The motif of disillusionment via a detail, goes back to the
Old Testament:
Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a
great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before
thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
This image's head was of fine gold,
his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
His legs of iron, his feet part of
iron and part of clay. (Daniel 2:31-33)
An example from Austria, in
the early years of the twentieth century:
Herr Professors
were demi-gods who had deigned to
descend from their Mount Olympus
to impart knowledge to that sub-human species in short pants known as Gymnasiasten. I have never forgotten the shock I experienced when I saw
one of my professors eat a ham sandwich during break.
-- George Clare, Last Waltz in
Vienna (1980), p. 54
We have examined another such sudden loss of reverence, this
time again involving the feet, here:
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