Joseph

2 2 6 KNOWLEDGE

slept with more than one pair of eyes at a time, so he was able to see what was happening around him at all times. Someone who is 'Argus-eyed' is therefore all-seeing and all-knowing.

Woe betide the six-foot hero who escorts Mrs Proudie to her pew in red plush breeches, if he slips away to the neighbouring beer shop, instead of falling into the back seat appropriated to his use. Mrs Proudie has the eyes of Argus for such offenders.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE Barchester Towers, 1857

Janus Janus was one of the earliest of the Roman gods, depicted with two faces, one facing forwards and the other facing backwards. He was thus a god of wisdom and knowledge, as he had knowledge of the past and was able to see the future. He was also the god of doorways, and of beginnings and endings.

A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 'Friendship' in Essays, 1841

Sibyl A Sibyl was a woman who in antiquity was believed to be a prophetess or oracle. The most famous was the Sibyl of Cumae in south Italy, who guided Aeneas through the underworld.

woman for you, for any man. I am exhausted.' LAWRENCE DURRELL JUSt'lM, 1957

Topsy Topsy is a young slave girl in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. She has been kept in complete ignorance by her owners, and knows nothing about her family. When asked who she is and who were her parents, Topsy famously replies 'Never was born, never had no father, nor mother, nor nothin'. I 'spect I growed.'

tree of knowledge According to the Book of Genesis, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil grew in the Garden of Eden and bore the forbidden fruit which Eve was tempted to eat: 'the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked' (Gen. 3: 6-7). To 'eat from the tree of knowledge' is to obtain knowledge at the cost of a loss of innocence. • See special entry u ADAM

on p. 5.

I do not actually remember the curtains of my room being touched by the summer wind although I am sure they were; whenever I try to bring to mind this detail of the afternoon sensations it disappears, and I have knowledge of the image only as one who has swallowed some fruit of the Tree of Knowledge—its memory is usurped by the window of Mrs Van der Merwe's house and by the curtains disturbed, in the rainy season, by a trifling wind, unreasonably meaning a storm.

MURIEL SPARK 'The Curtain Blows by the Breeze' in Collected Stories, 1961

LACK OF CHANGE 2 2 7

Lack of Change

The main idea here is the prevention of, or the opposition to, change.

The theme also covers the notion of inflexibility. •See also Change,

Immobility.

Colonel Blimp Colonel Blimp is the name of a pompous, obese, elderly character invented by cartoonist David Low during the Second World War. His name has come to represent anyone with reactionary Establishment opinions, inflexible in his opposition to anything new.

'Well, he's a damn sight more interesting than Colonel Blimp,' Miriam said. 'He's a sensible generous warm-hearted man. Not a stuffed shirt trying to find something to do to fill in his retirement'

PHILIPPA CRECORY Perfectly Correct, 1997

Canute Canute (d. 1035) was a Danish-born king of England, Denmark, and Norway. According to the famous story, Canute reproved his flattering courtiers by demonstrating that, although he was king, he did not have the power to stop the incoming tide. He is traditionally remembered, however, as foolishly and obstinately attempting to stop the tide and failing. He has come to stand for an attempt to prevent change, particularly a futile attempt.

Fifty is OK if it looks like 36 in full camera make-up—step forward, Joan Collins, Coldie Hawn—but even the most imaginative and prestigious photographers find it hard to offer us any variety of woman at that age. Following the American model, you spend a great deal of your time, money and energy attempting, Canute-like, to hold back the tide of age.

The Independent, 1997

Luddites The Luddites were groups of early 19th-century English textile workers who believed that the introduction of new machinery was threatening their jobs. They responded by breaking up the machines. The name derives from a workman called Ned Ludd, nicknamed 'King Ludd', who is thought to have destroyed two stocking frames. Anybody who opposes change, especially in the form of new technology, can be referred to as a Luddite.

Now this is most inconvenient. It is to throw a spanner into the very works of the machine—much as the Luddites at home.

TIMOTHY MO An Insular Possession, 1986

The whole apparatus of structuralist and post-structuralist thought is founded in fraudulence, speciousness, hopelessly ill-digested scientism, witting obfuscation and the hubris of a quasi-hieratic caste to whom compatriots meekly submit, lest they be reckoned intellectually Luddite.

The Observer, 1997

Medes and Persians In the Book of Daniel, King Darius signed a decree saying that for thirty days no one should pray to any God or man except the king. The king's officials called for him to 'establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which