Actually, Billy’s outward listlessness was a screen. The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly.

Sometimes that lunch was in the form of three raw eggs and a sufuria because there were times Damiano thought it wise to cook in school during lunch hour. Come that hour and he would light a fire, break his eggs into the sufuria, fry them, eat them and then belch as if he had just demolished a six course buffet.

[T]he political activity which produced the rebellion against the Stuarts, saved the Scotch mind from stagnating, … When the contest was ended, and peace was restored, the faculties which, for three generations, had been exercised in resisting the executive authority, sought other employment, and found another field in which they could disport themselves. Hence it was, that the boldness which, in the seventeenth century, was practical, became, in the eighteenth century, speculative, and produced a literature, which attempted to unsettle former opinions, and to disturb the ancient landmarks of the human mind.

The comedies work in very obvious ways to feminize this socially-ominous triad of young fops, old lechers, and greedy businessmen.