her harshness you think yourself unhappier still to have lost

                interest in everything.  A thoroughly miserable and depressed blankness

                follows a state of mind which, despite its agitation, nevertheless saw all

                Nature fraught with novelty, passion, and interest (64).

           

Before the loss of unrequited love a simple encounter with a rose might excite a sacred inner contemplation that elevates a mundane afternoon into something symphonic.  After the loss of this kind of love, however, a rose is just a rose.

"Nancy!!"

Stendhal.  Love.  1822.  Trans. Gilbert & Suzanne Sale.  Markham: Penguin Books, 1975.

INSIGHT, APHORISM & MAXIM: Hedy Lamarr on "The Two-Sided Argument"

(1914 - 2000)

One of the great movie stars of Hollywood’s golden age, Hedy Lamarr was not only considered one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen but also one of the most intelligent.  Amongst movie credits that include such films as Algiers, White Cargo and Samson and Delilah, she is also recognized as the co-inventor of “spread spectrum” technology; used by the military up to this day for satellite defense communication systems, it is also the technological basis behind the operation of cellular phones and fax machines.

In 1966 she published her autobiography Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman.  In the 34^th and last chapter of the book, the inimitable actress/inventor passed along “a few tips” she had learned by her 51^st year.  The following is but one example:

 

It isn’t true that there are two sides to every coin.  Some arguments only have one side.  Some people are so wrong about some things there couldn’t be another side. Too many people live by these old-fashioned aphorisms that are wrong (Lamarr, 253).

"Two, you say?!  Alright, I'll give you my side and then I'll give you it again!!"

Lamarr, Hedy.  Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman. New York: Fawcett World   

            Library, 1967.

Photo of Hedy Lamarr courtesy of Hedy Lamarr: The Official Site,  http://www.hedylamarr.com/