il n'y a pas de hors-texte
ACADEMY, FRENCH: Run it down, but try to belong to it if you can.
ACHILLES: Add “fleet of foot”: people will think you’ve read Homer.
AIR: Beware of drafts of air. The depths of the air are invariably unlike the surface. If the former are warm, the latter is cold, and vice versa.
ASP: Animal known through Cleopatra’s basket of figs.
BACK: A slap on the back can start tuberculosis.
BODY: If we knew how our body is made, we wouldn’t dare move.
BOOK: Always too long, regardless of subject.
CATS: Are treacherous. Call them “the tiger in the house.” Cut off their tails to prevent vertigo.
CHESS: Symbol of military tactics. All great generals good at chess. Too serious as a game, too pointless as a science.
CRITIC: Always “eminent.” Supposed to know everything, read everything, see everything. When you dislike him, call him a Zoilus, a eunuch.
DREAMS (VAGUE): Any great ideas one does not understand.
EGG: Starting point for a philosophic lecture on the origin of life.
ETYMOLOGY: The easiest thing in the world, with a little Latin and ingenuity.
FATAL: A wholly romantic word. Applied to a man, signifies one with the evil eye.
FEAR. Gives wings.
GENIUS: No point admiring—it’s a neurosis.
GOD: Voltaire himself admitted it: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
HIEROGLYPHICS: Language of the ancient Egyptians, invented by the priests to conceal their shameful secrets. “Just think! There are people who understand hieroglyphics! But after all, the whole thing may be a hoax…”
HYSTERIA: Confuse with nymphomania.
IDEALISM: The best of the philosophic systems.
ILLUSIONS: Pretend to have had a great many, regret that you have lost them all.
INSTINCT: Does duty for intelligence.
ITALY: Should be seen immediately after marriage. Is very disappointing—not nearly so beautiful as people say.
JEWS: “Sons of Israel.” All Jews are spectacle vendors.
KORAN: Book entirely about women, by Mohammed.
LATIN: The natural speech of man. Spoils one’s style. Of use only for reading mottoes on public buildings. Watch how you quote Latin tags—they all have something risqué in them.
METAMORPHOSIS: Make fun of the times when it was believed in. Ovid was the inventor.
MONEY: Cause of all evil. Auri sacra fames. The god of the day—but not the same as Apollo.
MOSAIC: The secret of the art is lost.
NEWSPAPERS: One can’t do without—but must be thundered against. Their importance in modern society, e.g. the Figaro. Serious sheets: Revue des Deux Mondes, L’Economiste, the Journal des Débats. You must leave them about in your drawing room, taking care to cut the pages open beforehand. Marking certain passages in blue pencil is also impressive. In the morning, read an article in one of these grave and solid journals; in the evening, in company, bring the conversation around to the subject, and shine.
NIGHTMARES: Come from the stomach.
OBSCENITY: All scientific words derived from Greek and Latin conceal an obscenity.
PARALLELS (HISTORICAL): The choice is as follows: Caesar and Pompey, Horace and Virgil, Voltaire and Rousseau, Napoleon and Charlemagne, Goethe and Schiller, Bayard and MacMahon…
PARIS: The great whore. Heaven for women, hell for horses.
RELIGION: Part of the foundations of society. Is necessary for the common people. Yet we mustn’t overdo it. “The religion of our fathers…”: this must be uttered with unction.
SENECA: Wrote on a golden desk.
TIGHTS: Sexually exciting.
YOUTH: “What a wonderful thing it is!”. Always quote the Italian lines, even if you don’t know what they mean; “O Primavera! Gioventù dell’ anno! O.Gioventù! Primavera della vita!“
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