Of thumbs
Tacitus reports, that amongst certain barbarian kings their manner was, when they would make a firm obligation, to join their right hands close to one another, and intertwist their thumbs; and when, by force of straining the blood, it appeared in the ends, they lightly pricked them with some sharp instrument, and mutually sucked them.
Physicians say that the thumbs are the master fingers of the hand, and that their Latin etymology is derived from “pollere.” The Greeks called them ‘Avtixeip’, as who should say, another hand. And it seems that the Latins also sometimes take it in this sense for the whole hand:
Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis,
Molli pollici nec rogata, surgit.
[“Neither to be excited by soft words or by the thumb.”—Mart., xii. 98, 8.]
It was at Rome a signification of favour to depress and turn in the thumbs:
Fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum:
[“Thy patron will applaud thy sport with both thumbs” —Horace.]
and of disfavour to elevate and thrust them outward:
Converso pollice vulgi,
Quemlibet occidunt populariter.
[“The populace, with inverted thumbs, kill all that come before them.”—Juvenal, iii. 36]
The Romans exempted from war all such as were maimed in the thumbs, as having no more sufficient strength to hold their weapons. Augustus confiscated the estate of a Roman knight who had maliciously cut off the thumbs of two young children he had, to excuse them from going into the armies; and, before him, the Senate, in the time of the Italic war, had condemned Caius Vatienus to perpetual imprisonment, and confiscated all his goods, for having purposely cut off the thumb of his left hand, to exempt himself from that expedition. Some one, I have forgotten who, having won a naval battle, cut off the thumbs of all his vanquished enemies, to render them incapable of fighting and of handling the oar. The Athenians also caused the thumbs of the AEginatans to be cut off, to deprive them of the superiority in the art of navigation.
In Lacedaemon, pedagogues chastised their scholars by biting their thumbs.
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Montaigne, Michel de. “Of thumbs.” . Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 22 Sep 2006. 04 Dec 2023 <http://essays.quotidiana.org/montaigne/thumbs/>.
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Martin, Edward Sanford (1856-1939)
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Meynell, Alice (1847-1922)
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More, Hannah (1745-1833)
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Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
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Wharton, Edith (1862-1937)
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Chronological
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (4-65)
Kenko, Yoshida (1283-1350)
Montaigne, Michel de (1533-1592)
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)
Clinton, Elizabeth (1575-1638)
Cornwallis, William (1579-1614)
Howell, James (1594-1666)
Felltham, Owen (1602-1668)
Browne, Thomas (1605-1682)
Hyde, Edward (1609-1674)
Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)
Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)
Culpeper, Thomas (1626-1697)
Temple, William (1628-1699)
Chudleigh, Mary (1656-1710)
Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Steele, Richard (1672-1729)
Haywood, Eliza (1693-1756)
Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Hume, David (1711-1776)
Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Goldsmith, Oliver (1735-1774)
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia (1743-1825)
More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Burney, Fanny (1752-1840)
Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Lamb, Mary (1764-1847)
Edgeworth, Maria (1767-1849)
Lamb, Charles (1775-1834)
Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)
Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)
Colton, Charles (1780-1832)
Hunt, Leigh (1784-1859)
De Quincey, Thomas (1785-1859)
Kirkland, Caroline (1801-1864)
Martineau, Harriet (1802-1876)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)
Fuller, Margaret (1810-1850)
Cooper, Susan Fenimore (1813-1894)
Jacobs, Harriet (1813-1897)
Plato, Ann (1820-?)
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895)
Smith, Alexander (1830-1867)
Bird, Isabella (1831-1904)
Twain, Mark (1835-1910)
Howells, William Dean (1837-1920)
Hamilton, Gail (1838-1896)
Meynell, Alice (1847-1922)
Osler, William (1849-1919)
Harrison, Jane Ellen (1850-1928)
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894)
Repplier, Agnes (1855-1950)
Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939)
Lee, Vernon (1856-1935)
Martin, Edward Sanford (1856-1939)
Cooper, Anna Julia (1858-1964)
Jerome, Jerome K. (1859-1927)
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860-1935)
Jacks, L. P. (1860-1955)
Guiney, Louise Imogen (1861-1920)
Benson, Arthur (1862-1925)
Wharton, Edith (1862-1937)
Bly, Nellie (1864-1922)
Far, Sui Sin (1865-1914)
Rhys, Grace Little (1865-1929)
Belloc, Hilaire (1870-1953)
Morris, Elisabeth (1870-1964)
Tomlinson, H. M. (1873-1958)
Chesterton, G. K. (1874-1936)
Zitkala-Ša (1876-1938)
Marquis, Don (1878-1937)
Gerould, Katharine Fullerton (1879-1944)
Milne, A. A. (1882-1956)
Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965)
Barbellion, W. N. P. (1889-1919)
Morley, Christopher (1890-1957)
Stein, Edith (1891-1942)
Women
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia (1743-1825) Bird, Isabella (1831-1904) Bly, Nellie (1864-1922) Burney, Fanny (1752-1840) Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673) Chudleigh, Mary (1656-1710) Clinton, Elizabeth (1575-1638) Cooper, Anna Julia (1858-1964) Cooper, Susan Fenimore (1813-1894) Edgeworth, Maria (1767-1849) Far, Sui Sin (1865-1914) Fuller, Margaret (1810-1850) Gerould, Katharine Fullerton (1879-1944) Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860-1935) Guiney, Louise Imogen (1861-1920) Hamilton, Gail (1838-1896) Harrison, Jane Ellen (1850-1928) Haywood, Eliza (1693-1756) Jacobs, Harriet (1813-1897) Kirkland, Caroline (1801-1864) Lamb, Mary (1764-1847) Lee, Vernon (1856-1935) Martineau, Harriet (1802-1876) Meynell, Alice (1847-1922) More, Hannah (1745-1833) Morris, Elisabeth (1870-1964) Plato, Ann (1820-?) Repplier, Agnes (1855-1950) Rhys, Grace Little (1865-1929) Stein, Edith (1891-1942) Wharton, Edith (1862-1937) Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797) Zitkala-Ša (1876-1938)
Essays
by Michel de Montaigne
Against idleness
All things have their season
Of anger
Of the battle of Dreux
Of cannibals
The ceremony of the interview of princes
Of coaches
Of constancy
Cowardice, the mother of cruelty
Of the custom of wearing clothes
Of the education of children
Of experience
Of the force of imagination
That the hour of parley is dangerous
Of idleness
Of the inconstancy of our actions
Of liars
Of a monstrous child
Of not communicating one’s honour
Not to counterfeit being sick
Of one defect in our government
Of the parsimony of the ancients
Of pedantry
Of posting
Of prayers
Of the punishment of cowardice
Of quick or slow speech
Of repentance
Of the Roman grandeur
Of a saying of Caesar
Of sleep
Of smells
Of sumptuary laws
That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances
That men are justly punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort that is not in reason to be defended
That men by various ways arrive at the same end
That men should not judge of our happiness till after our death
That our mind hinders itself
That the intention is judge of our actions
That the profit of one man is the damage of another
That the soul expends its passions upon false objects, where the true are wanting
That to study philosophy is to learn to die
That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life
That we laugh and cry for the same thing
Of thumbs
Tomorrow’s a new day
To the reader
Use makes perfect
Of the vanity of words
That we taste nothing pure
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Certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
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Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.