“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart”
Does "at a sort of moral attention" mean the same moral level or something else? What's the meaning of "riotous excursions"? I cannot find this phrase in a dictionary.
Best Answer
“At a moral attention” is a military allusion, along with “in uniform”. To be “at attention” means to be in a formal military position. Its opposite is “at ease”. So, to be “at a moral attention” means to display a heightened moral behaviour or alertness, I would say.
“Riotous excursions” does not play on any idioms, by contrast. “Excursions”, here, are forays, or adventures, and “riotous” means wild and uncontrolled.
I’m not a great Gatsby fan, but you’ve selected a very elegant sentence here: two well crafted military allusions before the semicolon; and after it, the three adjective-noun pairs, “riotous excursions”, “privileged glimpses”, “human heart”, that come in an almost iambic rhythm.