“ a fundamental quality in the female tradition . . . The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. ”
G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World (1910). copy citation
| Author | G. K. Chesterton |
|---|---|
| Source | What's Wrong with the World |
| Topic | modesty language dignity |
| Date | 1910 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm |
Context
“I take this as the most obvious and at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature and call it dignity. Whatever else it is, it is the thing which a thousand poets and a million lovers have called the coldness of Chloe. It is akin to the classical, and is at least the opposite of the grotesque. And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt.”
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