{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4171",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4171,
    "subject": "various New Sun/Proust quotes (+ Napoleon)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-08-18T22:38:30+00:00",
    "last": "2003-08-18T22:38:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0308-3933@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2003-08-18T22:38:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) various New Sun/Proust quotes (+ Napoleon)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I was just finishing up Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and was caught \noff guard by how many of my favorite Wolfe quotes come from book six (The \nFugitive, in my translation).  \"Love is the only divinity\", \"All things that \nwe consider imperishable tend to their own destruction\", \"Certain philosophers \naver that the real world is a construction of the mind\", \"Time turns our lies \ninto truth\", eating a Chatelaine to invoke involuntary memory instead of a \nMadeleine cookie, etc.\n\nI remember one debate that was innocuous enough last year in which we \ndiscussed Weer's answer to the riddle of Napoleon's hand in his coat from \nPeace.  Proust offers a joking answer: Napoleon took liqourice tablets for his \nliver which stained his books, and the liver bothered him so much that he \ngrabbed it all the time and eventually died of the ailment.  If you look it up \non the internet, most sites say that it was \"fashionable\" for a gentleman to \nhold his hand that way in portraits during Napoleon's time.  My own crude \ntheory back then was that Napoleon's documented erectile dysfunction occupied \nhim at all times, especially on the battle field, where some residual \nexcitement may have offerred some solace to his condition.  (A psychological \nPriapism in battle, perhaps?)  In any case, does anyone think that Proust's \nexplanation for the hand has anything to do with Alden Dennis Weer's \nexplanation?  It may be found in the beginning segments of Time Regained.\n\nJust a few worthless bits ...\nMarc Aramini"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}