perdition - noun - a state of final spiritual run; loss of the soul; damnation; the future state of the wicked; utter destruction and ruin.
I am (once again) reading an old favorite of mine, although I can't recall having mentioned the title. I'll give you a hint, the famous first sentence is, "Call me Ishmael". If you need an example of a cynical person, please read the first couple of chapters of this book! Anyway, today's word is embedded in a quote I found irresistable to post. It is on the difference of paying or being paid.
The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, - what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, an that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
(Note the older spelling (now considered incorrect) of the word marvelous). I'd be interested in reading comments by Jack regarding the religious views held by our hero in this statement. Note the often misquoted or misunderstood assertion that money is the root of all earthly ills which the Bible specifically states the LOVE of money...
For those who may not have figured out the book in this case, the author is Herman Melville, the title is (wait for it... ) "Moby Dick". My particular tome is ancient by all appearances, it has a hard green cover, torn at the edges, yellow, brittle paper and no copyright or publishing date contained therin and published by Grosset & Dunlap of New York. Being a former library book (discarded in lieu of newer printings in better condition no doubt) , the oldest stamp is March 22 1965. Yet, oddly, it's the only copy I have (I have, for example, a couple of books containing the Three Musketeers). This is truly a wonderful read, not only for the story, but also for it's language. A real joy and should be listed in the top 10 of pretty much everyones reading list.
3 comments:
MOBY DICK is a great read if ever there was one, and I expect to go through it at least once more before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Melville had spent time at sea himself, so the novel is filled with what I found fascinating detail about the practical business of catching whales and reducing their blubber to oil. I'm surprised you didn't mention Captain Ahab's oath to pursue Moby Dick through perdition's flames; I thought that was where you were headed. By the way, doesn't it also have one of literature's most famous curtain lines (quoting from memory): "I alone am escaped to tell thee."
Incidentally, Grosset & Dunlap (now defunct?) provided a really valuable service to the reading public: hardcover editions for a dollar, with titles ranging from classics to former best-sellers. I used to get mine for a quarter at the Salvation Army store.
I believe I picked up this particular version from my very own high school before I graduated back 1988 or 1989. Since it was on the discard pile, I was able to pick it up gratis. I've read and enjoyed it a time or two since then.
I should add that "Moby Dick," which went over like the well-known lead balloon when first published in 1851, has now attained classic status, which means it will almost always be read only when assigned in school -and how often does that happen in our nascent idiocracy? I'll admit that many classics can be tough going for a modern reader, nor will that be the reader's fault. How many of Dante's topical references can he be expected to pick up on? And Henry Fielding's leisurely prose will try the patience of readers in out post-Hemingway culture. Still, one must not be put off by the fact that a work now appears in some paperback publisher's "classics" line. Arthur Conan Doyle is featured in the Oxford World Classics series, and Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet, H. P. Lovecraft, and Willa Cather are available in super-classy Library of America editions. Works by Walter Scott, Charles Dickens,
and William Makepeace Thackeray were best-sellers in their time and are still worth reading. A
classic is, by definition, a work that has passed the test of time, which makes it ipso facto a work
that must have some continuing value. (What I've written may be misleading. Not all books now
considered classics are good reads. For example, Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" is great stuff, but his "Barry Lyndon" is the worst sort of Victorian pulp fiction, only a cut above "Varney the Vampire" and "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street". I give it the bird.)
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