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One, therefore, finds in the country many accomplished men: how could there be 700 students in Christiania, if there were not many farmers' sons among them?" AUTHOR. "But does this majority of farmers in the Storthing commit absurdities? does it govern the country badly, burden it with debts or enact unjust laws?"
His usual lazy drawl is exchanged for foolish excitement. Two or three more gentlemen, tired of Trebooze's absurdities, are scrambling over the rocks above, in search of spraints. Old Tardrew waddles stooping along the line where grass and shingle meet, his bulldog visage bent to his very knees. "Tardrew out hunting?" says Campbell. "Why, it is but a week since his daughter was buried!"
The idea that anybody could ever take my massacre for a genuine occurrence never once suggested itself to me, hedged about as it was by all those telltale absurdities and impossibilities concerning the "great pine forest," the "dressed-stone mansion," etc.
Those of the Caravanne and of Anacreon are but indifferent. It required no small share of talent to put words into the mouth of the charming poet, whose name is given to the last-mentioned piece; but M. GUY appears not to have thought of this. Tarare is a tissue of improbabilities and absurdities. The poem is frequently nothing but an assemblage of words which present no meaning.
The same remark would apply to most of the extant plays of Sophocles. The Oedipus Rex, in particular, reveals itself in Mr. Mahaffy's analysis as a mere farrago of inconsistencies and absurdities. In allusion to the very different estimate of Professor Campbell, Mr.
Everything individual is always found mixed, full of absurdities of perspective and picturesque contradictions, contradictions and absurdities that shock us, because we insist on submitting individuals to principles which are not applicable to them. If instead of wearing a cravat and a bowler hat, we wore feathers and a ring in our nose, all our moral notions would change.
"Young man," he said, "you are possessed by the same preposterous vanity which induced Empedocles to throw himself into Vesuvius, and Erostratus to fire the temple of Diana. I recommend a course of dry cupping to the nape of the neck, to relieve your congested and over-excited brain, and, in the mean time, a decent seclusion from society, that you insult with your absurdities."
Then when you have forgotten the impression of Paris brilliancy, and see us in our own sphere, you pay court to us, if only as a pastime. And you, who are famous for your past passions, will be the object of attentions which will flatter you. Then take care!" cried Dinah, with a coquettish gesture, raising herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau's irony by her own sarcastic speech.
Even in the neighbourhood of great towns the taint remains of this once widely-spread contagion. If no victims fall beneath it, the enlightenment of the law is all that prevents a recurrence of scenes as horrid as those of the seventeeth century. Hundreds upon hundreds of witnesses could be found to swear to absurdities as great as those asserted by the infamous Matthew Hopkins.
He was not altogether a skeptic about witchcraft in general, but his purpose was to show that the evidence against Jane Wenham was weak. The two chief witnesses, Matthew Gilston and Anne Thorne, were "much disturbed in their Imaginations." There were many absurdities in their stories. He cited the story of Anne Thorne's mile run in seven minutes. Who knew that it was seven minutes?
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