Arcadia Thomasina Quotes

Septimus. When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be all alone, on an empty shore. Thomasina. Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?

THOMASINA: But then the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue!

THOMASINA: ....the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! -- can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides -- thousands of poems -- Aristotle's own library!....How can we sleep for grief? SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?

SEPTIMUS: When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore. THOMASINA: Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?

Thomasina: Septimus, what is carnal embrace? Septimus: Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.

Thomasina Correct? What was incorrect in it? (She looks into the book.) Alpha minus? Pooh! What is the minus for? Septimus For doing more than was asked. Thomasina You did not like my discovery? Septimus A fancy is not a discovery. Thomasina A gibe is not a rebuttal.

Each week I plot your equations dot for dot, xs against ys in all manner of algebraical relation, and every week they draw themselves as commonplace geometry, as if the world of forms were nothing but arcs and angles. God’s truth, Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose? Do we believe nature is written in numbers? Septimus We do. Thomasina Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture? Septimus I do not know. Thomasina Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet.

Thomasina (to Septimus) How is a ruined child different from a ruined castle? Septimus On such questions I defer to Mr Noakes. Noakes (out of his depth) A ruined castle is picturesque, certainly. Septimus That is the main difference. (to Brice) I teach the classical authors. If I do not elucidate their meaning, who will?

God’s truth, Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose? Do we believe nature is written in numbers? SEPTIMUS We do. THOMASINA Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture? SEPTIMUS I do not know. THOMASINA Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet. SEPTIMUS He has mastery of equations which lead into infinities where we cannot follow.