"Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, etiolates, and destroys."

Wrote Charles Caleb Colton in "Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think," in 1820:

That's quoted at the OED definition for "etiolate,"  which means "To lessen or undermine the strength, vigour, or effectiveness of (a quality, group, movement, etc.); to have a weakening effect upon." 

That's the second meaning. The oldest meaning is about plants: "To cause (a plant) to develop with reduced levels of chlorophyll (esp. by restricting light), causing bleaching of the green tissues, elongated internodes, weakened stems, deficiencies in vascular structure, and abnormally small leaves."

You take the plant out of the sun to etiolate it, but the woman needs to be kept out of the sun, lest she etiolate. So said Colton, anyway. He was one of the "boys" referenced in the more recent aphorism: "Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world/I want to be the one to walk in the sun...." The sun, Colton. 

But C.C. Colton is long gone. He died in 1832 — forever excluded from the sun — died of suicide, committed because, we're told, he had an illness that required surgery, and he dreaded surgery.

I'm reading about the word "etiolated" because I used it yesterday: "I'm collecting examples of this avoidance of the word 'woman' and the resultant etiolation of speech."

"She recalls an airline employee who glanced at her driver’s license and said, 'Oh, Jennifer Grey, like the actress.'"

"When Grey said, 'Actually, it is me,' the woman responded: 'I’ve seen Dirty Dancing a dozen times. I know Jennifer Grey. And you are not her.'... In the two hours she sat on a blue banquette in a Beverly Hills restaurant, matter-of-factly scooping a soft-boiled egg, spreading butter on rye toast and chatting about her memoir, only one person appeared to recognize Grey. The woman’s face lit up, then softened as if she’d spotted an old friend who’d survived a terrible ordeal."

From "Don’t Call Her ‘Baby.’ At 62, Jennifer Grey is Taking the Lead. In her memoir, 'Out of the Corner,' the 'Dirty Dancing' star opens up about rhinoplasty gone wrong, the implosion of her career and why she’s telling her story now" (NYT).

What a terrible mistake it is to think that your off-the-norm feature is dragging down the rest of your good looks rather than what's making you stand out! I was just having a conversation about Gene Tierney, the 1940s actress with an overbite, who said it was in her contract that they couldn't make her get her teeth fixed. Here's her NYT obituary: 

"What lessons could today's leaders learn from [Lincoln]?"

A question posed to University of Wisconsin history prof Stephen Kantrowitz (on the occasion of the release of the Spielberg movie "Lincoln"):

Lincoln learned from experience and grew while in office. Born and raised in a white supremacist society, he believed as late as the fall of 1862 that whites and blacks could not live together as equals and that, if freed en masse, blacks would have to depart the United States. But by the end of his life he came to understand the wartime struggles of slaves and free blacks as morally equivalent to those of the American Revolution, and to imagine a place for African-Americans as equal citizens of the republic. He did not confuse clarity of purpose with rigidity of outlook.

Also at the link, UW film prof Jeff Smith talks about movies about Presidents. What other films about Presidents should there be?

The big surprise is that there has been no biopic about George Washington. If Lincoln does well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jon Meacham’s book, “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House,” get optioned. Jackson’s persona lends itself to screen treatment.  And I have no doubt that Barack Obama will someday be profiled — he has made history, after all.

What's the best portrayal of a President in the movies? Smith says Henry Fonda in "Young Mr. Lincoln," but, as Smith notes, that film doesn't depict Lincoln as President.

The old film, directed by John Ford, has a murder trial at its center: Lincoln’s first real case as a lawyer in Springfield, Ill.

So you can put that film on your list of best depictions of lawyers. Smith notes that like "Young Mr. Lincoln," the new Lincoln movie concentrates on a brief slice of Lincoln's life. But the slice in Spielberg's movie is a grand achievement: the 13th Amendment. The choice of a grand or a little-know incident is going to make a big difference in the type of movie it is, and also Spielberg isn't John Ford. Nevertheless, both Henry Fonda and Daniel Day-Lewis are dreamy.