Fitzgerald: Event, Generation, War

F. Scott Fitzgerald – “My Generation”
(193) – It is important just when a generation first sees the light—and by a generation I mean that reaction against the fathers which seems to occur about three times in a century. It is distinguished by a set of ideas, inherited in moderated form from the madmen and the outlaws of the generation before; if it is a real generation it has its own leaders and spokesmen, and it draws into its orbit those born just before it and just after, whose ideas are less clear-cut and defiant. A strongly individual generation sprouts most readily from a time of stress and emergency—tensity, communicated from parent to child, seems to leave a pattern on the heart.

(194-5) So we inherited two worlds—the one of hope to which we had been bred; the one of illusion which we had discovered early for ourselves. And that first world was growing as remote as another country, however close in time…. I live without madness in a world of scientific miracles where curses or Promethean cries are bolder—and more ineffectual. I do not “accept that world, for as instance my daughter does. But I function in it with familiarity….

(198)… it is a fact that the capacity of this generation to believe has run very thin. The war, the peace, the boom, the depression, the shadow of the new war scarcely correspond to the idea of manifest destiny. Many men of my age are inclined to paraphrase Sir Edward Grey of 1914—“The lamps are going out all over the world—we shall not see them lit again in our time.”

Madness & Biology

There was a time, not so long ago, when the common public perception of a mad person was one who claimed to be Jesus Christ, Napoleon Bonaparte, Lloyd George, Albert Einstein, Mrs Thatcher, or a teapot (note the historic sequence). Being a teapot was boring but the schizophrenic often had plenty of patience. The popularity of the teapot was mainly to medical staff wishing to demonstrate the phenomenon of flexibilitas cerea, which was once a common feature of schizophrenia. It is a condition in which the limbs can be slowly and passively bent into bizarre positions which they will maintain for long periods. It used to be said that the posture would be maintained indefinitely but this was a typical exaggeration...
- Robert M. Youngson, The Madness of Prince Hamlet and Other Extraordinary States of Mind.

Fiction: the exact status of angels

There had been a grave debate in the servants' hall about the exact status of angels. Even Mr. Blenkinsop, the butler, had been uncertain. "Angels are certainly not guests," he had said, "and I don't think they are deputations. Nor they ain't governesses either, nor clergy not strictly speaking; they're not entertainers, because entertainers dine nowadays, the more's the pity."
"I believe they're decorators," said Mrs. Blouse, "Or else charitable workers."
"Charitable workers are governesses, Mrs. Blouse. There is nothing to be gained by multiplying social distinctions indefinitely. Decorators are either guests or workmen."
After further discussion the conclusion was reached that angels were nurses, and that became the official ruling of the household. But the second footman was of the opinion that they were just "young persons," pure and simple, "and very nice too," for nurses cannot, except in very rare cases, be winked at, and clearly angels could.
-- Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh