Topical Guide 712
Mark Dorset
Hope
Imagination
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 31:
He told her about the trip that they had always talked about taking, and the way that he and my grandmother talked about it, planned it, and imagined it. […] Grandmother couldn’t seem to stop talking about it. She would nod, and doze, and slip in and out of consciousness, and she would lose the thread of what Grandfather said, but she would always come back to the idea of the voyage.
“It’s hope,” said Ariane, […] “It gives her hope,” she said. “It is hope. A trip. You’re always heading somewhere. […] You should go on the trip. Take the trip. […] Go to Rarotonga. […] I don’t mean that you should really go. I understand that you can’t. I’m not as stupid as I look. I mean pretend. The thing to do is—to let the trip take over.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Method of Nature”
The soul can be appeased not by a deed but by a tendency. It is in a hope that she feels her wings. […] The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal. […] Your end should be one inapprehensible to the senses: then it will be a good always approached,—never touched; always giving health.
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, The Sweet Cheat Gone, “Grief and Oblivion”
The specific remedy for an unfortunate event (and three events out of four are unfortunate) is a decision; for its effect is that, by a sudden reversal of our thoughts, it interrupts the flow of those that come from the past event and prolong its vibration, and breaks that flow with a contrary flow of contrary thoughts, come from without, from the future. But these new thoughts are most of all beneficial to us when (and this was the case with the thoughts that assailed me at this moment), from the heart of that future, it is a hope that they bring us.
Geological Formations: Eskers
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 31:
Grandfather poured a cone of sugar in the center of the table, then nudged the leg with his knee, and brought about a miniature avalanche […] the details of the trip to Rarotonga were accumulating in that way. If he and Grandmother kept planning it and planning it, heaping details on details, it would become too big for its base. It wouldn’t be able to support itself, the slightest tremor would make it collapse, and there would be nothing between Grandmother and the knowledge of death. […]
She began working the pile of sugar with her hands. […]
She had shaped the sugar into a low, meandering esker, with even sides, sides that were easily supported by their base, a structure not likely to collapse.
Layered Earth, “Glacial Landforms: Deposition”:
An esker is a long, winding ridge made of sand and gravel. An esker is produced as a result of deposition in a stream that flows under the ice in a melting glacier.
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.