#37666
08/06/2001 6:17 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
WARNING : (Grumble -e).
I have seen yet once again a use of Robert Frost's words in his poem "Mending Walls" to imply that Frost was in favor of walls ... Arrgh!... His *neighbor* said "Good fences make good neighbors" not Frost ...
Anyway I am braced for your potshots but please read the poem before hitting that New Post button :
(end grumble, begin poem -e)
red highlight added
"Mending Walls"
Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.
Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and
Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956,
1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost
Ballantine.
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#37667
08/06/2001 6:27 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
I always liked those lines.
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#37668
08/06/2001 6:36 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
Say what you will, he *did help set the wall back up.
Then there was the farmer who built his stone wall 4' high and 6' thick, so "when the wind blows it over it'll be taller than it was."
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#37669
08/06/2001 6:41 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
An instructor in English once said that nostalgia is the most powerful theme in American literature. One of the most potent sources of nostalgia for me is to drive through the many parts of New England where stone walls so laboriously built now divide forest into meaningless squares, and the cellar walls only remain of the years of labor some long ago farmer put into them building the long gone house and barn.. I have ploughed with horses, and given them a breather while I trudged with a frost heaved stone to add it to the wall. And thought of the now wasted labor my predecessors expended on the same task, now pointless.
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#37670
08/06/2001 6:48 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
RE:
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
among mental health professionals, it is often stated that the reason "asylum" have fences, isso that those out side can have a clear demarkation of who is sane and who is insane.
i think there is something very human about "catagories" and some catagories are rated higher than others.. Sane is rated higher-- but not all societies have the same definition of sane -- (think of Joan of Arc-- now days, her hearing voice would have her labeled "insane").
i think the highest acheivement of person is to destroy these learned catagories.. to take down the fences-- to recognize the Something there is that doesn't love a wall,.
i like to think myself free of prejudice.. but i keep finding areas and ways that i behave predjudice.. it is a constant battle..i know i have to make an effort to not keep up the fences, to not remain in the dark. we can chose to "keep up the fences" or not. the last few lines that WOW has highlighted-- say it all to well..
I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
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#37671
08/06/2001 11:37 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,'
Actually those two lines don't make much sense. The walls were built primarily to get rid of stones. They seldom kept anything either in or out.
Dear Bean: The glaciers cleared Canada of stones, and dumped them on New England. To be able to plow, the stones had to be gotten out of the way. It was not nice to dump them on your neighbor's property, so the most efficient way of disposing of them was to put them at the very edge of the property, where only after many years did they become a wall, seldom of any use to keep animals in. Unless you were lucky enough to get a lot of flat ones. The wall in the poem was obviously built astride the property line, of round ones that were hard to make stay put, when the frost heaved things. That's why the walls had to be worked on each spring when there was little else that could profitably be done. And both neighbors had to be present to avoid squabbles about the property line being shifted. That's what the curmudgeon neighbor was hinting at.
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#37672
08/07/2001 2:17 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Good fences make good neighbors
I love Robert Frost, and have been enamored of his work since about the age of 12. I always took this to be a metaphor for knowing where to draw the line for respecting the privacy of your neighbor, friend, etc., no matter how close you are. Knowing where to grant each other their own space makes for the healthiest of relationships. And, yet, for all that, Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down. That wants the intimacy of friendship or love to have the courage to shed all barriers, if only for a moment. And, of course, that can never be...for without that pause of spacial mystery the sense of intimacy recoils and scurries away. Only natural, only human. They truly are...Mending Walls.
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#37673
08/07/2001 8:50 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
> They truly are...Mending Walls
.. openly and happily building constructs between one another is a favourite human past time, hey.
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#37674
08/07/2001 9:32 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,757 |
Good post, ot! You broaden out the idea in a great way.
So the image of walls is an ....phor? [neverdidbothertoabsorbthedifference,lifeistooshort e]
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#37675
08/07/2001 11:13 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
wwh alludes to when the frost heaved things...
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
I don't think it was his preference, but it seems that occasionally the Frost *did* have to heave some things...
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#37676
08/07/2001 11:30 AM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling outDr. Bill, they may not make sense in the literal sense of moving the stones out of the fields, but I like the sound of them in a more figurative sense. Y'know, don't build a wall between yourself and another person just because of a prejudice or a stupid fight or a perceived slight, but know what the other guy's about before building said wall. My farmer friends in Saskatchewan tell me that there are plenty of stones there, too. You have to stop the tractor and get them out of the way. Or so I hear.  Never done it, myself!
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#37677
08/07/2001 11:36 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 10,542 |
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
it's not about walls; it's an allegory. about blancmanges and Wimbledon fortnight.
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#37678
08/07/2001 11:57 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
about blancmanges and Wimbledon fortnightIs this just an off the wall expression, or are you er, sketchy? 
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#37679
08/07/2001 2:51 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Dr. Bill, I have to express my admiration for a posting which is cogent and beautifully written. In all the postings we all rush to put up it's a real treat to see the language used to its best advantage.
Now, by the way, how come you spell "plow" in the English fashion? Since this week's theme is words from Sherlock Holmes, are you letting us know that you are an imposter attempting to con all us unwitting Garridebs?
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#37680
08/07/2001 3:13 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Dear BYB: Thank you for words kinder than I deserve. My dictionary says that the British spelling is plough. I use both without noticing until someone else points out my inconsistency. And of course, in discussing the poem, I focussed on the literal aspects from which Frost developed his allegories. I am sure the curmudgeon neighbor would have been bewildered if Frost had told him the poetic interpretation of his blunt apothegm.
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#37681
08/07/2001 4:13 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 5,400 |
I alway heard them called "pudding stones"-- from a New Englanders complaint that the stones in his field where a large and thickly studded in his field as raisins in his good wifes pudding..-- i have them too-- there are not to much of a problem because i don't have fields to plow- but i find them all the time when i want to plant something in the garden.
though i am pretty sure the term for them is glacial erratics..
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#37682
08/07/2001 5:38 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pudding stones are glacially rounded sedimentary stones containing various sized smaller stones rounded many years before by current in a river, for example. The rounded stones in New England were slowly tumbled over and over by the superbulldozer action of the enormously heavy ice sheet advancing and retreating every year for many many years.
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#37683
08/07/2001 5:53 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 5,400 |
huh? re: Pudding stones are glacially rounded sedimentary stones ... The rounded stones in New England were slowly tumbled over and over by the superbulldozer action of the enormously heavy ice sheet advancing and retreating every year for many many years.
so pudding stones can be created by a river-- but NE pudding stones are created by a glacier-- and properly called glacier erratics? the very same glaciers that came to a halt here on Long Island north shore -- creating overlapping terminal morains? -- North Hills morain and Ronconkama morain form the back bone of Long Island..and fill my yard with the same pudding stones
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#37684
08/08/2001 3:50 AM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,189 |
So the image of walls is an ....phor?Actually an interesting proposal, mav. So the dia- or epi- of the metaphor can actually be malleable depending on interpretation. You just created a new theory!...so you need a new --phor for it! (maviphor?) And here you thought you were just kidding! I guess life is too short to grok the difference between dia- and epi- when one's time is spent in such worthwhile endeavors as constructing whole alias networks of websites and bios, etc., etc...right, mav?
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#37685
08/08/2001 1:34 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
While we are at it, how about a discussion of the origin, and subsequent broadening of application of the phrase "off the wall." It sounds like it started with graffiti, but has been broadened to the point that at times it is hard to tell what it means to some of the users.
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#37686
08/08/2001 1:45 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
> Off the wall
Ties in with the 'left field' discussion pretty well, doesn't it? Both mean unconventional or bizarre. I don't know any other use for it.
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#37687
08/08/2001 7:31 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
Re: Off the Wall, belligerentyouth writes I don't know any other use for it.
Back when Napster was the biggest bandwagon in the Internet, I could easily imagine "I ripped it off The Wall."
so written by another brick in the wall
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#37688
08/08/2001 9:09 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 13,858 |
Please would some one of our OED possessors be kind enough to look up the dates of origin of this expression.?
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#37689
08/13/2001 5:22 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Twenty years ago or more I was working in DC. A noted doctor, Richard Halberstam, brother of David, came home from a party to discover a burglary in progress. The burglar burst out the door, shot Halberst in the abdomen and ran on foot. The doctor realized he was very badly wounded and set off in his car for the ER. Along the way he actually ran over the burglar, then died before reaching the hospital. The burglar, who also dealt in extremely expensive stolen property, lived next door to my boss.
Dan and I discussed the case later that week and he was extremely perplexed that this nice gentleman could lead two lives. I reminded him, of course, that good fences make good neighbors.
ALL of the foregoing is true with the possible exception of the timing of Dr. Halberstam's death. He may have made it alive to the hospital, but definitely died of his wounds.
TEd
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#37690
08/13/2001 5:46 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear TEd: If Dr. Halberstam had lived, he could have been sued by the burglar he ran over.
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