CHAPTER THREE

37 Elizabeth . . . Cromwell . . . Charles Stuart: Elizabeth I (1533- 1603), daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, ruled as queen of England and Ireland from 1558-1603. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) helped defeat the Royalists in the English Civil War and ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death. Charles Stuart, Charles II (1630-85), restored the monarchy after the English Interregnum.

39 Adam influence and Greek revival: Robert Adam (1728-92) was a renowned neoclassical Scottish architect and interior designer. Greek Revival is a late neoclassical movement in architecture, inspired by Greek design.

46 The stars incline, they do not command: In Latin, Astra inclinant, non necessitant. A common Elizabethan astrological notion.

50 I’m going to make our fortune: What Steinbeck wrote in Sea of Cortez provides a gloss to Ethan’s decision and to the ethical issues of this novel: “There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we think always of wisdom, tolerance, kindliness, generosity, humility; and the qualities of cruelty, greed, self-interest, graspingness, and rapacity are universally considered undesirable. And yet in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success. . . . Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox.”