A note on honesty, and one on beauty
After writing out my last post--which I had been dragging my feet on for a few weeks now--with all the brutal honesty I have come to require from myself for adequate functionality as a writer, I felt I had a better grasp on the portrait of my life, and with that knowledge managed to break past a few of my passive, self-destructive tendencies. I still have a few more to go, but it is reassuring to see that sometimes writing my thoughts or issues out can indeed help.
And of course, it helped to have a few gentle, supportive notes from my dear, thoughtful friends here -- so thank you, truly, for all your explicit and implicit rejoinders to the morass of doubts I laid before you.
Yesterday, while reading more of Newton and the Counterfeiter (a work that's taking a very long time to get through because I keep using it as bus stop reading when it's TOO DARN COLD TO READ), I discovered the most exquisite little phrase. Newton, the book describes, was obsessed for four decades with alchemy because his own Principia set out all too clearly that an elegantly ordered universe had no need of an active Creator after inception; but if he could only prove the ongoing transformative properties of substances in the universe, he was certain he could recreate the conditions of Creation in miniature, and in so doing reassert an ongoing place for God in science. To that end, the following sentence appears:
Humphrey Newton described what went on there as a continuous, almost industrial operation: "About 6 weeks at Spring and 6 at ye fall, the fire in the Elaboratory scarcely going out either Night or Day, he siting up one Night, as I did another till he had finished his Chymical Experiments."
I was as deeply struck by that word, "Elaboratory," as I have in the past been by whole sentences in the short works of Vladimir Nabokov. What was this wondrous term--a typo, or a truth?
The latter, it turns out: According to the beautiful, online Oxford English Dictionary, "elaboratory" was an accepted variant of "laboratory" for some time, though the two have wondrously different origins--and in consequence, profoundly different linguistic inflections. "Laboratory" derives ultimately from laborare, to labour, but "elaboratory" derives ultimately from elaborare, to elaborate. For me, the former speaks to a certain measure of toil and drudgery, but the latter just sings, doesn't it? It calls to mind an abstract, theoretical discussion being carried on throughout all the rooms of one's house, finally bringing both participants to a place where that debate can ultimately extend into concrete, practical demonstration. There's a vitality to the latter that the former, in my mind, sadly and hopelessly lacks.
Anyway, I'm a word geek, and I thought this was just lovely. The language we use every day has the power every day to transform us: this, it seems, I am still learning--and loving, every step of the way.
And of course, it helped to have a few gentle, supportive notes from my dear, thoughtful friends here -- so thank you, truly, for all your explicit and implicit rejoinders to the morass of doubts I laid before you.
Yesterday, while reading more of Newton and the Counterfeiter (a work that's taking a very long time to get through because I keep using it as bus stop reading when it's TOO DARN COLD TO READ), I discovered the most exquisite little phrase. Newton, the book describes, was obsessed for four decades with alchemy because his own Principia set out all too clearly that an elegantly ordered universe had no need of an active Creator after inception; but if he could only prove the ongoing transformative properties of substances in the universe, he was certain he could recreate the conditions of Creation in miniature, and in so doing reassert an ongoing place for God in science. To that end, the following sentence appears:
Humphrey Newton described what went on there as a continuous, almost industrial operation: "About 6 weeks at Spring and 6 at ye fall, the fire in the Elaboratory scarcely going out either Night or Day, he siting up one Night, as I did another till he had finished his Chymical Experiments."
I was as deeply struck by that word, "Elaboratory," as I have in the past been by whole sentences in the short works of Vladimir Nabokov. What was this wondrous term--a typo, or a truth?
The latter, it turns out: According to the beautiful, online Oxford English Dictionary, "elaboratory" was an accepted variant of "laboratory" for some time, though the two have wondrously different origins--and in consequence, profoundly different linguistic inflections. "Laboratory" derives ultimately from laborare, to labour, but "elaboratory" derives ultimately from elaborare, to elaborate. For me, the former speaks to a certain measure of toil and drudgery, but the latter just sings, doesn't it? It calls to mind an abstract, theoretical discussion being carried on throughout all the rooms of one's house, finally bringing both participants to a place where that debate can ultimately extend into concrete, practical demonstration. There's a vitality to the latter that the former, in my mind, sadly and hopelessly lacks.
Anyway, I'm a word geek, and I thought this was just lovely. The language we use every day has the power every day to transform us: this, it seems, I am still learning--and loving, every step of the way.