Chapter Sonnambula to Sotenville of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Sorel (Agnes), surnamed La dame de Beauté, not from her personal beauty, but from the “château de Beauté,” on the banks of the Marne, given to her by Charles VII. (1409–1450).

Sorento (in Naples), the birthplace of Torquato Tasso, the Italian poet.

Sorrows of Werther, a mawkish, sentimental novel by Goethe (1774), once extremely popular. “Werther” is Goethe himself, who loves a married woman, and becomes disgusted with life because “[Char]lotte is the wife of his friend Kestner.”

Werther, infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of literature, gave birth to a race of sentimentalists, who raged and wailed in every part of the world till better light dawned on them, or at any rate till exhausted nature laid itself to sleep, and it was discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labour.—Carlyle.

Sosia (in Molière, Sosie), th e slave of Amphitryon. When Mercury assumes the form of Sosia, and Jupiter that of Amphitryon, the mistakes and confusion which arise resemble those of the brothers Antipholus and their servants the brothers Dromio, in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.—Plautus, Molière (1668), and Dryden (1690): Amphitryon.

His first name … looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly encounter his own duplicate.—C. Lamb.

Sosii, brothers, the name of two booksellers at Rome, referred to by Horace.

Sotenville (Mon. le baron de), father of Angélique, and father-in-law of George Dandin. His wife was of the house of Prudoterie, and both boasted that in 300 years no one of their distinguished lines ever swerved from virtue. “La bravoure n’y est pas plus héréditaire aux mâles, que la chasteté aux familles.” They lived with their son-in-law, who was allowed the honour of paying their debts, and receiving a snubbing every time he opened his mouth that he might be taught the mysteries of the haut monde.—Molière: George Dandin (1668).