Most of the time, the rural gentry was pulled apart by parochial interests and divided along geographic lines into blocs of regional power. Gentry militia in Luoshan county, for instance, reportedly refused to help the Guangshan gentry when it was under attack by the Communists.

If the priests of Diana of Ephesus castrated themselves and offered their genitals on the altar, it was because the phallus was the symbol of the dying body.

What impressed me particularly was the mental and muscular superiority of these two officers. Despite their age—the mate sixty-nine and the second mate at least fifty—their minds and their bodies had acted with the swiftness and accuracy of steel springs. They were potent. They were iron. They were perceivers, willers, and doers.

They just say ' too bad, so sad, bye bye.' And it is too bad, cause maybe they weren't being jerks or we could solve the problem easily.