Are You a Bromide?: Or, The Sulphitic Theory Expounded and Exemplified According to the Most Recent Researches Into the Psychology of Boredom, Including Many Well-known Bromidioms Now in Use |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
à la carte Absolute Age Ages were sulphitic-there become bromidic Bromide denotative Bromide does never Bromide will never bromidic tendencies bromidic vegeta bromidic words buttons be put CECIL H Chatelaine curiously erratic variations curve dim future incarnation dime novel discovered and appendi dium earth-the Yellow Book edited for Middle Euphuistic fin de siècle glow that lifted hanged the prophet Hiotora hoop skirts inevitable Intensity of Bro ism arose jig-saw and turning knows the rela mental mides mides are individuals midism Nitro-Bro ology of Harvard one's friends revealed Philistine phite phitic precedent-the dowager pressed terra prophet for witch remark rhymester simulating the awkward sons who understand spiration and chewed STANFORD STANFORD UNIVERSITY stories Sulphites and read sulphitic in burlesque sulphitic juggling Sulphitic Theory sulphitic thing sulphitic title term will amuse thrown back unchanged titles are inevita tremes understand without ex vegeta view be eccentric wax flowers whiskers and pantalettes youth-I
Popular passages
Page 49 - Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; And so they are better, painted — better to us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out.
Page 46 - You may estimate your capacity for Comic perception by being able to detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less : and more by being able to see yourself somewhat ridiculous in dear eyes, and accepting the correction their image of you proposes.
Page 46 - Comic," says Meredith — and the statement might be applied as well to the Bromidic — " by being able to detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less." The Bromide has no salt nor spice nor savor — but he is the bread of Society, the veriest staff of life. And if, like Little Jack Horner, you can occasionally put in your thumb and pull out a sulphitic plum from your acquaintance, be thankful for that, too!
Page 18 - They are, intellectually, all peas in the same conventional pod, unenlightened, prosaic, living by rule and rote. They have their hair cut every month and their minds keep regular office-hours.
Page 17 - The Bromide does his thinking by syndicate. He follows the main-traveled roads, he goes with the crowd. In a word, they all think and talk alike — one may predicate their opinion upon any given subject. They follow custom and costume, they obey the Law of Averages.
Page 19 - ... office-hours. They worship dogma. The Bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal and arbitrary. So much has a mere name already done for us that we may say, boldly, and this is our First Theorem : that all Bromides are bromidic in every manfestation of their being. But a better comprehension of the term, and one which will perhaps remove the taint of malediction, will be attained if we examine in detail a few essential bromidic tendencies....
Page 9 - OF THE SULPHITIC THEORY ARE YOU A BROMIDE? THE terms "Bromide" and " Sulphite " as applied to psychological rather than chemical analysis have already become, among the illuminati, so widely adopted that these denominations now stand in considerable danger of being weakened in significance through a too careless use. The adjective " bromidic " is at present adopted as a general vehicle, a common carrier for the thoughtless damnation of the Philistine.
Page 25 - That dog understands every word I say." IV. "You'll feel differently about these things when you're married!" V. "It isn't money, it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing I object to." VI. "Why aren't there any good stories in the magazines, nowadays?
Page 28 - It isn't so much the heat (or the cold) as the humidity in the air." Sulphites, on the other hand, " are agreed upon most of the basic facts of life, and this common understanding makes it possible for them to eliminate the obvious from their conversation.
Page 23 - The Bromide never mentions such a vulgar thing as a birth, but "The Year Baby Came" The Bromide's euphemisms are the slang of her caste. When she departs from her visit, she says : "I've had a perfectly charming time" "It's SO good of you to have asked me!