Laudator Temporis Acti

Moss

2009-11-21T06:20:00.003-06:00

John Ruskin, Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers, chapter 1 (Moss):

In three months I shall be fifty years old: and I don't at this hour—ten o'clock in the morning of the two hundred and sixty-eighth day of my forty-ninth year—know what 'moss' is.

There is nothing I have more intended to know—some day or other. But the moss 'would always be there'; and then it was so beautiful, and so difficult to examine, that one could only do it in some quite separated time of happy leisure—which came not. I never was like to have less leisure than now, but I will know what moss is, if possible, forthwith.

Eliot Porter, Moss-Covered Log

Wipe Out the Jungles

2009-11-21T06:02:00.001-06:00

Eric Hoffer, "The Return of Nature," Saturday Review (Feb. 1, 1966), rpt. in The Temper of Our Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 79-96 (at 94):

My feeling is that the humanization of billions of adolescents would be greatly facilitated by a concerted undertaking to master and domesticate the whole of the globe. One would like to see mankind spend the balance of the century in a total effort to clean up and groom the surface of the globe—wipe out the jungles, turn deserts and swamps into arable land, terrace barren mountains, regulate rivers, eradicate all pests, control the weather, and make the whole land mass a fit habitation for man. The globe should be our and not nature's home, and we no longer nature's guests.

Paul Nash, We Are Making a New World

Against a Praiser of Time Past

2009-11-20T02:55:00.004-06:00

Prudentius, Against Symmachus 2.277-316 (tr. H.J. Thomson):

If we must needs scrupulously observe and keep up all that was customary in the rude years of the nascent world, let us roll all time back on its tracks right up to the beginning, and decide to condemn step by step all that successive experience has found out in later ages.

When the world was new no cultivators brought the land into subjection. What are ploughs good for, or the useless labour of the harrow? Better to sate the belly with acorns from the oak trees.

The first men used to split their timber with wedges; let our axes be reduced in the furnace from a hot moulding into a lump of metal, the iron dripping back again into its own ore.

Slaughtered oxen used to provide clothing, and a chilly cave a little home; so let us go back to the caverns and put on shaggy wraps of unsewn skins.

Let nations that once were barbarous but had their savagery subdued and became civilised go back again to their harsh cries and their inhuman ways, returning to their former state. Let the young man, with a filial piety worthy of Scythia, fling his wrinkled old father as an offering from the bridge, for such was once the custom. Let the rites of Saturn reek with the slaughter of infants and the cruel altars resound with their weeping and wailing. Let the very race of Romulus weave huts of fragile straw (such they say was the dwelling of Remus), spread their royal couches with hay, or wear on their hairy bodies a cloak made of an African bearskin. Such things the Trinacrian or the Tuscan leader used to have.

Rome does not stay as she was long ago; she has changed as time passed, making alterations in her worship, dress, laws, and arms. She practises much that she did not practise when Quirinus was her king. Some things she has ordered for the better, some she has abandoned; she has never ceased to change her usage, and has turned long-established laws to the opposite.

Why, senator of Rome, do you bring up accustomed usages against me, when many a time a decision has not stood fast and a change of mind with regard to it has altered decrees of senate and people? Even now, whenever it is for our benefit to depart from wonted ways and reject manners of the past for a newer style, we are glad that something which was unknown before has been discovered and at last brought to light; ever by slow advances does human life grow and develop, improving by long experience.

si, quidquid rudibus mundi nascentis in annis
mos habuit, sancte colere ac servare necesse est,
omne revolvamus sua per vestigia saeclum
usque ad principium, placeat damnare gradatim
quidquid posterius successor repperit usus.

orbe novo nulli subigebant arva coloni:
quid sibi aratra volunt? quid cura superflua rastri?
ilignis melius saturatur glandibus alvus.

primi homines cuneis scindebant fissile lignum:
decoquat in massam fervens strictura secures
rursus et ad proprium restillet vena metallum.

induvias caesae pecudes et frigida parvas
praebebat spelunca domos: redeamus ad antra,
pellibus insutis hirtos sumamus amictus.

inmanes quondam populi feritate subacta
edomiti iam triste fremant iterumque ferinos
in mores redeant atque ad sua prisca recurrant.
praecipitet Scythica iuvenis pietate vietum
votivo de ponte patrem (sic mos fuit olim),
caedibus infantum fument Saturnia sacra
flebilibusque truces resonent vagitibus arae.
ipsa casas fragili texat gens Romula culmo:
sic tradunt habitasse Remum. regalia faeno
fulcra supersternant aut pelle Libystidis ursae
conpositam chlamydem villoso corpore gestent.
talia Trinacrius ductor vel Tuscus habebant.

Roma antiqua sibi non constat versa per aevum
et mutata sacris, ornatu, legibus, armis.
multa colit quae non coluit sub rege Quirino;
instituit quaedam melius, nonnulla refugit,
et morem variare suum non destitit, et quae
pridem condiderat iura in contraria vertit.

quid mihi tu ritus solitos, Romane senator,
obiectas cum scita patrum populique frequenter
instabilis placiti sententia flexa novarit?
nunc etiam quotiens solitis decedere prodest
praeteritosque habitus cultu damnare recenti,
gaudemus conpertum aliquid tandemque retectum,
quod latuit; tardis semper processibus aucta
crescit vita hominis et longo proficit usu.

A Puddle of Mere Slime

2009-11-19T04:23:00.003-06:00

Edward Taylor (1642-1729), Preparatory Meditations before my Approach to the Lord's Supper (beginning of Meditation 40):

Still I complain; I am complaining still.
  O woe is me! Was ever Heart like mine?
A Sty of Filth, a Trough of Washing-Swill,
  A Dunghill Pit, a Puddle of mere Slime,
  A Nest of Vipers, Hive of Hornets-stings,
  A Bag of Poyson, Civit-Box of Sins.

Was ever Heart like mine? So bad? black? vile?
  Is any Divell blacker? Or can Hell
Produce its match? It is the very soile
  Where Satan reads his charms and sets his spell;
  His Bowling Ally, where he sheeres his fleece
  At Nine Pins, Nine Holes, Morrice, Fox and Geese.

James Thomson (1834-1882):

Once in a saintly passion
  I cried with desperate grief,
"O Lord, my heart is black with guile,
  Of sinners I am chief."

Then stooped my guardian angel
  And whispered from behind,
"Vanity, my little man,
  You're nothing of the kind."

Prayer and Sacrifice to Accompany Tree Cutting

2009-11-18T02:55:00.003-06:00

Cato, On Agriculture 139 (tr. W.D. Hooper and H.B. Ash):

The following is the Roman formula to be observed in thinning a grove: A pig is to be sacrificed, and the following prayer uttered: "Whether thou be god or goddess to whom this grove is dedicated, as it is thy right to receive a sacrifice of a pig for the thinning of this sacred grove, and to this intent, whether I or one at my bidding do it, may it be rightly done. To this end, in offering this pig to thee I humbly beg that thou wilt be gracious and merciful to me, to my house and household, and to my children. Wilt thou deign to receive this pig which I offer thee to this end."

Lucum conlucare Romano more sic oportet. Porco piaculo facto, sic verba concipito: "Si deus, si dea es, quoium illud sacrum est, uti tibi ius est porco piaculo facere illiusce sacri coercendi ergo harumque rerum ergo, sive ego sive quis iussu meo fecerit, uti id recte factum siet, eius rei ergo te hoc porco piaculo inmolando bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi domo familiaeque meae liberisque meis; harumce rerum ergo macte hoc porco piaculo inmolando esto."

Lewis & Short, s.v. colluco:

col-lūco (conl- ), āre, v. a. [lux],

I. to make light, to clear or thin a forest, etc.: collucare est succisis arboribus locum luce implere, Fest. s.v. sublucare, p. 348, 18 Müll. (explained in a different manner by Paul. ex Fest. p. 37, 12 ib.): lucum, Cato, R.R. 139: arborem, Col. 2, 21, 3.

The different explanation by Paul. ex Fest. p. 37, 12 Müll. is conlucare dicebant cum profanae silvae rami deciderentur officientes lumini. The paraphrase of Cato by Pliny, Natural History 17.267 (idem arbores religiosas lucosque succidi permisit sacrificio prius facto, cuius rationem precationemque eodem volumine tradidit), seems to support the meaning "cut down trees" rather than "prune branches".

Lewis & Short, s.v. interluco:

inter-lūco , āre, v. a. [lux],

I. to let the light through a tree by clearing it of its useless branches; to lop or thin a tree (Plinian): interlucata densitate ramorum, Plin. 17, 23, 35, § 214: arbores, id. 17, 12, 19, § 94.

Lewis & Short, s.v. subluco:

sub-lūco , āre, 1, v. a. [lux],

I. to trim, cut away, thin out the branches of a tree, to admit light: sublucare arbores est ramos earum supputare, et veluti subtus lucem mittere, Fest. p. 348 Müll.: arbor ... nisi a domino sublucari non potest, isque conveniendus est ut eam sublucet, Paul. Sent. 5, 6, 13; cf. colluco.

On the etymology of these verbs, see Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1951), p. 368:

De lūcus a dû exister aussi un dénominatif *lūcō, -ās (à moins que *lūcō ne soit un intensif-duratif en -ā-, du type dūcō, -ās, dont lūcus serait le substantif verbal?) qui figure dans les composés collūcāre, interlūcāre, sublūcāre, termes techniques de la langue des forestiers, dont le sens est "tailler les arbres, éclaircir (un bois)". L'étymologie est indiquée par les textes: conlucare dicebant cum profanae siluae rami deciderentur officientes lumini, P.F. 33, 21; sublucare arbores est ramos earum supputare, et ueluti subtus lucem mittere; conlucare autem, succisis arboribus lucum (locum, Lindsay) implere luce, Fest. 474, 28; cf. l'emploi de interlūcāre dans Pline 17, 94....Le mot italique *loukos (osq. lúvkei "in lūcō") signifiait étymologiquement "clairière"; on en a le correspondant exact dans v. angl. léah "prairie", v.h.a. lōh "clairière avec des arbustes"; lit. laūkas "champ" ("espace libre", par opposition à la "maison" avec son enclos), skr. lokáḥ, "espace libre" et ulokáḥ, sans doute simplification du composé *uru-lokaḥ "large espace". Ce mot indo-européen désignait l'espace libre et clair, par opposition à ce qui est boisé — le bois, le couvert, étant le grand obstacle à l'activité de l'homme.

Thanks to Eric Thomson for sending me the excerpt from Ernout and Meillet. Eric also compares German Lichtung ("clearing, glade" from Licht, "light").

Related posts:

Scholars

2009-11-17T04:44:00.002-06:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal (June 1855):

A scholar is a man with this inconvenience, that, when you ask him his opinion of any matter, he must go home and look up his manuscripts to know.

Id. (August 1855):

Out upon scholars with their pale, sickly, etiolated, indoor thoughts. Give me the out-of-door thoughts of sound men,—the thoughts, all fresh, blooming, whiskered, and with the tan on!

Hapless Mortals

2009-11-16T04:20:00.008-06:00

Vergil, Georgics 3.66-68 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):

Life's fairest days are ever the first to flee for hapless mortals; on creep diseases, and sad age, and suffering; and stern death's ruthlessness sweeps away its prey.

optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus
et labor, et durae rapit inclementia mortis.

Samuel Johnson used to quote these lines of Vergil "with great pathos." William Wordsworth cited them in a note to Descriptive Sketches in Verse, Taken During a Pedestrian Tour in the Italian, Grison, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps, lines 636-643:

Soon flies the little joy to man allow'd,
And tears before him travel like a cloud.
For come Diseases on, and Penury's rage,
Labour, and Pain, and Grief, and joyless Age,
And Conscience dogging close his bleeding way
Cries out, and leads her Spectres to their prey,
'Till Hope-deserted, long in vain his breath
Implores the dreadful untried sleep of Death.

Juan de Valdés Leal, In Ictu Oculi (Hospital de la Caridad, Seville)

Who Is He?

2009-11-15T05:39:00.001-06:00

Fanny Burney, letter to Samuel Crisp (March 27/28, 1777):

He is, indeed, very ill-favoured; is tall and stout; but stoops terribly; he is almost bent double. His mouth is almost continually opening and shutting as if he was chewing. He has a strange method of frequently twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands. His body is in continual agitation, see-sawing up and down; his feet are never a moment quiet; and, in short, his whole person is in perpetual motion. His dress, too, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on his best becomes, being engaged to dine in a large company, was as much out of the common road as his figure; he had a large wig, snuff-colour coat, and gold buttons, but no ruffles to his shirt, doughty fists, and black worsted stockings.

Answer.

Ecology and Pseudo-Ecology

2009-11-15T05:30:00.003-06:00

Excerpts from Oliver Rackham, "Ecology and Pseudo-Ecology: The Example of Ancient Greece," in Graham Shipley and John Salmon, edd., Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 16-43:

P. 16:

A factoid is a statement that looks like a fact, makes sense like a fact, commands the respect due to a fact, and has all the properties of a fact except that it is not true. An example is the belief that trees die when cut down and disappear for ever.

P. 17:

The first step on the road to pseudo-ecology is to confuse ecology with environment: to treat living creatures as part of the scenery of the theatre, rather than as actors in the play. Plants and animals are not a generalized nature, not the passive recipients of whatever mankind chooses to inflict on them: they are thousands of individual species, each with its own behaviour which has to be understood. An ash tree differs from a pine to much the same degree that a cat differs from a codfish. Cutting down the pine kills it, but the ash sprouts and recovers.

Pp. 17-18:

There are four opportunities for creating a pseudo-ecology of the ancient world.

(1) Not understanding the nature of evidence. Scholars easily suppose that written sources provide the only, or best, information about their periods. This cuts them off from ever knowing what was happening at times when people were not writing. Ecologists tend to be credulous and uncritical when dealing with ancient texts, and fail to understand their limitations.

(2) Projecting modern ecological fallacies on to the ancients. It is all too easy to seek in ancient philosophers confirmation of the fashionable misperceptions of the present.

(3) Being preoccupied (as many scholars are) with ancient attitudes to nature, regardless of what nature consisted of at the time or what it was the ancients were attitudinizing about....The history of nature is not the same as the history of the things that people have said about nature.

(4) Geographical over-generalization. Scholars assemble fragments of information—a scrap from Italy, a phrase in Homer, a snippet from Cyprus, a verse or two from the Bible—as if these added up to a history of Mediterranean ecology. This would not pass muster in any other branch of archaeology.

P. 20:

In Mediterranean countries, trees do not necessarily occur in the form of forests: they can constitute maquis (trees reduced to the form of shrubs) or savanna (grassland or undershrubs with scattered trees).

P. 22:

Ancient Greek authors tell us comparatively little about what Greece looked like: they assume their readers will know. Written evidence needs to be handled critically. We need to verify each piece of information: to consider whether an author was interested in describing accurately what a place looked like, and whether he was in a position to know (Rackham 1992a). Plato (Laws, 1.625 b) throws out a few remarks about roadside cypresses in Crete in the context of three aged philosophers strolling one afternoon from Knossos to the Idaean cave. In reality this is one of the most arduous journeys in all this arduous island. All we can infer is that Plato liked to give a pleasant setting to a dry philosophical discourse, but knew nothing about the topography or vegetation of Crete.

P. 28 (footnote omitted):

Scholars too often assume that ancient accounts of trees imply tall trees and forests; they forget about maquis and savanna. In reality, ancient authors may not have made the same distinction between 'forest' and 'scrub' that modern English, and especially American, writers make.

P. 28:

Deforestation is tree-felling not balanced by regrowth.

P. 29:

Nonsense multiplies. Once it has become the accepted wisdom that trees were becoming scarce in antiquity, every change in human activity is attributed to this cause, no matter how farfetched. If the guess fits your theory, you print it. Sir Arthur Evans solemnly stated that the men of Knossos took to using gypsum for door- and window-frames because they had run out of timber (Evans 1921–35, ii. 565).

P. 33:

There is an almost irresistible temptation to read modern theories into the words of ancient authors.

P. 35 (on Theophrastus):

It is from such beginnings of discernment that an interest in ecology must grow, but I find no evidence that the Greeks got very far. Too often they were bogged down in the ancient Greek vices of philosophizing from not enough data, and of not verifying such data as they did have.

P. 36:

One cannot do real ecology without knowing the plants.

P. 40:

Isaiah (11. 1–2) expresses the most cherished hopes of his nation under the allegory of the regrowth of a coppiced tree, a subject mentioned only two or three times in the vastly more extensive Greek and Roman literature: 'And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.'

P. 42:

In antiquity it was not easy, in most of Greece, to do permanent damage to the landscape. The critical step in the degradation of the Greek environment was the invention of the bulldozer.

Apple Loft

2009-11-14T04:09:00.003-06:00

Among the many compounds of apple in the Oxford English Dictionary are these two:

apple loft n.

1569 T. BLAGUE Schole of Wise Conceytes 67 His sonne being very liberall, brought his fellowes very often into the *Apple loftes, saying: Take of these what ye will. 1740 M. DELANY Autobiogr. & Corr. (1861) II. 120 Go see what's doing in the cheese-chamber and the apple-loft. 1864 Times 8 Feb. 9/4, The lunatic we discovered in the apple loft. 1984 P. LEGG Cidermaking in Somerset 7/1 Many Somerset cider cellars have an apple loft above them, occasionally called the 'tallet'.

apple-room n.

1740 Tryal Mrs Branch 22 He went..to search for the bloody Clothes, and Ann James shew'd the *Apple-Room, where the same were put. 1824 M. R. MITFORD Our Village (1863) 1st Ser. 221 The apple-room, the pear-bin, the cheese-loft. 2002 Church Times 22 Nov. 32/3 The old apple-room is now the bookroom... My book-packed farmhouse cannot complain.

I recently came across a couple of references to apple lofts. The first was in Noah Greenberg and W.H. Auden, edd., An Anthology of Elizabethan Lute Songs, Madrigals, and Rounds (1955; rpt. New York: W.W. Norton, 1970), p. 35 (from Thomas Campian's Jacke and Jone, 2nd stanza):

Well can they judge of nappy Ale
And tell at large a Winter tale:
Climbe up to the Apple loft,
And turne the Crabs till they be soft.

The second was John Drinkwater's poem Moonlit Apples:

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no sound at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.

Levi Wells Prentice, Basket of Apples
Related post: November (IV).

A Spirit Protects the Trees

2009-11-14T03:26:00.002-06:00

Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance 2.36 (tr. Richard Stoneman):

We marched on from there and came to a river. I ordered my men to pitch camp and lay aside their armour in the usual way. In the river there were trees which began to grow at sunrise and continued until the sixth hour, but from the seventh hour they shrank again until they could hardly be seen. They exuded a sap like Persian myrrh, with a sweet and noble aroma. I had cuts made in a few of them, and the sap soaked up with sponges. Suddenly the sap-collectors began to be whipped by an invisible spirit: we heard the noise of the whipping and saw the marks of the blows on their backs, but we could not see those who were beating them. Then a voice was heard, telling them neither to cut the trees nor collect the sap: "If you do not cease," it said, "the army will be struck dumb." I was afraid and gave orders not to cut or collect any more of the sap.

Leif Bergson, Der griechische Alexanderroman: Rezension β (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1965 = Studia Graeca Stockholmiensia, III), p. 129:

Ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἀναχωρήσαντες ἤλθομεν εἴς τινα ποταμόν. ἐκέλευσα οὖν παρεμβολὴν γενέσθαι καὶ καθοπλισθῆναι τῇ συνηθείᾳ τὰ στρατεύματα. ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ ποταμῷ δένδρα καὶ ἃμα τοῦ ἡλίουἀνατέλλοντος καὶ τὰ δένδρα ηὔξανον μέχρις ὥρας ἕκτης, ἀπὸ δὲ ὥρας ἑβδόμης ἐξέλιπον ὥστε μὴ φαίνεσθαι ὅλως. δάκρυα δὲ εἶχον ὡς Περσικὴν στακτήν, πνοὴν δὲ πάνυ ἡδυτάτην καὶ χρηστήν. ἐκέλευσα οὖν κόπτεσθαι τὰ δένδρα καὶ σπόγγοις ἐκλέγεσθαι τὸ δάκρυον. αἰφνίδιον οἱ ἐκλέγοντες ἐμαστιγοῦντο ὑπὸ δαίμονος ἀοράτου. καὶ τῶν μὲν μαστιγουμένων τὸν ψόφον ἠκούομεν καὶ τὰς πληγὰς ἐπὶ τῶν νώτων ἐρχομένας ἐβλέπομεν, τοὺς δὲ τύπτοντας οὐκ ἐθεωροῦμεν. φωνὴ δέ τις ἤρχετο λέγουσα μηδὲ ἐκκόπτειν μηδὲ συλλέγειν. "εἰ δὲ μὴ παύσητε, γενήσεται ἄφωνον τὸ στρατόπεδον." ἐγὼ οὖν φοβηθεὶς ἐκέλευσα μήτε ἐκκόπτειν μήτε συλλέγειν τινὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν.

I owe the reference to Albert Henrichs, "'Thou Shalt Not Kill a Tree': Greek, Manichaean and Indian Tales," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 16 (1979) 85-108 (at 107-108).

Related posts: St. Martin and the Pine Tree; The Geismar Oak; Bregalad's Lament; Petition of a Poplar; Cactus Ed and Arboricide; Views from the Center of Highgate Wood; Artaxerxes and Arboricide; When the Last Tree Falls; The Hamadryads of George Lane; Sorbs and Medlars; So Foul a Deed; Like Another Erysichthon; The Fate of Old Trees; Scandalous Misuse of the Globe; The Groves Are Down; Massacre; Executioners; Anagyrasian Spirit; Butchers of Our Poor Trees; Cruel Axes; Odi et Amo; Kentucky Chainsaw Massacre; Hornbeams; Protection of Sacred Groves; Lex Luci Spoletina; Turullius and the Grove of Asclepius; Caesarian Section; Death of a Noble Pine; Two Yew Trees in Chilthorne, Somerset; The Fate of the Shrubbery at Weston; Willows; Mourning Over Trees; The Trees Are Down; Sad Ravages in the Woods; An Old Saying; Strokes of Havoc; Maltreatment of Trees; Arboricide; An Impious Lumberjack; Erysichthon in Ovid; Erysichthon in Callimachus; Vandalism.

Mrs. Goodman's Latin Class

2009-11-12T04:10:00.002-06:00

Patrick Kurp sent me an email with the subject line "This might interest you." The email contained a link to a poem by Herbert Morris with the title Latin. The poem does interest me, and it might also interest readers of this blog.

The only bit of Latin quoted in the poem, however, is puzzling. Morris recalls his Latin teacher, Mrs. Goodman, saying "Lapsa de memoria." I wonder if she may have really said something like "Lapsus memoriae" (cf. "lapsus linguae" and "lapsus calami"). No matter how charitably I try to construe it, I find it hard to extract much sense from "lapsa de memoria." "Lapsa" could be a participle from the deponent verb "labor," and "memoria lapsa" could mean "memory which has slipped, fallen, or failed," but "lapsa de memoria" is an odd phrase, at least to my ear.

At any rate, enjoy this wonderfully evocative poem:

We are, once more, in Mrs. Goodman's class,
geraniums crowding the sun-struck windows.
I occupy the third desk, second row,
on which are carved initials of those students

who grappled here with Latin long before me.
An inkwell has been drilled into the wood,
upper right, and the slender legs, cast iron,
filigree grillwork, grip the creaking floor.

I wear those trousers woven of rough tweed,
their color some drab brown the shade of mud.
Mrs. Goodman wears one of her black wigs,
hair black as night, each styled in the same fashion,

bangs fringing the pale forehead, two spit curls
glued to the temples, cut to slash each cheek.
She paces back and forth, tapping a pointer
against the blackboard with each definition,

predicate, object, subject, gerund, noun,
seven uses of the conditional,
one more subtle than the next, more exotic,
"should she," "were I," "could you," "if we," "might someone."

Some days she smells of lilac, some days jasmine.
She wears black fishnet stockings, kidskin pumps
with thin spike heels four inches high; her hemline
grazes a calf as shapely as her ankles.

Today, it seems, we come to the subjunctive,
but we approach it sideways, from behind,
advance on it as if by inadvertence,
almost refrain from mentioning its name

(a backward look, a sideways look, a glance,
less than a glance, a glimpse, with eyes half-closed),
slowly, quietly, with great stealth, great care,
that care beyond mere care, are made to sense

an assault broader, bolder, more head-on,
an advance other than by indirection,
might very well, students, frighten it off.
I am twelve that winter, perhaps thirteen.

I love this room; love the geraniums
misting the panes, pane by pane, with their breath,
reaching in one direction for the sun;
love the fragrance of ink the monitor

pours at each desk from a tall, capped blue bottle,
the spout held low, just so, that it not leak;
love the feel of the tweed scraping my legs
when I stir in my seat or rise to speak.

Impatience rides the morning, restlessness
half the afternoon: I want time to pass
until we climb the dim flight to 310.
The bell rings; clamor; scuffle; we change rooms.

At two-fifteen, precisely, we begin
(the sun cuts diamonds on the frosted panes),
predicate, object, subject, gerund, noun,
stand, one by one, when called on, to read from Caesar

(battle on wind-swept plains, snow in high passes),
translations knotted, tangled, rock-strewn, dense
(now the strategic pause, the cough, the stutter),
pored over, worked, reworked, pulled this way, that,

to fit our stumbling, to accommodate
the desperation seizing us mid-plot,
hesitation a tense unto itself
having to do with ignorance, not grammar.

(That winter was the winter syntax seemed
a route to all I thought I wished to be,
who I wished to become, the agent by which
one was delivered, somewhere, to one's self,

the magic which, in time, bestows, transforms,
that, if one could piece the sentence together,
word by word, step by step, worked and reworked,
if one might learn the phrasing, deep and clear,

as clear as water, say, as deep as night,
it might well lead, or open, to one's life;
if one could learn the principle involved,
one might know how to live, or what to live for.)

I love the scent wild lilac trails, or jasmine,
as she patrols the aisles between the desks
attending to the pains of conjugation,
reminding us verbs shall agree with subjects;

love to move my fingers across the grain,
touching the nicks and grooves of old initials,
the cold, forged latticework of iron legs
swirling gracefully, looping to the floor;

love even the chipped song the radiator
rouses itself to sing these afternoons,
plaintive, tentative, frail, occasionally
wavering, in a voice reedy and thin.

I am twelve, as I said, perhaps thirteen,
sit in the sun, diamonds etched on my lids,
grapple with Latin each day at my desk
(not yet having carved my HM across it,

never having carved my HM across it),
predicate, object, subject, gerund, noun,
rising to read, when called on, hesitation,
as always, trailing me, my twin, my double,

student of light, of language, of that longing
rooted in neither, yet rooted in both,
finding my way, losing my way, those passes
profound, immense, endlessly taxing, all but

impenetrable, untranslatable,
should she, were I, could you, if we, might someone,
having waited all day for afternoon,
for this moment, yet dreading being called on,

content, for now, to wait for light to pour
(light pours, light pours), for gifts to be bestowed
(gifts, that winter, are not to be bestowed),
comprehension, fluency, grace, sheer daring,

all that might matter most to Mrs. Goodman,
all that might matter most, that year, to me,
for the radiator to sing its song
and the sun to cut diamond after diamond

afternoons on the frost-encrusted panes;
for, best of all, Mrs. Goodman to enter
at two-fifteen, precisely, to begin
(her stride high-arched, deliberate, seamless, slow),

the plains wind-swept, the passes lashed with snow.
I read, read poorly; Mrs. Goodman points
to her head, her black-banged, black spit-curled head,
cries "Lapsa de memoria," cries it twice.

I pause, I cough, I stutter, start to blush
("Lapsa de memoria"), yet persist.
Mrs. Goodman moves to my side, corrects me
(waves of lilac and jasmine overwhelm me,

I, who fail, for some reason, to remember
the deepest needs of the infinitive,
exchange pronoun for noun, invert the order
by which all parts—the world, as well?—cohere),

asking what one is to do with the clause
it seems one quite forgot, the participle
one decimated, dropped, wanting to know
how one is to live, what one is to live for.

They Mattered

2009-11-11T03:58:00.002-06:00

Richard Wilbur, from On Freedom's Ground, III (Like a Great Statue):

Mourn for the dead who died for this country,
Whose minds went dark at the edge of a field,
In the muck of a trench, on the beachhead sand,
In a blast amidships, a burst in the air.
What did they think of before they forgot us?
In the blink of time before they forgot us?
The glare and whiskey of Saturday evening?
The drone or lilt of their family voices?
The bend of a trout stream? A fresh-made bed?
The sound of a lathe, or the scent of sawdust?
The mouth of a woman? A prayer? Who knows?
Let us not force them to speak in chorus,
These men diverse in their names and faces
Who lived in a land where a life could be chosen.
Say that they mattered, alive and after;
That they gave us time to become what we could.

Andrew Wyeth, The Patriot

St. Martin and the Pine Tree

2009-11-11T03:36:00.005-06:00

Today is Martinmas, the feast of St. Martin. A couple of days ago, Eric Thomson drew my attention to a tree-cutting episode in Sulpicius Severus, Life of St. Martin 13. By coincidence I had just encountered the same reference in Bernadette Filotas, Pagan Survivals, Superstitions and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literature (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005 = Studies and Texts, 151), p. 68, n. 13. Here is an English translation by Alexander Roberts of the passage from Sulpicius Severus, followed by the original Latin:

Again, when in a certain village he had demolished a very ancient temple, and had set about cutting down a pine-tree, which stood close to the temple, the chief priest of that place, and a crowd of other heathens began to oppose him. And these people, though, under the influence of the Lord, they had been quiet while the temple was being overthrown, could not patiently allow the tree to be cut down. Martin carefully instructed them that there was nothing sacred in the trunk of a tree, and urged them rather to honor God whom he himself served. He added that there was a moral necessity why that tree should be cut down, because it had been dedicated to a demon. Then one of them who was bolder than the others says, If you have any trust in your God, whom you say you worship, we ourselves will cut down this tree, and be it your part to receive it when falling; for if, as you declare, your Lord is with you, you will escape all injury. Then Martin, courageously trusting in the Lord, promises that he would do what had been asked. Upon this, all that crowd of heathen agreed to the condition named; for they held the loss of their tree a small matter, if only they got the enemy of their religion buried beneath its fall. Accordingly, since that pine-tree was hanging over in one direction, so that there was no doubt to what side it would fall on being cut, Martin, having been bound, is, in accordance with the decision of these pagans, placed in that spot where, as no one doubted, the tree was about to fall. They began, therefore, to cut down their own tree, with great glee and joyfulness, while there was at some distance a great multitude of wondering spectators. And now the pine-tree began to totter, and to threaten its own ruin by falling. The monks at a distance grew pale, and, terrified by the danger ever coming nearer, had lost all hope and confidence, expecting only the death of Martin. But he, trusting in the Lord, and waiting courageously, when now the falling pine had uttered its expiring crash, while it was now falling, while it was just rushing upon him, simply holding up his hand against it, he put in its way the sign of salvation. Then, indeed, after the manner of a spinning-top (one might have thought it driven back), it swept round to the opposite side, to such a degree that it almost crushed the rustics, who had taken their places there in what was deemed a safe spot. Then truly, a shout being raised to heaven, the heathen were amazed by the miracle, while the monks wept for joy; and the name of Christ was in common extolled by all. The well-known result was that on that day salvation came to that region. For there was hardly one of that immense multitude of heathens who did not express a desire for the imposition of hands, and abandoning his impious errors, made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. Certainly, before the times of Martin, very few, nay, almost none, in those regions had received the name of Christ; but through his virtues and example that name has prevailed to such an extent, that now there is no place thereabouts which is not filled either with very crowded churches or monasteries. For wherever he destroyed heathen temples, there he used immediately to build either churches or monasteries.

Item, cum in viro quodam templum antiquissimum diruisset et arborem pinum, quae fano erat proxima, esset aggressus excidere, tum vero antistes loci illius ceteraque gentilium turba coepit obsistere. Et cum idem illi, dum templum evertitur, imperante Domino quievissent, succidi arborem non patiebantur. ille eos sedulo commonere, nihil esse religionis in stipite: Deum potius, cui serviret ipse, sequerentur: arborem illam succidi oportere, quia esset daemoni dedicata. Tum unus ex illis qui erat audacior ceteris: si habes, inquit, aliquam de Deo tuo, quem dicis te colere, fiduciam, nosmet ipsi succidemus hanc arborem, tu ruentem excipe: et si tecum est tuus, ut dicis, Dominus, evades. Tum ille intrepide confisus in Domino facturum se pollicetur. hic vero ad istius modi condicionem omnis illa gentilium turba consensit, facilemque arboris suae habuere iacturam, si inimicum sacrorum suorum casu illius obruissent. Itaque cum unam in partem pinus illa esset acclinis, ut non esset dubium, quam in partem succisa corrueret, eo loci vinctus statuitur pro arbitrio rusticorum, quo arborem esse casuram nemo dubitabat. Succidere igitur ipsi suam pinum cum ingenti gaudio laetitiaque coeperunt. Aderat eminus turba mirantium. iamque paulatim nutare pinus et ruinam suam casura imitari. Pallebant eminus monachi et periculo iam propiore conterriti spem omnem fidemque perdiderant, solam Martini mortem exspectantes. At ille confisus in Domino intrepidus opperiens, cum iam fragorem sui pinus concidens edidisset, iam cadenti, iam super se ruenti, elevata obviam manu, signum salutis opponit. tum vero - velut turbinis modo retro actam putares - diversam in partem ruit, adeo ut rusticos, qui toto in loco steterant, paene prostraverit. Tum vero in caelum clamore sublato gentiles stupere miraculo, monachi flere prae gaudio, Christi nomen in commune ab omnibus praedicari: satisque constitit eo die salutem illi venisse regioni. nam nemo fere ex immani illa multitudine gentilium fuit, qui non impositione manus desiderata Dominum Iesum, relicto impietatis errore, crediderit. Et vere ante Martinum pauci admodum, immo paene nulli in illis regionibus Christi nomen receperant: quod adeo virtutibus illius exemploque convaluit, ut iam ibi nullos locus sit, qui non aut ecclesiis frequentissimis aut monasteriis sit repletus. Nam ubi fana destruxerat, statim ibi aut ecclesias aut monasteria construebat.

A carving from Vézelay (Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, 12th century) illustrates this episode from the life of St. Martin:

Related posts: The Geismar Oak; Bregalad's Lament; Petition of a Poplar; Cactus Ed and Arboricide; Views from the Center of Highgate Wood; Artaxerxes and Arboricide; When the Last Tree Falls; The Hamadryads of George Lane; Sorbs and Medlars; So Foul a Deed; Like Another Erysichthon; The Fate of Old Trees; Scandalous Misuse of the Globe; The Groves Are Down; Massacre; Executioners; Anagyrasian Spirit; Butchers of Our Poor Trees; Cruel Axes; Odi et Amo; Kentucky Chainsaw Massacre; Hornbeams; Protection of Sacred Groves; Lex Luci Spoletina; Turullius and the Grove of Asclepius; Caesarian Section; Death of a Noble Pine; Two Yew Trees in Chilthorne, Somerset; The Fate of the Shrubbery at Weston; Willows; Mourning Over Trees; The Trees Are Down; Sad Ravages in the Woods; An Old Saying; Strokes of Havoc; Maltreatment of Trees; Arboricide; An Impious Lumberjack; Erysichthon in Ovid; Erysichthon in Callimachus; Vandalism.

A Thought to Start Your Day Right

2009-11-10T05:03:00.006-06:00

Eric Thomson writes:

Dear Mike,

'Got to have positive thoughts to start your day right' according to Amy Twain, self-appointed 'self-improvement coach' dealing with 'self-esteem issues' helping people to become more 'self-confident' (pandering in other words to the self-obsessed).

Well here's a thought for you to start the day right from archbishop and archcurmudgeon Wulfstan:

'Beloved men, know that which is true: this world is in haste and it nears the end. And therefore things in this world go ever the longer the worse, and so it must needs be that things quickly worsen, on account of people's sinning from day to day, before the coming of Antichrist. And indeed it will then be awful and grim widely throughout the world.'

Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste & hit nealæcð þam ende. & þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, & swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan fram dæge to dæge, ær antecristes tocyme, yfelian swyþe. & huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic & grimlic wide on worolde.

Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (1014)

Quaint and Curious Volumes of Forgotten Lore

2009-11-10T04:53:00.002-06:00

I found the following pictures, from the movie version of The Lord of the Rings, as illustrations to Alaric Hall's lecture The Lord of the Rings and its Medieval Origins: The Bones in the Soup. They remind me of the room in which I'm now typing these words.

Poetry Stripped to the Bone

2009-11-09T03:50:00.003-06:00

J.W. Mackail, "Poetry and Life," in Lectures on Poetry (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911), pp. 23-47 (at 43-44):

Let us take, as another instance, the poetry of Horace—a poet who for the purpose of testing theories or generalisations about poetry is of unique value, because he gives us, as one might say, poetry stripped to the bone. It is not the enlarged matter, the high argument of his political and moral odes that gives him his quality as a poet: indeed it is only his exquisite workmanship that redeems these from being, as all lyrics based on their model have since been, mannered and dull. He makes that universal appeal against which time and change and fashion seem powerless, because the Odes deal with the central realities of life—the little things. By the piled logs when Soracte is white, under the ilex that shadows the spring in the summer heat, yes, even in the suburban back-garden with its clipped vine, he sees the whole pageant of the world pass as though at a great distance. Unconcerned with the life and labour of the people—neglegens ne qua populus laboret—he is almost as little concerned with the large subject-matter of epic or romance, with high actions, and deep passions, and wide adventures. Cetera fluminis ritu feruntur; in the quiet life, with its bounded scope, its narrow range of thought and feeling, he found and fixed that on which the gods, and men too, have set their heart: tears and laughter, debita lacrima, lentus risus—note the scrupulous felicity of the epithets, those weighed and measured epithets in the use of which Horace is so consummate a master,—the "quiet laughter," the "due tears" of that narrow bounded space which is most central and most real in life.

"By the piled logs when Soracte is white" — Ode 1.9
"Under the ilex that shadows the spring in the summer heat" — Ode 3.13
"In the suburban back-garden with its clipped vine" — Ode 1.38
"Neglegens ne qua populus laboret" — Ode 3.8.25
"Cetera fluminis ritu feruntur" — Ode 3.29.33-34
"Debita lacrima" — Ode 2.6.23
"Lentus risus" — Ode 2.16.26-27

The Word Arboricide

2009-11-08T05:50:00.002-06:00

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines arboricide as "the wanton destruction of trees." The OED's earliest citation is dated 1899—H.G. Graham, Social Life of Scotl. 18th Cent. I. v. 199: "This crime of arboricide was distressingly frequent."

There are earlier examples of the word. The earliest example I can find is from 1844, in Asa Gray, "The Longevity of Trees," North American Review, Vol. 59, No. 124 (July 1844) 189-238, rpt. in Scientific Papers of Asa Gray, Vol. II: Essays; Biographical Sketches: 1841-1886 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1889), pp. 71-124 (at 84):

[T]he age may be directly ascertained by counting the annual rings on a cross section of the trunk. The record is sometimes illegible or nearly so, but it is perfectly authentic; and when fairly deciphered, we may rely on its correctness. But the venerable trunks, whose ages we are most interested in determining, are rarely sound to the centre; and if they were, even the paramount interests of science would seldom excuse the arboricide.

Goodies Make Us Very Bad

2009-11-08T03:46:00.002-06:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal (June 23, 1838):

I hate goodies. I hate goodness that preaches. Goodness that preaches undoes itself. A little electricity of virtue lurks here and there in kitchens and among the obscure, chiefly women, that flashes out occasional light and makes the existence of the thing still credible. But one had as lief curse and swear as be guilty of this odious religion that watches the beef and watches the cider in the pitcher at table, that shuts the mouth hard at any remark it cannot twist nor wrench into a sermon, and preaches as long as itself and its hearer is awake. Goodies make us very bad. We should, if the race should increase, be scarce restrained from calling for bowl and dagger. We will almost sin to spite them. Better indulge yourself, feed fat, drink liquors, than go straitlaced for such cattle as these.

Luminous Hearts of Gold

2009-11-07T05:01:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Patrick Kurp for introducing me to Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (1861-1899). Here is Lampman's sonnet Autumn Maples:

The thoughts of all the maples who shall name,
  When the sad landscape turns to cold and gray?
  Yet some for very ruth and sheer dismay,
Hearing the northwind pipe the winter's name,
Have fired the hills with beaconing clouds of flame;
  And some with softer woe that day by day,
  So sweet and brief, should go the westward way,
Have yearned upon the sunset with such shame
  That all their cheeks have turned to tremulous rose;
    Others for wrath have turned to rusty red,
    And some that knew not either grief or dread,
  Ere the old year should find its iron close,
Have gathered down the sun's last smiles acold,
Deep, deep, into their luminous hearts of gold.

Tom Thomson (1877-1917), Autumn Foliage

The Geismar Oak

2009-11-06T04:32:00.003-06:00

Willibald, Life of St. Boniface 6, tr. George W. Robinson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916), pp. 62-64:

Now at that time many of the Hessians, brought under the Catholic faith and confirmed by the grace of the sevenfold spirit, received the laying on of hands; others indeed, not yet strengthened in soul, refused to accept in their entirety the lessons of the inviolate faith. Moreover some were wont secretly, some openly to sacrifice to trees and springs; some in secret, others openly practised inspections of victims and divinations, legerdemain and incantations; some turned their attention to auguries and auspices and various sacrificial rites; while others, with sounder minds, abandoned all the profanations of heathenism, and committed none of these things. With the advice and counsel of these last, the saint attempted, in the place called Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by his side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary size, which is called, by an old name of the pagans, the Oak of Jupiter. And when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were most earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods. But when the fore side of the tree was notched only a little, suddenly the oak's vast bulk, driven by a divine blast from above, crashed to the ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell; and, as if by the gracious dispensation of the Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by. At this sight the pagans who before had cursed now, on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord, and put away their former reviling. Then moreover the most holy bishop, after taking counsel with the brethren, built from the timber of the tree a wooden oratory, and dedicated it in honor of Saint Peter the apostle.

Latin text from W. Levison, ed., Vita Bonifatii auctore Willibaldo, in Vitae Sancti Bonifatii Archiepiscopi Moguntini, in Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum...Separatim Editi (Hanover, 1905), pp. 11-57 (at 30-32):

Cum vero Hessorum iam multi, catholica fide subditi ac septiformis spiritus gratia confirmati, manus inpositionem acciperunt, et alii quidem, nondum animo confortati, intemeratae fidei documenta integre percipere rennuerunt; alii etiam lignis et fontibus clanculo, alii autem aperte sacrificabant; alii vero aruspicia et divinationes, prestigia atque incantationes occulte, alii quidem manifeste exercebant; alii quippe auguria et auspicia intendebant diversosque sacrificandi ritus incoluerunt; alii etiam, quibus mens sanior inerat, omni abiecta gentilitatis profanatione, nihil horum commisserunt. Quorum consultu atque consilio roborem quendam mirae magnitudinis, qui prisco paganorum vocabulo appellatur robor Iobis, in loco qui dicitur Gaesmere, servis Dei secum adstantibus, succidere temptavit. Cumque, mentis constantia confortatus, arborem succidisset — magna quippe aderat copia paganorum, qui et inimicum deorum suorum intra se diligentissime devotabant, — sed ad modicum quidem arbore praeciso, confestim inmensa roboris moles, divino desuper flatu exagitata, palmitum confracto culmine, corruit et quasi superni nutus solatio in quattuor etiam partes disrupta est, et quattuor ingentis magnitudinis aequali longitudine trunci absque fratrum labore adstantium apparuerunt. Quo viso, prius devotantes pagani etiam versa vice benedictionem Domino, pristina abiecta maledictione, credentes reddiderunt. Tunc autem summae sanctitatis antistes, consilio inito cum fratribus ligneum ex supradictae arboris metallo oratorium construxit eamque in honore sancti Petri apostoli dedicavit.

Johann Werner Henschel, Bonifatius fällt die Donareiche
Related posts: Bregalad's Lament; Petition of a Poplar; Cactus Ed and Arboricide; Views from the Center of Highgate Wood; Artaxerxes and Arboricide; When the Last Tree Falls; The Hamadryads of George Lane; Sorbs and Medlars; So Foul a Deed; Like Another Erysichthon; The Fate of Old Trees; Scandalous Misuse of the Globe; The Groves Are Down; Massacre; Executioners; Anagyrasian Spirit; Butchers of Our Poor Trees; Cruel Axes; Odi et Amo; Kentucky Chainsaw Massacre; Hornbeams; Protection of Sacred Groves; Lex Luci Spoletina; Turullius and the Grove of Asclepius; Caesarian Section; Death of a Noble Pine; Two Yew Trees in Chilthorne, Somerset; The Fate of the Shrubbery at Weston; Willows; Mourning Over Trees; The Trees Are Down; Sad Ravages in the Woods; An Old Saying; Strokes of Havoc; Maltreatment of Trees; Arboricide; An Impious Lumberjack; Erysichthon in Ovid; Erysichthon in Callimachus; Vandalism.

The Euphony of Cellar Door

2009-11-05T19:47:00.002-06:00

J.R.R. Tolkien, O'Donnell Lecture on English and Welsh:

Most English-speaking people will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful,' especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well, then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.

Credit for the notion that cellar door is beautiful or musical has been given to several different literary figures, including Edgar Allen Poe, Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, et al. Unfortunately, those who give credit seldom if ever cite chapter and verse. Here is some actual evidence, in reverse chronological order.

A Mencken Chrestomathy (New York: Knopf, 1949; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1982), p. 459, with reference to a column by Mencken in The Smart Set (June 1920), pp. 138-143:

Poetry, in fact, is two quite distinct things. It may be either or both. One is a series of words that are intrinsically musical, in clang-tint and rhythm, as the single words cellar-door and sarcoma are musical. The other is a series of ideas, false in themselves, that offer a means of emotional and imaginative escape from the harsh realities of everyday.

Alma Blount, Intensive Studies in American Literature (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 30-31:

Poe, who studied sound effects carefully, says that he chose "Nevermore" as the refrain for The Raven largely because the word contains the most sonorous vowel, o, and the most "producible" consonant, r. An amusing story is told of an Italian lady who knew not a word of English, but who, when she heard the word cellar-door, was convinced that English must be a most musical language. If the word were not in our minds hopelessly attached to a humble significance, we, too, might be charmed by its combination of spirant, liquids, and vowels.

"The Spectator," The Outlook 93 (September 4, 1909) 16-18 (at 18):

The Spectator heard, not long ago, of a Spanish gentleman who politely disclaimed for his own language any monopoly of musical words, saying, "What word in Spanish is more musical than your own term 'cellar door'?" And, indeed, if, instead of being a term suggestive of ashes and dilapidation, the same sounds, Celadore, were, let us say, the name of a beautiful heroine in a play of Shakespeare's, we might readily understand how the ear might find them musical.

Cyrus Lauron Hooper, Gee-Boy (New York: John Lane, 1903), pp. 43-44:

Even into advanced manhood he remembered with approval these experiences, and had no sympathy with those unmusical souls (God save the mark!) who see no beauty in a word. He even grew to like sounds unassociated with their meaning, and once made a list of the words he loved most, as doubloon, squadron, thatch, fanfare (he never did know the meaning of this one), Sphinx, pimpernel, Caliban, Setebos, Carib, susurro, torquet, Jungfrau. He was laughed at by a friend, but logic was his as well as sentiment; an Italian savant maintained that the most beautiful combination of English sounds was cellar-door; no association of ideas here to help out! sensuous impression merely! the cellar-door is purely American.

I haven't been able to find any example earlier than Hooper in 1903. It's noteworthy that Max Beerbohm, without mentioning cellar door, made the following observation a year earlier, in "The Naming of Streets," The Pall Mall Magazine Vol. XXVI, No. 105 (January 1902) 139-144 (at 141):

What you take to be beauty or ugliness of sound is indeed nothing but beauty or ugliness of meaning. You are pleased by the sound of such words as gondola, vestments, chancel, ermine, manor-house. They seem to be fraught with a subtle onomatopoeia, severally suggesting by their sounds the grace or sanctity or solid comfort of the things which they connote. You murmur them luxuriously, dreamily. Prepare for a slight shock. Scrofula, investments, cancer, vermin, warehouse. Horrible words, are they not? But say gondola—scrofula, vestments—investments, and so on; and then lay your hand on your heart, and declare that the words in the first list are in mere sound nicer than the words in the second. Of course they are not. If gondola were a disease, and if a scrofula were a beautiful boat peculiar to a beautiful city, the effect of each word would be exactly the reverse of what it is. This rule may be applied to all the other words in the two lists. And these lists might, of course, be extended to infinity. The appropriately beautiful or ugly sound of any word is an illusion wrought on us by what the word connotes. Beauty sounds as ugly as ugliness sounds beautiful. Neither of them has by itself any quality in sound.

Bregalad's Lament

2009-11-04T04:20:00.004-06:00

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Part II (The Two Towers), Book III, Chapter IV (Treebeard):

'There were rowan-trees in my home,' said Bregalad, softly and sadly, 'rowan-trees that took root when I was an Enting, many many years ago in the quiet of the world. The oldest were planted by the Ents to try and please the Entwives; but they looked at them and smiled and said that they knew where whiter blossom and richer fruit were growing. Yet there are no trees of all that race, the people of the Rose, that are so beautiful to me. And these trees grew and grew, till the shadow of each was like a green hall, and their red berries in the autumn were a burden, and a beauty and a wonder. Birds used to flock there. I like birds, even when they chatter; and the rowan has enough and to spare. But the birds became unfriendly and greedy and tore at the trees, and threw the fruit down and did not eat it. Then Orcs came with axes and cut down my trees. I came and called them by their long names, but they did not quiver, they did not hear or answer: they lay dead.

O Orofarnë, Lassemista, Carnimírië!
O rowan fair, upon your hair how white the blossom lay!
O rowan mine, I saw you shine upon a summer's day,
Your rind so bright, your leaves so light, your voice so cold and soft:
Upon your head how golden-red the crown you bore aloft!
O rowan dead, upon your head your hair is dry and grey;
Your crown is spilled, your voice is stilled for ever and a day.
O Orofarnë, Lassemista, Carnimírië!

The hobbits fell asleep to the sound of the soft singing of Bregalad, that seemed to lament in many tongues the fall of trees that he had loved.

Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), p. 224 (letter to Richard Jeffery, September 7, 1955):

Orofarne, lassemista, carnemírie [sic] is High-elven (the language preferred by Ents) for 'mountain-dwelling, leaf-grey, with adornment of red jewels'.

Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans, Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006), pp. 131-132, suggest that Gerard Manley Hopkins' Binsey Poplars could have been a "direct inspiration" for Bregalad's Lament.

European Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
Related posts: Petition of a Poplar; Cactus Ed and Arboricide; Views from the Center of Highgate Wood; Artaxerxes and Arboricide; When the Last Tree Falls; The Hamadryads of George Lane; Sorbs and Medlars; So Foul a Deed; Like Another Erysichthon; The Fate of Old Trees; Scandalous Misuse of the Globe; The Groves Are Down; Massacre; Executioners; Anagyrasian Spirit; Butchers of Our Poor Trees; Cruel Axes; Odi et Amo; Kentucky Chainsaw Massacre; Hornbeams; Protection of Sacred Groves; Lex Luci Spoletina; Turullius and the Grove of Asclepius; Caesarian Section; Death of a Noble Pine; Two Yew Trees in Chilthorne, Somerset; The Fate of the Shrubbery at Weston; Willows; Mourning Over Trees; The Trees Are Down; Sad Ravages in the Woods; An Old Saying; Strokes of Havoc; Maltreatment of Trees; Arboricide; An Impious Lumberjack; Erysichthon in Ovid; Erysichthon in Callimachus; Vandalism.

Blessings on Thy Warty Head

2009-11-03T04:54:00.001-06:00

Stephen Crane, The Black Riders, XLVII:

"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

Bufo americanus

These Grim Two

2009-11-02T17:17:00.001-06:00

Max Beerbohm on Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman:

How compare either of these grim two?
Each has an equal knack,
Hardy supplies the pill that's blue,
Housman the draught that's black.