🎭 Draw a Veil: When Discretion Calls for Elegance 🕶️
📚 Definition:
To conceal; to say no more about something.
🌿 Origins and Examples:
This cliché from the mid-nineteenth century analogizes to hiding one’s face behind a veil, often used to gloss over the details of an embarrassing situation. Let’s journey back in time with long-known historian-turned-novelist Daniel Defoe, who beautifully illustrates this concept in “The True-born Englishman” (1701):
“Satyr, be kind! and draw a silent Veil! Thy native England’s vices to conceal.”
🔄 Related and Similar Terms:
- Hold one’s tongue: Stay silent or refrain from speaking.
- Keep it under wraps: Keep something secret.
- Whitewash: Conceal unpleasant facts.
- Brush under the carpet: Hide or ignore something.
😄 Humor-filled Quotes:
- “When my wife saw our account balance, I thought of drawing a veil, but she drew a spreadsheet instead.”
- “Child: Why is dad angry?
Mum: Let’s draw a veil over it, dear. Dad (in the background): Who left the fridge open?!”
📖 Suggested Literature, Books, Songs, Poetry, and Movies:
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Specifically when Hester Prynne keeps certain truths about her sin concealed).
- Hamlet by William Shakespeare (“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” often used to suggest someone is hiding something).
- It’s My Life by Bon Jovi (Sometimes you keep your exact motivation veiled behind the chorus).
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Maxim de Winter’s dark secret).
🌏 Inspiring Proverbs: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
Remember, not everything requires full disclosure. Some mysteries keep life enchanting! 🧐✨
Quiz
✨ Inspirational Farewell by F. A. Phantomwords:
“In every tale untold lies a world concealed for those daring to imagine. Seek not only the unveiled, but the innocence in the unseen, the beauty in the covered wounds, and always, the elegance in discretion.”
