O Who will show me those delights on high?
Echo: I.
Thou Echo, thou art mortall, all men know.
Echo: No.
Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves?
Echo: Leaves.
And are there any leaves, that still abide?
Echo: Bide.
What leaves are they? impart the matter wholly.
Echo: Holy.
Are holy leaves the Echo then of blisse?
Echo: Yes.
Then tell me, what is that supreme delight?
Echo: Light.
Light to the minde: what shall the will enjoy?
Echo: Joy.
But are there cares and businesse with the pleasure?
Echo: Leisure.
Light, joy, and leisure; but shall they persever?
Echo: Ever.
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
17 July 2025
24 December 2024
from How to be Topp, chapter 5, How to be Topp in English (Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle)
i have said there only one peom on the english language e.g. The Brook which chater chater as it flo my dear it is obviously a girlie just like fotherington-tomas. However there are other peoms which creep in from time to time there is one which go
Har fleag har fleag har fleag onward
Into the er rode the 600.
There are as well lars porsena of clusium elegy in country churchyard loss of the royal george and chevy chase. Anything to do with dafodils is also grate favourite of english masters but then nothing is beyond them they will even set burns (rabbie) who is uterly weedy.
It is farely easy to be topp in english and sometimes you may find yourself even getting interested. If that happens of course you can always draw junctions and railway lines on your desk viz
16 August 2024
The Spell Against Spelling (George Starbuck)
(a poem to be inscribed in dark places and never to be spoken aloud)
My favorite student lately is the one who wrote about feeling clumbsy.
I mean if he wanted to say how it feels to be all thumbs he
Certainly picked the write language to right in in the first place.
I mean better to clutter a word up like the old Hearst place
Than to just walk off the job and not give a dam.
Another student gave me a diagragm.
"The Diagragm of the Plot in Henry the VIIIth."
Those, though, were instances of the sublime.
The wonder is in the wonders they can come up with every time.
Why do they all say heighth, but never weighth?
If chrystal can look like English to them, how come chryptic can't?
I guess cwm, chthonic, qanat, or quattrocento
Always gets looked up. But never momento.
Momento they know. Like wierd. Like differant.
It is a part of their deep deep-structure vocabulary:
Their stone axe, their dark bent-offering to the gods:
Their protoCro-Magnon pre-pre-sapient survival-against-cultural-odds.
You won't get me deputized in some Spelling Constabulary.
I'd sooner abandon the bag-toke-whiff system and go decimal.
I'm on their side. I better be, after my brush with "infinitessimal."
There it was, right where I put it, in my brand-new book.
And my friend Peter Davison read it, and he gave me this look,
And he held the look for a little while and said, "George..."
I needed my students at that moment. I, their Scourge.
I needed them. Needed their sympathy. Needed their care.
"Their their," I needed to hear them say, "their their."
You see, there are Spellers in this world, I mean mean ones too.
They shadow us around like a posse of Joe Btfsplks
Waiting for us to sit down at our study-desks and go shrdlu
So they can pop in at the windows saying "tsk tsk."
I know they're there. I know where the beggars are,
With their flash cards looking like prescriptions for the catarrh
And their mnemnmonics, blast 'em. They go too farrh.
I do not stoop to impugn, indict, or condemn;
But I know how to get back at the likes of thegm.
For a long time, I keep mumb.
I let 'em wait, while a preternatural calmn
Rises to me from the depths of my upwardly opened palmb.
Then I raise my eyes like some wizened-and-wisened gnolmbn,
Stranger to scissors, stranger to razor and coslmbn,
And I fix those birds with my gaze till my gaze strikes hoslgmbn,
And I say one word, and the word that I say is "Oslgmbnh."
"Om?" they inquire. "No, not exactly. Oslgmbnh.
Watch me carefully while I pronounce it because you've only got two more guesses
And you only get one more hint: there's an odd number of esses,
And you only get ten more seconds no nine more seconds no eight
And a wrong answer bumps you out of the losers' bracket
And disqualifies you for the National Spellathon Contestant jacket
And that's all the time extension you're going to gebt
So go pick up your consolation prizes from the usherebt
And don't be surprised if it's the bowdlerized regularized paperback abridgment of Pepys
Because around here, gentlemen, we play for kepys."
Then I drive off in my chauffeured Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
Like something out of the last days of Fellini's Rougham
And leave them smiting their brows and exclaiming to each other "Ougham!
O-U-G-H-A-M Ougham!" and tearing their hair.
Intricate are the compoundments of despair.
Well, brevity must be the soul of something-or-other.
Not, certainly, of spelling, in the good old mother
Tongue of Shakespeare, Raleigh, Marvell, and Vaughan.
But something. One finds out as one goes aughan.
My favorite student lately is the one who wrote about feeling clumbsy.
I mean if he wanted to say how it feels to be all thumbs he
Certainly picked the write language to right in in the first place.
I mean better to clutter a word up like the old Hearst place
Than to just walk off the job and not give a dam.
Another student gave me a diagragm.
"The Diagragm of the Plot in Henry the VIIIth."
Those, though, were instances of the sublime.
The wonder is in the wonders they can come up with every time.
Why do they all say heighth, but never weighth?
If chrystal can look like English to them, how come chryptic can't?
I guess cwm, chthonic, qanat, or quattrocento
Always gets looked up. But never momento.
Momento they know. Like wierd. Like differant.
It is a part of their deep deep-structure vocabulary:
Their stone axe, their dark bent-offering to the gods:
Their protoCro-Magnon pre-pre-sapient survival-against-cultural-odds.
You won't get me deputized in some Spelling Constabulary.
I'd sooner abandon the bag-toke-whiff system and go decimal.
I'm on their side. I better be, after my brush with "infinitessimal."
There it was, right where I put it, in my brand-new book.
And my friend Peter Davison read it, and he gave me this look,
And he held the look for a little while and said, "George..."
I needed my students at that moment. I, their Scourge.
I needed them. Needed their sympathy. Needed their care.
"Their their," I needed to hear them say, "their their."
You see, there are Spellers in this world, I mean mean ones too.
They shadow us around like a posse of Joe Btfsplks
Waiting for us to sit down at our study-desks and go shrdlu
So they can pop in at the windows saying "tsk tsk."
I know they're there. I know where the beggars are,
With their flash cards looking like prescriptions for the catarrh
And their mnemnmonics, blast 'em. They go too farrh.
I do not stoop to impugn, indict, or condemn;
But I know how to get back at the likes of thegm.
For a long time, I keep mumb.
I let 'em wait, while a preternatural calmn
Rises to me from the depths of my upwardly opened palmb.
Then I raise my eyes like some wizened-and-wisened gnolmbn,
Stranger to scissors, stranger to razor and coslmbn,
And I fix those birds with my gaze till my gaze strikes hoslgmbn,
And I say one word, and the word that I say is "Oslgmbnh."
"Om?" they inquire. "No, not exactly. Oslgmbnh.
Watch me carefully while I pronounce it because you've only got two more guesses
And you only get one more hint: there's an odd number of esses,
And you only get ten more seconds no nine more seconds no eight
And a wrong answer bumps you out of the losers' bracket
And disqualifies you for the National Spellathon Contestant jacket
And that's all the time extension you're going to gebt
So go pick up your consolation prizes from the usherebt
And don't be surprised if it's the bowdlerized regularized paperback abridgment of Pepys
Because around here, gentlemen, we play for kepys."
Then I drive off in my chauffeured Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
Like something out of the last days of Fellini's Rougham
And leave them smiting their brows and exclaiming to each other "Ougham!
O-U-G-H-A-M Ougham!" and tearing their hair.
Intricate are the compoundments of despair.
Well, brevity must be the soul of something-or-other.
Not, certainly, of spelling, in the good old mother
Tongue of Shakespeare, Raleigh, Marvell, and Vaughan.
But something. One finds out as one goes aughan.
21 March 2021
from My Family and Other Animals, The Return (Gerald Durrell)
Our mountain of possessions was arranged in the Customs shed, and Mother stood by it jangling an enormous
bunch of keys. Outside in the brilliant white sunlight the
rest of the family talked with Theodore and Kralefsky, who
had come to see us off. The Customs officer made his appearance and wilted slightly at the sight of our mound of
baggage, crowned with a cage from which the Magenpies
peered malevolently. Mother smiled nervously and shook her keys, looking as guilty as a diamond smuggler. The Customs man surveyed Mother and the luggage, tightened his
belt, and frowned.
'Theese your?' he inquired, making quite sure.
'Yes, yes, all mine,' twittered Mother, playing a rapid
solo on her keys. 'Did you want me to open anything?'
The Customs man considered, pursing his lips thoughtfully.
'Hoff yew any noo clooes?' he asked.
'I’m sorry?' said Mother.
'Hoff yew any noo clooes?'
Mother cast a desperate glance round for Spiro.
'I’m so sorry. I didn’t quite catch ...'
'Hoff yew any noo clooes ... any noo clooes?'
Mother smiled with desperate charm.
'I’m sorry I can’t quite ...'
The Customs man fixed her with an angry eye.
'Madame,' he said ominously, leaning over the counter, 'do yew spik English?'
'Oh, yes,' exclaimed Mother, delighted at having understood him, 'yes, a little.'
She was saved from the wrath of the man by the timely
arrival of Spiro. He lumbered in, sweating profusely,
soothed Mother, calmed the Customs man, explained that
we had not had any new clothes for years, and had the
luggage shifted outside on to the quay almost before anyone could draw breath. Then he borrowed the Customs
man’s piece of chalk and marked all the baggage himself, so
there would be no further confusion.
from 'On Keeping a Notebook' (Joan Didion)
It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.
27 March 2019
from The Once and Future King, The Sword in the Stone, chapter 18 (T.H. White)
The sun, as it rose, tinged the quick-silver of the creeks and the gleaming slime itself with flame. The curlew, who had been piping their mournful plaints since long before the light, flew now from weed-bank to weed-bank. The widgeon, who had slept on water, came whistling their double notes, like whistles from a Christmas cracker. The mallard toiled from land, against the wind. The redshanks scuttled and prodded like mice. A cloud of tiny dunlin, more compact than starlings, turned in the air with the noise of a train. The black-guard of crows rose from the pine trees on the dunes with merry cheers. Shore birds of every sort populated the tide line, filling it with business and beauty.
The dawn, the sea-dawn and the mastery of ordered flight, were of such intense beauty that the boy was moved to sing. He wanted to cry a chorus to life, and, since a thousand geese were on the wing about him, he had not long to wait. The lines of these creatures, wavering like smoke upon the sky as they breasted the sunrise, were all at once in music and in laughter. Each squadron of them was in different voice, some larking, some triumphant, some in sentiment or glee. The vault of daybreak filled itself with heralds, and this is what they sang:
You turning world, pouring beneath our pinions,
Hoist the hoar sun to welcome morning's minions.
See, on each breast the scarlet and vermilion,
Hear, from each throat the clarion and carillion.
Hark, the wild wandering lines in black battalions,
Heaven's horns and hunters, dawn-bright hounds and stallions
Free, free: far, far: and fair on wavering wings
Comes Anser albifrons, and sounds, and sings.
The dawn, the sea-dawn and the mastery of ordered flight, were of such intense beauty that the boy was moved to sing. He wanted to cry a chorus to life, and, since a thousand geese were on the wing about him, he had not long to wait. The lines of these creatures, wavering like smoke upon the sky as they breasted the sunrise, were all at once in music and in laughter. Each squadron of them was in different voice, some larking, some triumphant, some in sentiment or glee. The vault of daybreak filled itself with heralds, and this is what they sang:
You turning world, pouring beneath our pinions,
Hoist the hoar sun to welcome morning's minions.
See, on each breast the scarlet and vermilion,
Hear, from each throat the clarion and carillion.
Hark, the wild wandering lines in black battalions,
Heaven's horns and hunters, dawn-bright hounds and stallions
Free, free: far, far: and fair on wavering wings
Comes Anser albifrons, and sounds, and sings.
18 September 2018
An Infinite Number of Occasional Tables (Les Barker)
I've got an occasional table
There it is over there
You can tell it's an occasional table
Today's its day off, it's a chair
I've got an occasional table
I can't seem to get it to settle
It's all been a bit unexpected
I thought I was buying a kettle
I took it upstairs on the bus
I always get the bus back from town
It was then it turned into a wardrobe
Took six of us to get it back down
I've got an occasional table
But some of the time I've not
I always rush me dinner
You never know how long you've got
I think I might have another
Excuse the element of doubt
It's the kind of occasional table
That's only in when you're out
I thought if I had two they might breed
I really quite fancy a set
But with them both being occasional
I don't think they've actually met
I've got some occasional tables
I'm never quite sure where they are
I'd quite like to have a settee but
So far they've not gone, so far
I think therefore I am
All we believe stems from this
Except my occasional table
Which only occasionally, is
Perhaps there's a parallel universe
Where they all go to live quite a lot
Where they're called usual tables
And only occasionally, not
An infinite number of occasional tables
Well then sure there was always one there
I've got an occasional table
Look, here it is, it's a chair
There it is over there
You can tell it's an occasional table
Today's its day off, it's a chair
I've got an occasional table
I can't seem to get it to settle
It's all been a bit unexpected
I thought I was buying a kettle
I took it upstairs on the bus
I always get the bus back from town
It was then it turned into a wardrobe
Took six of us to get it back down
I've got an occasional table
But some of the time I've not
I always rush me dinner
You never know how long you've got
I think I might have another
Excuse the element of doubt
It's the kind of occasional table
That's only in when you're out
I thought if I had two they might breed
I really quite fancy a set
But with them both being occasional
I don't think they've actually met
I've got some occasional tables
I'm never quite sure where they are
I'd quite like to have a settee but
So far they've not gone, so far
I think therefore I am
All we believe stems from this
Except my occasional table
Which only occasionally, is
Perhaps there's a parallel universe
Where they all go to live quite a lot
Where they're called usual tables
And only occasionally, not
An infinite number of occasional tables
Well then sure there was always one there
I've got an occasional table
Look, here it is, it's a chair
21 August 2017
from The Young Visiters, chapter 9, A Proposale (Daisy Ashford)
Next morning while imbibing his morning tea beneath his pink silken quilt Bernard decided he must marry Ethel with no more delay. I love the girl he said to himself and she must be mine but I somehow feel I can not propose in London it would not be seemly in the city of London. We must go for a day in the country and when surrounded by the gay twittering of the birds and the smell of the cows I will lay my suit at her feet and he waved his arm wildly at the gay thought. Then he sprang from bed and gave a rat tat at Ethels door.
Are you up my dear he called.
Well not quite said Ethel hastilly jumping from her downy nest.
Be quick cried Bernard I have a plan to spend a day near Windsor Castle and we will take our lunch and spend a happy day.
Oh Hurrah shouted Ethel I shall soon be ready as I had my bath last night so wont wash very much now.
No dont said Bernard and added in a rarther fervent tone through the chink of the door you are fresher than the rose my dear no soap could make you fairer.
Then he dashed off very embarrased to dress. Ethel blushed and felt a bit excited as she heard the words and she put on a new white muslin dress in a fit of high spirits. She looked very beautifull with some red roses in her hat and the dainty red ruge in her cheeks looked quite the thing. Bernard heaved a sigh and his eyes flashed as he beheld her and Ethel thorght to herself what a fine type of manhood he reprisented with his nice thin legs in pale broun trousers and well fitting spats and a red rose in his button hole and rarther a sporting cap which gave him a great air with its quaint check and little flaps to pull down if necesarry. Off they started the envy of all the waiters.
They arrived at Windsor very hot from the jorney and Bernard at once hired a boat to row his beloved up the river. Ethel could not row but she much enjoyed seeing the tough sunburnt arms of Bernard tugging at the oars as she lay among the rich cushons of the dainty boat. She had a rarther lazy nature but Bernard did not know of this. However he soon got dog tired and sugested lunch by the mossy bank.
Oh yes said Ethel quickly opening the sparkling champaigne.
Dont spill any cried Bernard as he carved some chicken.
They eat and drank deeply of the charming viands ending up with merangs and choclates.
Let us now bask under the spreading trees said Bernard in a passiunate tone.
Oh yes lets said Ethel and she opened her dainty parasole and sank down upon the long green grass. She closed her eyes but she was far from asleep. Bernard sat beside her in profound silence gazing at her pink face and long wavy eye lashes. He puffed at his pipe for some moments while the larks gaily caroled in the blue sky. Then he edged a trifle closer to Ethels form.
Ethel he murmured in a trembly voice.
Oh what is it said Ethel hastily sitting up.
Words fail me ejaculated Bernard horsly my passion for you is intense he added fervently. It has grown day and night since I first beheld you.
Oh said Ethel in supprise I am not prepared for this and she lent back against the trunk of the tree.
Bernard placed one arm tightly round her. When will you marry me Ethel he uttered you must be my wife it has come to that I love you so intensly that if you say no I shall perforce dash my body to the brink of yon muddy river he panted wildly.
Oh dont do that implored Ethel breathing rarther hard.
Then say you love me he cried.
Oh Bernard she sighed fervently I certinly love you madly you are to me like a Heathen god she cried looking at his manly form and handsome flashing face I will indeed marry you.
How soon gasped Bernard gazing at her intensly.
As soon as possible said Ethel gently closing her eyes.
My Darling whispered Bernard and he seiezed her in his arms we will be marrid next week.
Oh Bernard muttered Ethel this is so sudden.
No no cried Bernard and taking the bull by both horns he kissed her violently on her dainty face. My bride to be he murmered several times.
Ethel trembled with joy as she heard the mistick words.
Oh Bernard she said little did I ever dream of such as this and she suddenly fainted into his out stretched arms.
Oh I say gasped Bernard and laying the dainty burden on the grass he dashed to the waters edge and got a cup full of the fragrant river to pour on his true loves pallid brow.
She soon came to and looked up with a sickly smile Take me back to the Gaierty hotel she whispered faintly.
With plesure my darling said Bernard I will just pack up our viands ere I unloose the boat.
Ethel felt better after a few drops of champagne and began to tidy her hair while Bernard packed the remains of the food. Then arm in arm they tottered to the boat.
I trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured Bernard as he helped her in.
Oh no I am very strong said Ethel I fainted from joy she added to explain matters.
Oh I see said Bernard handing her a cushon well some people do he added kindly and so saying they rowed down the dark stream now flowing silently beneath a golden moon. All was silent as the lovers glided home with joy in their hearts and radiunce on their faces only the sound of the mystearious water lapping against the frail vessel broke the monotony of the night.
So I will end my chapter.
Are you up my dear he called.
Well not quite said Ethel hastilly jumping from her downy nest.
Be quick cried Bernard I have a plan to spend a day near Windsor Castle and we will take our lunch and spend a happy day.
Oh Hurrah shouted Ethel I shall soon be ready as I had my bath last night so wont wash very much now.
No dont said Bernard and added in a rarther fervent tone through the chink of the door you are fresher than the rose my dear no soap could make you fairer.
Then he dashed off very embarrased to dress. Ethel blushed and felt a bit excited as she heard the words and she put on a new white muslin dress in a fit of high spirits. She looked very beautifull with some red roses in her hat and the dainty red ruge in her cheeks looked quite the thing. Bernard heaved a sigh and his eyes flashed as he beheld her and Ethel thorght to herself what a fine type of manhood he reprisented with his nice thin legs in pale broun trousers and well fitting spats and a red rose in his button hole and rarther a sporting cap which gave him a great air with its quaint check and little flaps to pull down if necesarry. Off they started the envy of all the waiters.
They arrived at Windsor very hot from the jorney and Bernard at once hired a boat to row his beloved up the river. Ethel could not row but she much enjoyed seeing the tough sunburnt arms of Bernard tugging at the oars as she lay among the rich cushons of the dainty boat. She had a rarther lazy nature but Bernard did not know of this. However he soon got dog tired and sugested lunch by the mossy bank.
Oh yes said Ethel quickly opening the sparkling champaigne.
Dont spill any cried Bernard as he carved some chicken.
They eat and drank deeply of the charming viands ending up with merangs and choclates.
Let us now bask under the spreading trees said Bernard in a passiunate tone.
Oh yes lets said Ethel and she opened her dainty parasole and sank down upon the long green grass. She closed her eyes but she was far from asleep. Bernard sat beside her in profound silence gazing at her pink face and long wavy eye lashes. He puffed at his pipe for some moments while the larks gaily caroled in the blue sky. Then he edged a trifle closer to Ethels form.
Ethel he murmured in a trembly voice.
Oh what is it said Ethel hastily sitting up.
Words fail me ejaculated Bernard horsly my passion for you is intense he added fervently. It has grown day and night since I first beheld you.
Oh said Ethel in supprise I am not prepared for this and she lent back against the trunk of the tree.
Bernard placed one arm tightly round her. When will you marry me Ethel he uttered you must be my wife it has come to that I love you so intensly that if you say no I shall perforce dash my body to the brink of yon muddy river he panted wildly.
Oh dont do that implored Ethel breathing rarther hard.
Then say you love me he cried.
Oh Bernard she sighed fervently I certinly love you madly you are to me like a Heathen god she cried looking at his manly form and handsome flashing face I will indeed marry you.
How soon gasped Bernard gazing at her intensly.
As soon as possible said Ethel gently closing her eyes.
My Darling whispered Bernard and he seiezed her in his arms we will be marrid next week.
Oh Bernard muttered Ethel this is so sudden.
No no cried Bernard and taking the bull by both horns he kissed her violently on her dainty face. My bride to be he murmered several times.
Ethel trembled with joy as she heard the mistick words.
Oh Bernard she said little did I ever dream of such as this and she suddenly fainted into his out stretched arms.
Oh I say gasped Bernard and laying the dainty burden on the grass he dashed to the waters edge and got a cup full of the fragrant river to pour on his true loves pallid brow.
She soon came to and looked up with a sickly smile Take me back to the Gaierty hotel she whispered faintly.
With plesure my darling said Bernard I will just pack up our viands ere I unloose the boat.
Ethel felt better after a few drops of champagne and began to tidy her hair while Bernard packed the remains of the food. Then arm in arm they tottered to the boat.
I trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured Bernard as he helped her in.
Oh no I am very strong said Ethel I fainted from joy she added to explain matters.
Oh I see said Bernard handing her a cushon well some people do he added kindly and so saying they rowed down the dark stream now flowing silently beneath a golden moon. All was silent as the lovers glided home with joy in their hearts and radiunce on their faces only the sound of the mystearious water lapping against the frail vessel broke the monotony of the night.
So I will end my chapter.
05 May 2016
from The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (Jorge Luis Borges)
These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies recall those
which Dr Franz Kuhn attributes to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia
entitled The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its remote pages
it is written that the animals can be divided into:
(a) belonging to the emperor,
(b) embalmed,
(c) tame,
(d) sucking pigs,
(e) sirens,
(f) fabulous,
(g) stray dogs,
(h) included in the present classification,
(i) that tremble as if they were mad,
(j) innumerable,
(k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush,
(l) et cetera,
(m) having just broken the water pitcher,
(n) that from a long way off look like flies.
(a) belonging to the emperor,
(b) embalmed,
(c) tame,
(d) sucking pigs,
(e) sirens,
(f) fabulous,
(g) stray dogs,
(h) included in the present classification,
(i) that tremble as if they were mad,
(j) innumerable,
(k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush,
(l) et cetera,
(m) having just broken the water pitcher,
(n) that from a long way off look like flies.
24 December 2014
from The Child that Books Built, chapter three, The Island (Francis Spufford)
At the same time, I couldn't read quite a lot of the words in The Hobbit. I had accelerated into reading faster than my understanding had grown. If I press my memory for the sensation of reading the second half of the book, when I was flying through the story, I remember, simultaneous with the new liquid smoothness, a constant flicker of incomprehensibility. There were holes in the text corresponding to the parts I couldn't understand. Words like prophesying, rekindled and adornment had never been spoken in my hearing. No one had ever told me aloud to behold something, and I didn't know that vessels could be cups and bowls as well as ships. I could say these words over, and shape my mouth around their big sounds. I could enjoy their heft in the sentences. They were obviously the special vocabulary that was apt for the slaying of dragons and the fighting of armies: words that conjured the sound of trumpets. But for all the meaning I obtained from them, they might as well not have been printed. When I speeded up, and up, and my reading became fluent, it was partly because I had learned how to ignore such words efficiently. I methodically left out chunks. I marked them to be sorted out later, by slower and more patient mental processes; I allowed each one to brace a blank space of greater or lesser size in its sentence; I grabbed the gist, which seemed to survive even in sentences that were mostly hole; and I sped on.
from Miracles, chapter IX (C.S. Lewis)
I spoke just now about the Latinity of Latin. It is more evident to us than it can have been to the Romans. The Englishness of English is audible only to those who know some other language as well. In the same way and for the same reason, only Supernaturalists really see Nature. You must go a little away from her, and then turn round, and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature's current. To treat her as God, or as Everything, is to lose the whole pith and pleasure of her. Come out, look back, and then you will see ... this astonishing cataract of bears, babies, and bananas: this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids, oranges, cancers, canaries, fleas, gases, tornadoes and toads. How could you ever have thought this was the ultimate reality? How could you ever have thought that it was merely a stage-set for the moral drama of men and women? She is herself. Offer her neither worship nor contempt. Meet her and know her. If we are immortal, and if she is doomed (as the scientists tell us) to run down and die, we shall miss this half-shy and half-flamboyant creature, this ogress, this hoyden, this incorrigible fairy, this dumb witch. But the theologians tell us that she, like ourselves, is to be redeemed. The 'vanity' to which she was subjected was her disease, not her essence. She will be cured, but cured in character: not tamed (Heaven forbid) nor sterilised. We shall still be able to recognise our old enemy, friend, playfellow and foster-mother, so perfected as to be not less, but more herself. And that will be a merry meeting.
05 March 2014
from Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
I would not have gone so far as to
fight for Kurtz, but I went for him near enough to a lie.
You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am
straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me.
There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick,
like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose.
Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool
there believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence
in Europe. I became in an instant as much of a pretense as the rest
of the bewitched pilgrims. This simply because I had a notion
it somehow would be of help to that Kurtz whom at the time
I did not see - you understand. He was just a word for me.
I did not see the man in the name any more than you do.
Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything?
It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt,
because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation,
that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment
in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured
by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams ...'
He was silent for a while.
'... No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation
of any given epoch of one's existence - that which makes its truth,
its meaning - its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible.
We live, as we dream - alone ...'
He paused again as if reflecting, then added -
'Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then.
You see me, whom you know ...'
It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see
one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been
no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody.
The others might have been asleep, but I was awake.
I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word,
that would give me the clew to the faint uneasiness inspired
by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human
lips in the heavy night-air of the river.
Noble, from Exercises in Style (Raymond Queneau, trans. Barbara Wright)
At the hour when the rosy fingers of the dawn start to crack, I climbed, rapid as a tongue of flame, onto a bus - mighty of stature and with cowlike eyes - of the S line of a sinuous course. I noticed, with the precision and acuity of a Red Indian on the warpath, the presence of a young man whose neck was longer than that of the swift-footed giraffe, and whose soft hat was adorned with a plait like the hero of an exercise in style. Baleful Discord with breasts of soot came with her mouth reeking of a nothingness of toothpaste. Discord, I say, came to breathe her malignant virus between this young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat, and a passenger of irresolute and milk-white mien. The former addressed himself to the latter in these terms: 'I say, you wicked man, anyone might think you were treading on my toes on purpose!' Having said these words, the young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat quickly went and sat down.
Later, in the Cour de Rome of majestic proportions, I again caught sight of the young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat, accompanied by a friend, an arbiter elegantiarum, who was uttering these words of censure which I could hear with my agile ear - censure which was directed to the most exterior garment of the young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat: 'You ought to diminish its opening by the addition or elevation of a button to or on its circular periphery.'
Later, in the Cour de Rome of majestic proportions, I again caught sight of the young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat, accompanied by a friend, an arbiter elegantiarum, who was uttering these words of censure which I could hear with my agile ear - censure which was directed to the most exterior garment of the young man with the giraffe-like neck and the plait round his hat: 'You ought to diminish its opening by the addition or elevation of a button to or on its circular periphery.'
22 January 2014
from 'The prophet' (Edward Docx)
The spotlight falls. And Dylan begins to sing.
I say sing. Imagine an Old Testament prophet come down from the mountains of the desert. Imagine he has 70 years’ worth of visions to impart in rich and vivid verse - visions comprised for the most part of searing and timeless human truth about love and god and man. But imagine that he has neither heard nor spoken a single word during his many decades alone - that his voice is therefore as cracked as the tablets he bears and as croaky as the rocks among which he has lived, and that furthermore he has no sense of the speed, nor the sound, nor the stresses, nor the syntax of conventional speech. Now imagine that an unusually convincing joker selling ecstasy tablets and helium balloons has waylaid him on the way to the amphitheatre. And, finally, imagine that when at last he steps up before you to discourse upon what is undoubtedly the quintessence of existence, he chooses to do so by intoning through a hookah pipe using only the five notes of the pentatonic scale. That’s what I mean by singing.
I say sing. Imagine an Old Testament prophet come down from the mountains of the desert. Imagine he has 70 years’ worth of visions to impart in rich and vivid verse - visions comprised for the most part of searing and timeless human truth about love and god and man. But imagine that he has neither heard nor spoken a single word during his many decades alone - that his voice is therefore as cracked as the tablets he bears and as croaky as the rocks among which he has lived, and that furthermore he has no sense of the speed, nor the sound, nor the stresses, nor the syntax of conventional speech. Now imagine that an unusually convincing joker selling ecstasy tablets and helium balloons has waylaid him on the way to the amphitheatre. And, finally, imagine that when at last he steps up before you to discourse upon what is undoubtedly the quintessence of existence, he chooses to do so by intoning through a hookah pipe using only the five notes of the pentatonic scale. That’s what I mean by singing.
20 October 2013
from 'Subject Reviews: Roman Literature', Greece & Rome 39 (1992) (Don Fowler)
The lack of detailed modern commentaries on the second half
of the Aeneid has also long been
felt, and is at last being addressed.
Oxford now offer us Book 10, and Cambridge Book 11. Steven Harrison’s **BVergil, Aeneid 102 is a revision of his doctoral dissertation supervised
by Nisbet and Horsfall, and it is a fine piece of work. Like other recent volumes in the Oxford
Classical Monographs series, it offers a translation as well as a text, plus an
introduction, detailed commentary, and an appendix ‘Some Aspects of Vergilian
Style’. The overall interpretation
is broadly Augustan, though Harrison’s earlier days in Balliol have not been
entirely expunged: the ‘glorification of Augustus’, we are told, is ‘full-hearted
and unambiguous’ (p. xxiv) but much more ambiguity is admitted in the presentation
of Aeneas and Jupiter (see, e.g., the excellent note on the Aegaeon simile for
Aeneas at 565-70, where he rightly resists Gordon Williams’s attempt to defuse the
simile with an assumption of embedded focalization, or the discussion of Jupiter’s
‘insincere temporizing’ on 111-12). Even if one admits that there ‘need not be a full typological
analogy between literary and historical characters’ (p. xxvi) this is a
difficult line to hold, and I think the Aeneid
is more disturbing of Augustan order than Harrison admits. In Vergilian studies, I am a great believer
in Solon on civil war (frr. 350-7 Martina): this is all a bit sane for me. The commentary especially is stuffed with really excellent
points, but they are not always developed enough and can be expressed with a
blandness which belies their interest.
In the appendix, for instance, we are told that Vergil ‘colours his
narrative’ with colloquialisms, the sort of metaphor which usually signals moronic
Edwardianism: but Harrison’s discussion of register in the commentary is
first-rate, with, for instance, the exact observation on the use of capillos at 832 that it is a touch of ‘pathetic
realism’. Similarly in the
appendix, we are told that the pastoral language used of Cycnus and Mezentius ‘provides
variation and contrast with the world of epic’, but on the latter passage (835-6)
he observes, more exactly, that the locus
amoenus description ‘provides a
pointed contrast with the surrounding sufferings of battle’. If only he hadn’t brought in variety, another
concept whose use inevitably signals an uninteresting critic, as if the Aeneid was the London Palladium. If there is one pressing need at my alma mater it is to kill off Oxford ‘elegance’,
which is like the miasma that seeps up from the Thames on wet November evenings
and rots the brains. ‘\flameoff\’
as they say on the computer nets: this is too good a commentary to be used for
sermonizing. It is a major
contribution to Vergilian studies which we shall all find ourselves using
constantly. I hope a paperback will
be produced at some stage to make it available to poorer scholars; if so, someone
in OUP might like to check what happened to the final proof of p. 179.
13 January 2011
Whalesong (Sophie Stephenson-Wright)
I boom-mumble I bass-blow
I hull-heavy I big/slow
I boat-bump I limpet-skin
I soft-sink I sky-swim
I sea-search I salt-swallow
I bone-backed I fluke-follow
I gulf-cross I listen-talk
I moon-map I wave-walk
I tail-turn I time-keep
I ship-wreck I song-seek
I blue-blood I grumble-sing
I fish-heart I dream king
I hull-heavy I big/slow
I boat-bump I limpet-skin
I soft-sink I sky-swim
I sea-search I salt-swallow
I bone-backed I fluke-follow
I gulf-cross I listen-talk
I moon-map I wave-walk
I tail-turn I time-keep
I ship-wreck I song-seek
I blue-blood I grumble-sing
I fish-heart I dream king
25 March 2010
The Annunciation and Passion (John Donne)
Tamely, frail body, abstain to-day; to-day
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who's all;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen;
At once a son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one —
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east —
Of th' angel's Ave, and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's Court of Faculties,
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these.
As by the self-fix'd Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th'other is, and which we say —
Because it strays not far — doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to him, we know,
And stand firm, if we by her motion go.
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud; to one end both.
This Church by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one;
Or 'twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes; He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords.
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came, and went away;
She sees Him nothing, twice at once, who's all;
She sees a cedar plant itself, and fall;
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive, yet dead;
She sees at once the Virgin Mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen;
At once a son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity;
At once receiver and the legacy.
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
Th' abridgement of Christ's story, which makes one —
As in plain maps, the furthest west is east —
Of th' angel's Ave, and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's Court of Faculties,
Deals, in sometimes, and seldom joining these.
As by the self-fix'd Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where th'other is, and which we say —
Because it strays not far — doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to him, we know,
And stand firm, if we by her motion go.
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar, doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud; to one end both.
This Church by letting those days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one;
Or 'twas in Him the same humility,
That He would be a man, and leave to be;
Or as creation He hath made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes; He shall come, He is gone;
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all,
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords.
This treasure then, in gross, my soul, uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.
14 February 2010
'Alleluia, dulce carmen' (anonymous, trans. J.M. Neale)
Alleluia, dulce carmen,
Vox perennis gaudii,
Alleluia laus suavis
Est choris coelestibus,
Quam canunt Dei manentes
In domo per saecula.
Alleluia laeta mater
Concivis Jerusalem:
Alleluia vox tuorum
Civium gaudentium:
Exsules nos flere cogunt
Babylonis flumina.
Alleluia non meremur
In perenne psallere;
Alleluia nos reatus
Cogit intermittere;
Tempus instat quo peracta
Lugeamus crimina.
Unde laudando precamur
Te beata Trinitas,
Ut tuum nobis videre
Pascha des in aethere,
Quo tibi laeti canamus
Alleluia perpetim.
Alleluya, song of sweetness,
Voice of joy, eternal lay;
Alleluya is the anthem
Of the quires in heavenly day,
Which the Angels sing, abiding
In the house of God alway.
Alleluya thou resoundest,
Salem, Mother ever blest;
Alleluyas without ending
Fit yon place of gladsome rest;
Exiles we, by Babel’s waters
Sit in bondage and distrest.
Alleluya we deserve not
Here to chant for evermore:
Alleluya our transgressions
Make us for awhile give o’er;
For the holy time is coming
Bidding us our sins deplore.
Trinity of endless glory,
Hear thy people as they cry;
Grant us all to keep thine Easter
In our home beyond the sky;
There to thee our Alleluya
Singing everlastingly. Amen.
Vox perennis gaudii,
Alleluia laus suavis
Est choris coelestibus,
Quam canunt Dei manentes
In domo per saecula.
Alleluia laeta mater
Concivis Jerusalem:
Alleluia vox tuorum
Civium gaudentium:
Exsules nos flere cogunt
Babylonis flumina.
Alleluia non meremur
In perenne psallere;
Alleluia nos reatus
Cogit intermittere;
Tempus instat quo peracta
Lugeamus crimina.
Unde laudando precamur
Te beata Trinitas,
Ut tuum nobis videre
Pascha des in aethere,
Quo tibi laeti canamus
Alleluia perpetim.
Alleluya, song of sweetness,
Voice of joy, eternal lay;
Alleluya is the anthem
Of the quires in heavenly day,
Which the Angels sing, abiding
In the house of God alway.
Alleluya thou resoundest,
Salem, Mother ever blest;
Alleluyas without ending
Fit yon place of gladsome rest;
Exiles we, by Babel’s waters
Sit in bondage and distrest.
Alleluya we deserve not
Here to chant for evermore:
Alleluya our transgressions
Make us for awhile give o’er;
For the holy time is coming
Bidding us our sins deplore.
Trinity of endless glory,
Hear thy people as they cry;
Grant us all to keep thine Easter
In our home beyond the sky;
There to thee our Alleluya
Singing everlastingly. Amen.
01 June 2009
from Gaudy Night, chapter 1 (Dorothy L. Sayers)
The room allotted to her she recognised, after a little calculation, as one that had been occupied in her day by a woman she particularly disliked, who had married a missionary and gone to China. The present owner's short gown hung behind the door; judging by the bookshelves, she was reading History; judging by her personal belongings, she was a Fresher with an urge for modernity and very little natural taste. The narrow bed, on which Harriet flung down her belongings, was covered with drapery of a crude green colour and ill-considered Futuristic pattern; a bad picture in the neo-archaic manner hung above it; a chromium-plated lamp of angular and inconvenient design swore acidly at the table and wardrobe provided by the college, which were of a style usually associated with the Tottenham Court Road; while the disharmony was crowned and accentuated by the presence, on the chest of drawers, of a curious statuette or three-dimensional diagram carried out in aluminium, which resembled a gigantic and contorted corkscrew, and was labelled upon its base: ASPIRATION. It was with surprise and relief that Harriet discovered three practicable dress-hangers in the wardrobe. The looking-glass, in conformity with established college use, was about a foot square, and hung in the darkest corner of the room.
She unpacked her bag, took off her coat and skirt, slipped on a dressing-gown and set out in search of a bathroom. She had allowed herself three-quarters of an hour for changing, and Shrewsbury's hot-water system had always been one of its most admirable minor efficiencies. She had forgotten exactly where the bathrooms were on this floor, but surely they were round here to the left. A pantry, two pantries, with notices on the doors: NO WASHING-UP TO BE DONE AFTER 11 p.m.; three lavatories, with notices on the doors: KINDLY EXTINGUISH THE LIGHT WHEN LEAVING; yes, here she was - four bathrooms, with notices on the doors: NO BATHS TO BE TAKEN AFTER 11 p.m., and, underneath, an exasperated addendum to each: IF STUDENTS PERSIST IN TAKING BATHS AFTER 11 p.m. THE BATHROOMS WILL BE LOCKED AT 10.30 p.m. SOME CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS IS NECESSARY IN COMMUNITY LIFE. Signed: L. MARTIN, DEAN. Harriet selected the largest bathroom. It contained a notice: REGULATIONS IN CASE OF FIRE, and a card printed in large capitals: THE SUPPLY OF HOT WATER IS LIMITED. PLEASE AVOID UNDUE WASTE. With a familiar sensation of being under authority, Harriet pushed down the waste-plug and turned on the tap. The water was boiling, though the bath badly needed a new coat of enamel and the cork mat had seen better days.
She unpacked her bag, took off her coat and skirt, slipped on a dressing-gown and set out in search of a bathroom. She had allowed herself three-quarters of an hour for changing, and Shrewsbury's hot-water system had always been one of its most admirable minor efficiencies. She had forgotten exactly where the bathrooms were on this floor, but surely they were round here to the left. A pantry, two pantries, with notices on the doors: NO WASHING-UP TO BE DONE AFTER 11 p.m.; three lavatories, with notices on the doors: KINDLY EXTINGUISH THE LIGHT WHEN LEAVING; yes, here she was - four bathrooms, with notices on the doors: NO BATHS TO BE TAKEN AFTER 11 p.m., and, underneath, an exasperated addendum to each: IF STUDENTS PERSIST IN TAKING BATHS AFTER 11 p.m. THE BATHROOMS WILL BE LOCKED AT 10.30 p.m. SOME CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS IS NECESSARY IN COMMUNITY LIFE. Signed: L. MARTIN, DEAN. Harriet selected the largest bathroom. It contained a notice: REGULATIONS IN CASE OF FIRE, and a card printed in large capitals: THE SUPPLY OF HOT WATER IS LIMITED. PLEASE AVOID UNDUE WASTE. With a familiar sensation of being under authority, Harriet pushed down the waste-plug and turned on the tap. The water was boiling, though the bath badly needed a new coat of enamel and the cork mat had seen better days.
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