In chapter XI of Richard Marsh’s 1897 work of weird horror, The Beetle, narrator Sydney Atherton has discovered that his beloved childhood friend Marjorie intends to marry the politician Paul Lessingham – who is much older than Sydney (“and a wretched Radical!”). Not to put too fine a point upon it, Sydney is unimpressed. [T]o…
Category: Insult of the Week
Insult of the Week: this inquisitive hag – damn her gooseberry wig
In chapter 61 of Waverley, our misfortunate hero finds himself sharing a conveyance – “the northern diligence”, described as “a huge old-fashioned tub” – with a companion he would really rather avoid, if at all possible. Mrs. Nosebag is … the lady of Lieutenant Nosebag, adjutant and riding-master of the — dragoons, a jolly woman…
Insult of the week: avaunt, Mephistopheles!
This week’s insult is dedicated not to a person, but to the demon drink: specifically, a bowl of rum punch. Captain Devereaux, in The House by the Church-Yard, is enjoying a convivial evening in his Chapelizod lodgings with renowned local gossip Dr. Tom Toole: And the china bowl, with its silver ladle, and fine…
Insult of the Week: “An extraordinary specimen of human fungus”
In chapter 26 of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House (1853), Mr. George Rouncewell and his assistant Phil Squod are busy preparing for a day of work in the shooting gallery when they are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Grandfather Smallweed and his granddaughter Judy. Mr. Smallweed describes their engagement of a hackney cab for the journey and…
Insult of the Week: “You double-distilled ould sthrap”
This week’s insult is provided by William Carleton’s The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine (1847). Following Condy Dalton’s admission of love for another woman, a furious Sarah M’Gowan returns home where her stepmother Nelly pushes her to boiling point… “You’re all out of it,” replied Nelly; “her blood’s up, now, an’ I’m not prepared…
Insult of the Week: Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say but they say it charmingly.
This week’s insult is provided by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). While discussing Dorian’s apparent interest in the actress Sibyl Vane, Lord Henry Wotton states: “My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of…
Insult of the Week: Deftly chosen expressions of contempt, the maid edition
From our corpus it seems that even maids were subject to snarky comments about their appearance, often made by their employers. In chapter 1 of H. G Wells’ The Invisible Man, the narrator describes Mrs. Halls’ servant Millie as “her lymphatic maid”: “Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare…
Insult of the Week: you confounded fools
Middlemarch‘s Fred Vincy momentarily loses the run of himself while intervening in a local territorial skirmish: “What do you confounded fools mean?” shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting right and left with his whip. “I’ll swear to every one of you before the magistrate. You’ve knocked the lad down and…
Insult of the Week: Not one agreeable quality
After her beloved sister Jane’s romantic disappointment, Lizzy has had enough of pleasant, wealthy bachelors: I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow where I shall…
Insult of the Week: Walk off, ye canting hag
This week’s insult comes courtesy of Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee. The Widow O’Neill attempts to renew the lease on her property, but local rogue agent Nicholas Garraghty (known to the tenants as Old Nick) won’t humour her request. ‘Take those leases off the table; I never will sign them. Walk off; ye canting hag; it’s an…
Insult of the Week: Blockhead
It seems ‘blockhead’ was a popular insult in the nineteenth century. In our corpus Emma tops the league table of blockheads with three, but Austen also employs it in Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, where the caddish Willoughby proclaims: though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal So…
Insult of the Week: Intolerably Stupid
We may be a little biased, but we feel there’s some truth in this pointed comment from Henry Tilney: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. From chapter 14 of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, published 1817. Read the novel for free at Project Gutenberg!
The Sea of Books 