Mr O’Madden Burke’s strong weakness
U 7.592-4: Mr O’Madden
Burke fell back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
— Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
Mr
O’Madden Burke winces at the answer to Lenehan’s riddle about the Rose of Castile. The earliest examples of his expression "a strong
weakness" date from the 17th century, but in religious contexts:1
There is a strong weakenesse, and there is a weakeness that is weake in
deed.
Thomas Tuke, Picture of a True
Protestant (1609), p. 80
Therefore it is a very strong weakness or wilfulness in some who love to
turn Straws into Trees and Feathers into Birds, and not to leave things as
Christ hath left them …
Samuel Annesley, Casuistical
Morning-Exercises (1690), Sermon 10, p. 242
By
the 19th century it had developed (especially in Ireland) into yet another
well-worn catchphrase. It served as an expression describing cowardice, then
love:
Belpêche (the strong weakness of whose timidity was
overcome by the more powerful curiosity of seeing the result of his rival's
adventure)
Thomas Colley Grattan, High-ways
and by-ways (1827), p. 233
It is the bane of
youth — the heritage
Breeding us cowards
in our own despite,
Unmindful of the war
we have to wage;
Yea, this strong weakness doth o'ercome us quite,
Making us bear with
wrong, and pain, and slight …
Charles Whitehead, The solitary (1831),
p. 49
It was, indeed, Mrs.
Candy; won to the imprudence by the strong
weakness of love, she had prompted her maid to touch upon the future fate
of her mistress, herself hid the while among the bushes.
Douglas William Jerrold , Men of
character (1838), p. 138
But soon it was
(often humorously) used to allude to the strong national weakness of drink.
He came to Ireland on
the strength of his equity law, but he got a constitutional weakness
(laughter), and he did not go away on the strength of his constitutional law (laughter), unless it could be designated in the language of the west2 a strong weakness (great laughter).
Freeman's Journal (1843), 29 June
[T]he coachman, an
old rascal [...] who had what the Irish call a 'strong weakness' for liquor of any description.
Dublin University Magazine (1862), December p. 714/2
He was constantly
overtaken by what he termed "a
strong wakeness". When seized by one of these "turns", as he
called them, a seat on the nearest stone, and a long pull and a strong pull at
Maurice's flask were the only remedies ...
Bithia Mary Croker, Pretty Miss
Neville (1883), p. 75
The
paradox easily survived into the 20th century:
A Feminist aphorism
"We, of the weaker
sex, are stronger than the stronger sex, because of the strong weakness of the stronger for the weaker sex."
Idaho (Boise) Daily Statesman (1914),
29 January, p. 4
Beckett
provides its apotheosis:
One day, in a
positive geyser of confidence, he gave me an account of one of these "moving
pauses". He had a strong weakness
for oxymoron. In the same way he over-indulged in gin and tonic-water.
Samuel Beckett, More Pricks than
Kicks (1934; ed. 1972), p. 38
Curiously,
O’Madden Burke almost strips the expression of its oxymoronic character by
using it in a purely medical sense where a strong weakness usually leads to
fainting3:
"My child! my poor child!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Flaherty, sinking
into a chair and fainting. "Oh, botheration, isn't it enough to dhrive any
one on earth slap out of their senses, if they had fourteen instead of
seven," said Judy, bursting into a passion of tears. "The daughter
gone off, God alone knows where; and the mother, God be good to the poor
demented crater, fainting away as dead as a herring! What on earth will I do to
get her out of this fit?" And Judy ran away to get feathers to burn under
the nose of her mistress, which having done, she rubbed her hands and sprinkled
her face with water. "Murder! murder!" cried Judy, the tears running
down her face, "did any one ever see such a strong weakness? Ma'am, Ma'am, come to yourself a bit! just open
your eyes.
Marguerite Countess of Blessington, Country
Quarters (1850), p. 286
Harald Beck
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1 An even earlier French example already alludes to the strong weakness of love:
