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Woodslim Posted 12 years ago
Vocabulary

A line from Virginia Woolf

"But enough of Shakespeare—let us turn to Augustus Hare. There are people who say that even illness does not warrant these transitions; that the author of The Story of Two Noble Lives is not the peer of Boswell; and if we assert that short of the best in literature we like the worst—it is mediocrity that is hateful—will have none of that either. So be it. The law is on the side of the normal. But for those who suffer a slight rise of temperature the names of Hare and Waterford and Canning ray out as beams of benignant lustre. Not, it is true, for the first hundred pages or so. There, as so often in these fat volumes, we flounder and threaten to sink in a plethora of aunts and uncles. We have to remind ourselves that there is such a thing as atmosphere; that the masters themselves often keep us waiting intolerably while they prepare our minds for whatever it may be—the surprise, or the lack of surprise. So Hare, too, takes his time; the charm steals upon us imperceptibly; by degrees we become almost one of the family, yet not quite, for our sense of the oddity of it all remains, and share the family dismay when Lord Stuart leaves the room—there was a ball going forward—and is next heard of in Iceland. Parties, he said, bored him—such were English aristocrats before marriage with intellect had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds. Parties bore them; they are off to Iceland."

(I quoted quite long to show the context. Here the writer(Virginia Woolf) is summarizing some biography titled The Story of Two Noble Lives with humorous touch.)

That sentence in pink... Is it correct? I think there should be "who" before "had adulterated". I don't get the exact meaning of the sentence because I don't understand the structure and I'm not familiar with the word "singularity." Given that "Lord Stuart" is already a married man and also an eccentric person, can I paraphrase it to like,

"Such were English aristocrats who had been intellectual before marriage but then corrupted the uniqueness of their minds"?
  

Top answer

I think it is a bit sarcastic. such were English aristocrats (English aristocrats acted and thought that way) before a marriage with a woman of intellect (a smart, intelligent woman) had altered their unique "upper class" mentality. If an English aristocratic man gets used to having intelligent conversations with his wife, parties full of gossip and idle chit-chat become horribly mundane and boring.

— AlpheccaStars

  • I think it is a bit sarcastic.
  • such were English aristocrats (English aristocrats acted and thought that way) before a marriage with a woman of intellect (a smart, intelligent woman) had altered their unique "upper class" mentality.
  • If an English aristocratic man gets used to having intelligent conversations with his wife, parties full of gossip and idle chit-chat become horribly mundane and boring.
  • He will do strange things, such as going to Iceland.
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10 Answers
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I think it is a bit sarcastic.

such were English aristocrats (English aristocrats acted and thought that way)
before a marriage with a woman of intellect (a smart, intelligent woman) had altered their unique "upper class" mentality.

If an English aristocratic man gets used to having intelligent conversations with his wife, parties full of gossip and idle chit-chat become hor
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Is it known that Lord Stuart's wife is an intellectual type?
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@GPY

Not especially. She is just a 'noble', 'good', and 'respectable' "high-born" victorian woman. Still, better than her husband, and more normal than him
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@AlpheccaStars
Then, I think, should it be "marriage with an intellect", or "marriage with intellects"? No?
I'm still not sure...
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I wonder whether "marriage with intellect" is not talking specifically about Lord Stuart's own marital circumstances but of a general social change whereby aristoctrats became less eccentric or idiosyncratic and more rational (i.e. "marriage" is used figuratively). I'm not at all certain though.
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Oh, I've never thought of that, a 'figurative' sense.

Then, how about my paraphrasing?

"Those English aristocrats who were not yet intellectual had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds that way."
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woodslimOh, I've never thought of that, a 'figurative' sense.Then, how about my paraphrasing?"Those English aristocrats who were not yet intellectual had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds that way."
No, it can't mean anything like that. The subject of "had adulterated" is "marriage with intellect", not "English aristocrats".
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Could you please explain the structure of this sentence?

"such were English aristocrats before/
marriage with intellect had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds".

Is this what you mean? It makes more sense but doesn't it need some relative noun or conjunction in it?

(What I had thought was,
"such were English aristocrats / before marriage with intellec
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woodslimsuch were English aristocrats before marriage with intellect had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds.
My paraphrase:

English aristocrats were like that before they smartened up and lost some of their eccentricities because of it.

CJ
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Aha!

"such were English aristocrats
/before marriage with intellect had adulterated the fine singularity of their minds."

I get it, finally.

Thank you so much to all of you!
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