spectracality
dream-like nature of enriched
acute sensations
This life-long, almost physical sensation of the spectracality and dream-like nature of life was enriched also from another set of morbidly acute sensations. Carlyle’s exacerbated sense of hearing made him acutely sensitive to sound; and perhaps no writer since the Hebrew prophets made such constant use of audible sensations in the phrases and metaphors of his writing.
From THE REMBRANDT OF ENGLISH in Reperusals and Re-collections Logan Pearsall Smith, Published by Harcourt Brace and Company. First American edition, New York, 1937.
A collection of nineteen essays, many first published in the Times Literary Supplement and New Statesman; subjects include: Proust’s first novel, Jane Austen, Montaigne, English aphorists, Gertrude Jekyll and Sainte-Beuve.
The Rembrandt of English is about Thomas Carlyle.
I like any word that make spell check check and spectracality or the quality of being spectral or ghostly did on my spell check.
The idea that he was acutely sensitive to sound; and perhaps no writer since the Hebrew prophets made such constant use of audible sensations in the phrases and metaphors of his writing find fascinating.
I will have to take another crack at Mr. Carlyle.
There are some movies I watch just to hear and watch the actors act.
There are some passages I read just to hear the words.
This passage from Huck Finn comes to mind.
We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.
It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a kind of low chuckle.
We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.
If I could write something close to the majesty of these slow words read out loud I would feel I wouldn’t have to ever do anything again.
After that, well sir, nothing ever happened to us at all.
No Haiku For You 