plus le meme chose
...He says of the Syrian affairs that the ...French and Russians have been intriguing there is no doubt...the spirit which all over the East is so easily roused just now...Musselman fanaticism--The result is terrific, and of course the English Govt. are as keen to stop these horrors and to restore order as any, but the plan proposed by the French would...have been the signal for a universal massacre of Christians...--with great difficulty they have got it modified...
I may have mentioned that I'm reading my way through all my old books before giving them away? The bit above comes from the Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, and she wrote it to her sister from Queen Victoria's summer home in Osborne, on July 18, 1860.
I think it's time to reclaim this lovely and precise use of "terrific."
ReplyDeleteAmy's right (of course) about "terrific." And the blurring of a word's meaning over time and careless usage is (also of course) well illustrated by Jane Austen through Henry Tilney's riff on "nice" in Northanger Abbey.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Edith, if you're looking for a taker on Lady Stanley's letters, I humbly propose myself.