In Chapter III of The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), we are introduced to the "love nest" of Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. And a nest it is, being a very small apartment overcrowded with large furniture that is ill-suited for the space. The apartment consists of a living room, dining room, bedroom, and bathroom, all small. The furniture is upholstered in a tapestried material, with a print of "ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles" (33). A photo on the wall that appears from afar to be a hen sitting on a rock turns out to be a photo of an old woman in a bonnet. Some magazines are on the table, scandal rags and a book called Simon Called Peter, which was a bestseller in the twenties, a kind of commentary on Myrtle's reading level and tastes. The apartment is at 158th Street, on the top floor of an elevator building, an area which seems to be on the verge of gentrification today, but which did not exactly qualify as prime New York real estate at that time. (For a photograph of this and other New York locations in the novel, see the link below.) Tom Buchanan is a very wealthy man, but he is not exactly going overboard for his mistress. This careful description of the apartment shows us the great divide in class. Myrtle's decoration of her apartment is tacky and tasteless, and Nick's astute eye catches every nuance of poor Myrtle's attempt to imitate the wealthy.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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