WHOLESOMENESS 4 1 3

Solomon's temple In 957 BC King Solomon built the Israelites' first temple on Mount Zion, Jerusalem (1 Kgs. 5-7 and 2 Chron. 3-4). The magnificence of this temple became legendary. Each room had walls panelled with cedar wood, carved with palm trees and cherubim, and overlaid with gold.

In this process the chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and luxurious; the shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the richness of tapestry; the brass handles of the chest of drawers were as golden knockers; and the carved bed-posts seemed to have some kinship with the magnificent pillars of Solomon's temple.

THOMAS HARDY Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 1891

Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715), known as the Sun King (Le Roi Soleil), whose palace, Versailles, was richly furnished, surrounded himself with wealth. He can stand for the embodiment of rich, lavish, and sumptuous splendour.

These two small tables were surrounded and bedecked by a buildup of objects, fabrics, and bibelots so lush it would have made the Sun King blink.

TOM WOLFE The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1987

Vanderbilt Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) was a US businessman and philanthropist who amassed a fortune from shipping and railroads. Subsequent generations of his family increased the family wealth and continued his philanthropy.

The word 'mural' suggests to most people either the wall spaces of Rockefeller

Center or the wealth of a Vanderbilt.

American Home, 1936

Wholesomeness

This theme is dominated by the American celebration of homely smalltown values as depicted in many films of the 1940s and 1950s. In a number of the quotations below the apparent wholesomeness being encountered is considered to be superficial or illusory. •See also Goodness,

Naivety.

Frank Capra Frank Capra (1897-1991) was an Italian-born US film director. Many of his films, such as Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), celebrate the idea of the humble common man whose idealism, honesty, and goodness always triumph over materialism, deceit, and selfishness. Such a rose-tinted view of the world

is sometimes referred to as 'Capraesque'.

But all the activity went on without raised voices, and even the cars that circled the square did it quietly. There wasn't a loud muffler to be heard anywhere. The town

WHOLESOMENESS 4 1 5

just the kind of Donna Reed mother a lonely little boy would invent.

ROBERT B. PARKER Thin Air, 1995

So far, they had not. She had visions of an eternally smiling Donna Reed gliding among the congregation like a ministering angel, but she still found herself standing awkwardly at Will's side, wondering if she was overdressed and trying without notable success to think of something she could possibly discuss with these people who seemed neither to read nor travel.

SHARYN MCCRUMB The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, 1996

Cliff Richard Cliff Richard (b. Harry Webb, 1940) is a British pop singer whose many successful recordings include 'Living Doll' and 'The Young Ones'. He became a born-again Christian in the 19 70s and since then has combined his pop career with evangelism. Cliff Richard is sometimes mentioned with reference to his clean-living image and his youthful looks.

'And I suppose you got nowhere at Brown's?' 'Squeaky clean.' 'Same here, this pair. They've got Cliff Richard in the front office and Mother Theresa doing the books!

ALEX KEEGAN Kingfisher, 1995

Norman Rockwell Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was a US illustrator and cartoonist best known for his covers for the magazine the Saturday Evening Post. These were typically idealized scenes of everyday small-town American life of the kind described in the Elizabeth Peters quotation below.

The charm was more than visual, however. It was equally compounded of nostalgia for a way of life that had not so much vanished as never really existed. Freckle-faced

boys riding bikes and healthy, pink-cheeked nuclear families dressed in their Sunday best, walking hand in hand toward a white, steepled church . . . A Norman Rockwell cover, flimsy as the paper on which it was printed, with ugly things hidden behind the pretty facade.

ELIZABETH PETERS Naked Once More, 1989

He reminded me of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover, the rural general practitioner about to remove a splinter from a tearful boy's finger. Kindly, gentle, wise, competent.

WILLIAM c. TAPPLY Tight Lines, 1992

Waltons The Waltons was a popular US television series (1972-81) based on the life of its creator, Earl Hamner Jr. Set in a poor area of Virginia during the Depression and the Second World War, the stories, often fairly sentimental, concerned the struggles and trials of a good-natured, honest family. The usual closing sequence, in which each member of the family called goodnight to the others, is much parodied. The Waltons can be alluded to in the context of a family that seems just too good to be true.

Stewart's early life, I learnt, was rather sweet and Waltons-like. He loved his father

and mother. He went to church.

WILLIAM LEITH in The Observer, 1997

4 1 6 WISDOM

Wisdom

Among the various wise teachers, counsellors, and judges grouped here, it is the name of SOLOMON that has been most widely regarded as synonymous with wisdom, now proverbially so. • See also Intelligence, Judgement and Decision, Knowledge, Stupidity.

Athene Athene (also called Pallas Athene) was the Greek goddess of wisdom and practical skills, known to the Romans as Minerva. In classical times the owl was regularly associated with her.

It did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave up trying to understand herself, and joined the vast armies of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by catchwords. . . . They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after virtue. . . . They have sinned against Eros and Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention, but by the ordinary course of nature, those allied deities will be avenged.

E. M. FORSTER A Room with a View, 1908

Confucius Confucius (551-479 BC) was a Chinese philosopher and teacher of ethics. He spent much of his life as a moral teacher of a group of disciples, expounding his ideas about the importance of practical codes of personal morality, etiquette, and statesmanship which formed the basis of the philosophy of Confucianism. His teachings and sayings were collected by his pupils after his death.

You would be better off at the present time to imagine yourself as one of the great shots of the day, or even a competent one, rather than as Confucius.

TIMOTHY MO An Insular Possession, 1986

Daniel Daniel was a Hebrew prophet (6th century BC) whose prophecies are contained in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. In the apocryphal Book of Susanna he is portrayed as a wise judge, proving the falsely accused Susanna to be innocent. In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Shylock praises Portia, who is disguised as a lawyer, with the words:

'A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel! 0 wise young judge, how I do honour thee!'

• See special entry • DANIEL on p. 86.

Weigh me the two, you Daniel, going to judgement, when your day shall come!

CHARLES DICKENS The Chimes, 1844

You nearly caught me, Major Scobie, that time. It was a matter of import duties, you remember. You could have caught me if you had told your policeman to say something a little different. I was quite overcome with astonishment, Major Scobie, to sit in a police court and hear true facts from the mouths of policemen. . . . I said to myself, Yusef, a Daniel has come to the Colonial Police.

GRAHAM GREENE The Heart of the Matter, 1948

Ganesha In Hinduism, Ganesha, the son of Siva and Parvati, is the elephant-