Category Archives: essays (by Roger W. Smith)

Roger W. Smith, “thoughts about reading”

 

‘thoughts about reading’

 

“I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me to die well and live well.”

— Michel de Montaigne, “of books” (The Complete Essays, translated by Donald M. Frame)

 

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“Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. … as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. … a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”

Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parliament of England

 

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I am very desirous to receive letters from You, and hope You will write to me very freely, both about your brother [Charles Cornelius Chambers] and yourself. Pray tell me very particularly the title of every book that You have read at school and every thing that You have learnt since You went thither. Tell me also what books or parts of books You have read for your pleasure, and what plays or exercises You and Charles are fondest of. For my part, when I was of your age, I was fonder of reading Robinson Crusoe and the Seven Champions of Christendom, than I was of any kind of play whatsoever; and, as I suppose that You may probably have the same taste, I have ordered those books and some others to be sent to You.

— Sir Robert Chambers, letter to his son Robert Joseph Chambers, February 12, 1790; in Thomas M. Curley: Sir Robert Chambers: Law Literature and Empire in the Age of Johnson (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). pg. 516. (Chambers, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, India, was then residing in Calcutta, and his sons Robert and Joseph in England. The Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendom was a late-sixteenth, early seventeenth-century romance by the English writer Richard Johnson.)

 

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Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? … They are for nothing but to inspire. … Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must,—when the soul seeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shining,—we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. …

It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us ever with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,–with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and said. …

I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know that as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, “He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.” There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (an address delivered in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1837 before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society)

 

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“I have been passing my time very pleasurably here [at his father-in-law’s home in Boston] … chiefly in lounging on a sofa … & reading Shakespeare. It is an edition in glorious great type, every letter whereof is a soldier, & the top of every “t” like a musket barrel.”

— Herman Melville, letter to Evert A. Duyckinck, February 24, 1849

 

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My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; … Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind. …

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand, would be more salutary than the morning or the spring to our lives, and possibly put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods

 

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Is Literature forever to propose no higher object than to amuse? to just pass away the time & stave off ennui? — Is it never to be the courageous wrestle with live subjects — the strong gymnasia of the mind — must it offer only things easy to understand as nature never does. [italics added]

— note, probably late 1850’s, by Walt Whitman; in Walt Whitman: Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, Volume IV: Notes, edited by Edward F. Grier (New York University Press 1984), pg. 1561

 

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“Books are to be call’d for, and supplied, on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but, in highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast’s struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself, must be on the alert, must himself or herself construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay–the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start or frame­work”

— Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas

 

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“I was not an omnivorous reader–just a slow, idle, rambling one.”

— Theodore Dreiser, A Hoosier Holiday, Chapter XXXIX

 

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“Read, read, read. Read everything–trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.”

— William Faulkner, Statement at the University of Mississippi, 1947

 

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“I could literally feel my brain coming to life, as if new pathways were firing up in places that had been dark and barren. Reading was teaching me what it meant to be alive, to be human.”

— Yeonmi Park, With Maryanne Vollers, In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey To Freedom (Penguin Press, 2015)

 

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And then there was his book collection which numbered well into the thousands. Those books, mostly on the history of the fascinating period of his youth including the Spanish Civil War, Stalinism and World War II, were his sacred texts. He brought several tomes with him on his honeymoon in Mexico, much to my mother’s chagrin. He never let anyone read or even touch them. Their presence in every room meant that the apartment could never be painted or properly cleaned. I alternatively worshipped and loathed them, but they influenced me greatly.

— “A Jew without a burial site,” by Judith Colp Rubin [an essay about her father, Dr. Ralph Colp, Jr.], The Times of Israel, August 30, 2018

 

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Books are one of the most important and fulfilling things in my life.

I recall the pleasure long since past, when I was a boy, of curling up with a book, often at bedtime, just before going to sleep. I recall vividly a particular rainy day when I seem to recall we were in some remote location, perhaps a rented summer place. I spent a good part of the afternoon with a book, and felt so warm and cozy, sheltered from the elements.

I used to love that I was allowed to go to the Cambridge Public Library by myself after school when I was in the early grades. It was a rather long walk. I loved being in the children’s room, finding books, and being able to check them out by myself. There was a feeling of ownership and pride, of excitement in discovery, of being able to decide what you yourself wanted to read.

I loved receiving books as gifts. My parents and relatives were thoughtful gift-givers when it came to books. (I myself seem have inherited this. I have often had someone tell me, how did you know I would like this book, and this has occurred with people I don’t know well. Once I wanted to show appreciation to an editor with the gift of a book. She was thrilled to get the particular book I chose. It was not one, though I knew it was regarded as excellent, that I myself would have desired to read.)

I still love to curl up with a book. They are always there for me. They comfort me and are a solvent for boredom, idleness, and lonely hours.

 

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My home is filled with books, much as was the case with my former therapist, Ralph Colp, Jr. I have run out of bookshelf space. I have tried to impose some order so that I can find a book. Those on shelves are fairly well organized by broad subject areas and authors.

Dr. Colp told me there was nothing like having a book-lined study. Of having a book on the shelf there when you want it. Of being able to survey, take stock, of the riches there. He quoted to me what Edward Gibbon wrote: “My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.”

Dr. Colp’s consulting office was lined with books, but he told me that this was only a small fraction — most were in his living quarters. He had run out of shelf space and some of the books in his consulting office were on the floor in tall piles. “What do you do when you want a book on the bottom of the pile?” I said to him once. “It seems to me that that would present a problem.”

“You’re right,” he said.

This was at a point in my therapy sessions when Dr. Colp had moved to a co-op in which he had an office and an apartment (his living quarters) on the same floor. Prior to that, I had been seeing him in a suite of offices he shared with another therapist, where there were few books. The first time I visited him in his new office, he spent the whole session showing me his books: a first edition of Darwin, for example. We never got to the session (therapy, that is) — he seemed unaware of time and was carried away by showing me the contents of his bookshelves.

 

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What makes a good reader? And why is reading important?

The answers seem to a large extent to be self-evident and, yet, they are questions I enjoy thinking about. Below are some thoughts of my own about reading. A description of my own reading habits. And, my advice to readers. In no particular order.

 

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The foundation of reading, like any pastime, should be pleasure, that you enjoy it. If you have a good experience with a good book, a great work of literature, you will want to repeat the experience. I experienced this, for example, with the following books which I read in my youth and my teens: Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia (a young adult book; sixth grade); Anna Sewall’s Black Beauty (sometime in my elementary school years); Jim Brosnan’s The Long Season (a book about baseball; read by me in high school); Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (high school); and Pitirim A. Sorokin’s Leaves from a Russian Diary (in late adolescence), to name just a few. All were books that totally engrossed me; or, as the cliché goes, I couldn’t put them down.

A former friend of mine, the poet Charles Pierre, said to me that one should make it a point to read books expeditiously — don’t take forever to read them. You would not (although the analogy is not quite exact), for example, want to watch an opera over several evenings. This seems right, but I often violate the rule.

I want to read substantial, deep books that challenge me, fully engage me in deep thought. I get great pleasure from reading, but I do not read for pleasure in the sense of escapism (“literary” junk food).

I have found from the experience of a lifetime that I would rather travel mentally through reading books than travel in the literal sense. Reading a good book — say, a long novel — is akin to me to taking a trip, being on a journey. War and Peace, Moby-Dick, Les Misérables, Great Expectations.

You must be willing to submit yourself to a book, give yourself over to it, get lost in it. This happened to me with Moby-Dick. A critic once called it “a whale of a book.” Well, I devoured every part of it, including the cetology. I was totally wrapped up in it and Melville: the story, the whaling lore, Melville’s tone and style, the Elizabethan or Shakespearean ethos, the beauty of the narrative and descriptive passages.

Effort and stamina are required to get though a long book, including the great ones. But if the experience is worth it, curiosity and motivation (as well as pleasure) keep you going. This happened to me with Moby-Dick. It took me about three weeks to read it, in a copy borrowed from the public library that had wide margins and nice big type. During free time once, I was reading it on the steps of an open space in Midtown Manhattan. A man about my age with his girlfriend approached and, noting what I was reading, asked me if it was for a course. No, I said, I was reading it for myself. This, he plainly showed, pleased him.

I read deliberately and slowly because I want to get everything I can out of a book. (Speed reading to me is almost an oxymoron.) A good reader is an active reader. I am very engaged when I read and am anything but a passive reader. I am continually asking myself, what do I think about the thoughts expressed and the writer, and am constantly trying to “extrapolate,” in a sense, ideas and information to ruminate upon.

A book is not merely an inanimate thing waiting to be read. Reading is an experience like any other, say a personal or romantic relationship. What one gets out of a book — the experience of reading it – depends both upon what the book offers and what you, the reader, invest in it, the energy level, enthusiasm, discernment, and attentiveness of the reader.

 

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The books of most famous writers, invariably serious readers, usually contain marginalia. I no longer make marginal notes, but I do take notes quoting passages that I want to remember and/or be able to refer to. My “marginalia” nowadays consist of typed notes which I email to myself.

Authors whom I enjoy and references within a book to other works often lead me to other books. I always have a mental inventory of books waiting to be read.

Introductions should be read after — not before — the work itself. I want to form my own impressions — make my own judgments — without being influenced or prejudiced by an introduction. This seems to be most true of fiction. I often find introductions to be well written and very informative. But, first, I want to “meet” the author, with no one telling me what I will find or what to expect. It’s like meeting a new person.

To be ready for a book, say a classic novel, you have to be in the right frame of mind. This has happened to me with many classics. At some point — often this is the case — I feel the urge to read them. There are classics that did not engage me or that I did not understand or appreciate at some point in my life which I pick up later and am thoroughly engaged by. A good example is Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. It’s not the kind of novel I would ordinarily read. I tried reading it once not that long ago when perhaps I was just not in the mood. It seemed like a not particularly well written and overrated work. For some reason, I picked it up again recently and was able not only to finish it, but to fully appreciate Shelley’s genius.

Something very similar happened to me with Milton’s Paradise Lost, which I could not get through in college but read years later with great enjoyment.

One should read for as short or long a time as one likes. As for the best “reading position,” I sprawl, read in a reclining position. Dr. Colp read sitting upright behind his office desk, where he did all his intellectual work. I have never been much inclined to read (as opposed to doing research) in libraries.

I have found that the ability to read and focus on non-trivial reading material such as literature and expository or scholarly writing is a reliable measure or barometer of mental health. For me, at least. Meaning, that when I can’t focus enough to read, I am usually mentally troubled, in an agitated frame of mind.

As regards scholarly books — reading for the sake of learning — a deep, scholarly, and (hopefully) engrossing book, by someone who knows more than I do about a subject, I am very willing to submit to instruction, tutelage, by a scholar. In line with what I have just said, such reading seems to put me in a calm, deliberative, objective state — “in neutral,” so to speak. It enables me to get outside of myself mentally, to put aside self-absorption and the concerns of the moment. It is truly a matter of expanding one’s horizons.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   October 2019

 

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See also my post:

“my treasured books”

Roger W. Smith, “my treasured books”

on caring for sick people (and why the health care system often fails them) … plus, what I have learned about same from experience and reading; and from Walt Whitman, Florence Nightingale, and the heroic nurses of the Civil War, by Roger W. Smith

 

‘on caring for sick people’

 

on caring for sick people (and why the health care system often fails them) … plus, what I have learned about same from experience and reading; and from Walt Whitman, Florence Nightingale, and the heroic nurses of the Civil War

by Roger W. Smith

 

“I start off with a prejudice against doctors anyway.”

— Walt Whitman; quoted in Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (July 12, 1888)

 

“I love doctors and hate their medicine.”

— Walt Whitman; quoted in Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (July 8, 1888)

 

There is much common sense and medical wisdom (as well as human insight) in what nineteenth century writers wrote about health care. Much of this comes from the writing of nurses and volunteers in Civil War hospitals, including Walt Whitman, and outstanding nurses who wrote memoirs. And also, the English social reformer Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. I have quoted amply from Whitman; from Nightingale; and from the Civil War nurses Louisa May Alcott, Mary A. Livermore, and Jane Stuart Woolsey.

Some may find these copious quotations tedious to read. They merit attention, however, because they are full of good sense and insight into patient care based upon experience, as well as intelligent reflection. And, what is remarkable (indeed, undeniable), as I hope to prove, is that there is much valuable in these writings that would be ignored by the medical practitioners of today, should they ever bother to consult such works. Be assured they haven’t. And will not.

 

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Quotations from Nineteenth-Century Medical Practitioners

 

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Turn the bedclothes toward the foot of the bed,
Let the physician and priest go home.

I seize the descending man … and I raise him with resistless will.

O despairer, here is my neck,
By God! you shall not go down! Hang your whole weight upon me.

I dilate you with tremendous breath … I buoy you up; …
I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,
And for the strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.

— Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself” (draft version)

 

By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,

— Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

 

Druggists mix their psychic stuff, and paper their doses, and shake their potions and lotions. How many wry faces are they the cause of—the ipecac and castor oil creatures! Why do folks take so much physic?

It is now pretty well established that not the mere taking of drugs cures disease. … We are not sure but the very means we consider necessary to stop illness often and often lead to greater illness. … We submit to almost any of our readers, who may be “ailing,” in any way—who may have that worst curse on earth, a ruined constitution—whether he or she cannot look back through a long career of medicine taking?

The violent stimulants and narcotics which are favorites with a majority of the physicians, cannot be used without the most serious and permanent effects on the system—both present and in time to come! … How much of the fevers, aches, rheumatisms, chronic and acute complaints, which we are so fond of assuming that “flesh is heir to,” are in reality not our heritage, but come to us through the physic vial, and the pestle and mortar! And the consciousness of this fact is starting up all kinds of medical humbugs—some of them possessing a few points meritorious, but none of them, in our opinion, worthy to take the place of that universal, that remedial rule for every complaint, which nearly all of them claim to be.

Indeed there is much humbug in the pompous pretensions of the medical art. … Doctors and apothecaries pretend to know altogether too much. It will go down among those who understand very little of physiology and anatomy, and whose eyes cannot take in any more than the nearest points of the field—but to all others, much of the loftiest pretensions of either of the “regular” doctor, or “quack” doctor, is but a matter of sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

— Walt Whitman, “Is Not Medicine Itself a Frequent Cause of Sickness? ,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 16, 1846

 

“I can testify that friendship has literally cured a fever, and the medicine of daily affection, a bad wound.”

— Walt Whitman, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 19, 1863

 

I remain here in Washington still occupied among the hospitals—I have now been engaged in this over seven months. … I seldom miss a day or evening. … The doctors tell me I supply the patients with a medicine which all their drugs & bottles & powders are helpless to yield. … [italics added]

— Walt Whitman, draft of letter to James Redpath (?), August 6, 1863

[In Walt Whitman: The Correspondence, Volume I, 1842-1867, edited by Edwin Haviland Miller, it is stated that the most likely recipient of this letter, which exists as a draft in Whitman’s hand, was James Redpath (1833-1861), author of The Life of John Brown. Redpath had met Whitman personally and was one of his admirers.]

 

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (1832-1888)

Wherever the sickest or most helpless men chanced to be, there I held my watch, often visiting the other rooms, to see that the general watchman of the ward did his duty by the fires and the wounds, the latter needing constant wetting. Not only on this account did I meander, but also to get fresher air than the close rooms afforded; for, owing to the stupidity of that mysterious ‘somebody’ who does all the damage in the world, the windows had been carefully nailed down above, and the lower sashes could only be raised in the mildest weather, for the men lay just below. I had suggested a summary smashing of a few panes here and there, when frequent appeals to headmasters had proved unavailing, and daily orders to lazy attendants had come to nothing. No one seconded the motion, however, and the nails were far beyond my reach. …

— Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches (1863)

 

… though a capital surgeon and a kindly man, Dr. P., through long acquaintance with many of the ills flesh is heir to, had acquired a somewhat trying habit of regarding a man and his wound as separate institutions, [italics added] and seemed rather annoyed that the former should express any opinion upon the latter, or claim any right in it, while under his care.

— Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches

 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1820-1910)

In watching disease, both in private houses and in public hospitals, the thing which strikes the experienced observer most forcibly is this, that the symptoms or the sufferings generally considered to be inevitable and incident to the disease are very often not symptoms of the disease at all, but of something quite different—of the want of fresh air, or of light, or of warmth, or of quiet, or of cleanliness, or of punctuality and care in the administration of diet, of each or of all of these.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

The very first canon of nursing, the first and the last thing upon which a nurse’s attention must be fixed, the first essential to the patient, without which all the rest you can do for him is as nothing, with which I had almost said you may leave all the rest alone, is this; to keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him. Yet what is so little attended to? Even where it is thought of at all, the most extraordinary misconceptions reign about it.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

The art of nursing, as now practised, seems to be expressly constituted to unmake what God had made disease to be, viz., a reparative process.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

True nursing ignores infection, except to prevent it. Cleanliness and fresh air from open windows, with unremitting attention to the patient, are the only defence a true nurse either asks or needs. Wise and humane management of the patient is the best safeguard against infection.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

Is it not living in a continual mistake to look upon diseases, as we do now, as separate entities, which must exist, like cats and dogs? instead of looking upon them as conditions, like a dirty and a clean condition, and just as much under our own control; or rather as the reactions of a kindly nature, against the conditions in which we have placed ourselves.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

It is the unqualified result of all my experience with the sick, that second only to their need of fresh air is their need of light; that, after a close room, what hurts them most is a dark room, and that it is not only light but direct sun-light they want. You had better carry your patient about after the sun, according to the aspect of the rooms, if circumstances permit, than let him linger in a room when the sun is off. People think the effect is upon the spirits only. This is by no means the case. … Without going into any scientific exposition, we must admit that light has quite as real and tangible effects upon the human body. But this is not all. Who has not observed the purifying effect of light, and especially of direct sun-light, upon the air of a room? Here is an observation within everybody’s experience. Go into a room where the shutters are always shut, (in a sick room or a bedroom there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited, though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air, of air, i.e. unpurified by the effect of the sun’s rays. The mustiness of dark rooms and corners, indeed, is proverbial. The cheerfulness of a room, the usefulness of light in treating disease is all-important.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

So also as to all the advice showered so profusely upon such sick, to leave off some occupation, to try some other doctor, some other house, climate, pill, powder, or specific; I say nothing of the inconsistency, for these advisers are sure to be the same persons who exhorted the sick man not to believe his own doctor’s prognostics, because ” doctors are always mistaken,” but to believe some other doctor, because “this doctor is always right.” Sure also are these advisers to be the persons to bring the sick man fresh occupation, while exhorting him to leave his own.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

How little the real sufferings of illness are known or understood. How little does any one in good health fancy him or even herself into the life of a sick person.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

If you knew how unreasonably sick people suffer from reasonable causes of distress, you would take more pains about all these things. An infant laid upon the sick bed will do the sick person, thus suffering, more good than all your eloquence. A piece of good news will do the same. … You will relieve, more effectually, unreasonable suffering from reasonable causes by telling him “the news,” showing him “the baby,” or giving him something new to think of or to look at than by all the logic in the world.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

Pathology teaches the harm that disease has done. But it teaches nothing more. We know nothing of the principle of health, the positive of which pathology is the negative, except from observation and experience. And nothing but observation and experience will teach us the ways to maintain or to bring back the state of health. It is often thought that medicine is the curative process. It is no such thing; medicine is the surgery of functions, as surgery proper is that of limbs and organs. Neither can do anything but remove obstructions; neither can cure; nature alone cures. [italics added] Surgery removes the bullet out of the limb, which is an obstruction to cure, but nature heals the wound. So it is with medicine; the function of an organ becomes obstructed; medicine, so far as we know, assists nature to remove the obstruction; but does nothing more. And what nursing has to do in either case, is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him. [italics added] Generally, just the contrary is done. You think fresh air, and quiet and cleanliness extravagant, perhaps dangerous, luxuries, which should be given to the patient only when quite convenient, and medicine the sine qua non, the panacea.

— Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

 

MARY A. LIVERMORE (1820-1905)

The effect of her [Mary Safford’s] presence was magical. It was like a breath of spring borne into the bare, white­washed rooms—like a burst of sunlight. Every face brightened, and every man who was able, half raised himself from his bed or chair, as in homage, or expectation. It would be difficult to imagine a more cheery vision than her kindly presence, or a sweeter sound than her educated, tender voice, as she moved from bed to bed, speaking to each one.

The baskets were unpacked. One received the plain rice pudding which the surgeon had allowed; there was currant jelly for an acid drink, for the fevered thirst of another; a bit of nicely broiled salt codfish for a third; plain molasses gingerbread for a fourth; a cup of boiled custard for a fifth; half a dozen delicious soda crackers for a sixth; “gum-drops” for the irritating cough of a seventh; baked apples for an eighth; cans of oysters to be divided among several, and so on, as each one’s appetite or caprice had suggested. One man wished to make horse-nets, while his amputated limb was healing, and she had brought him the materials. Another had informed her of his skill in wood-carving, but he had no tools to work with, and she had brought them in the basket.

From the same capacious depths she drew forth paper, envelopes, postage stamps, pencils, ink, Atlantic Monthlies, Chicago Tribunes, checkers, and a folding checker-board, a jack-knife, needles, thread, scissors, buttons, music books, for the musically inclined, of whom there were many in every hospital; a “waxed end” and a shoemaker’s awl, for one to sew up rents in his boots; knitting-needles and red yarn, for one who wished to knit his boy some “reins” for play,—every promise was remembered by Miss Safford.

“Oh, Miss Safford!” said one bright young fellow,” you are the good fairy of this hospital! …

In one ward, two men were weeping bitterly; and when she inquired the cause, it appeared that the surgeon had given them permission to drink a tumbler of milk, night and morning. But the hospital funds were lacking for its purchase, and “French Maria,” the milk-woman, who had just passed through the ward, had refused to let them have it on credit. This was too much for the fortitude of the feeble sufferers, and they were weeping like children. Miss Safford hurried out, and, recalling the milk­maiden, obtained the milk for the day, directing her to leave the same quantity every day, and come to her for payment.

— Mary A. Livermore, My Story of the War: A Woman’s Narrative of Four Years Personal Experience as a Nurse in the Union Army, and the Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, and at the Front, During the War of Rebellion

 

JANE STUART WOOLSEY (1830-1891)

… the little rest and talk, and the newspaper or magazine, and some trifle of a “comfort-bag,” or pocket-comb, or the like, with the suggestion that the women at home are working and thinking for him, send a poor fellow back to his ward with a little freshness in his weary day. Many a glimpse of family history we get in this way; many a simple, pathetic story of suffering and unconscious courage; sometimes, very seldom, a wondrous tale—a tale to “make your flesh creep”—of more than human valor and endurance.

— Jane Stuart Woolsey, Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse

 

Mrs. B—showed the advantage of some previous training in a civil hospital in Massachusetts. Although of lower grade in refinement and education than most of the other nurses, she came in more intelligently to system and worked more efficiently under it. She was keen and wary. … Trim and neat as wax in person and work, her qualities soon told on her ward. Bed-quilts hung no more awry, and blankets were folded over straight and smooth. Crusts and parings, sloppy and cloudy cans and tumblers, crumpled newspapers and greasy cards disappeared from the little bedside tables. A glass as clear as light, with a flower in the season, or a little green spray, a smooth napkin, a freshly-washed feeding cup for the drink, a game-box, a book from the library, took their places. White curtains appeared in the windows, or green where the light needed softening to the sick eyes, prints on the walls, rocking chairs swinging with heroes, up and down the long board doors.

The cups and plates in the little ward-room glistened with cleanliness, and even the ugly stoves began to shine. “Loud conversational blasphemy” and the banging of doors went out of favor. One of the first things she “drew” from the “Sanitary”—why do so many honest people always use the qualificative instead of the noun?—was a lot of soft, light slippers for the men-nurses in the ward. She knew that the heavy creak of a boot is almost as intolerable to a patient as a “sympathizer” sitting on the edge of his bed. She knew what to ask for and what to do with it. … No crowd of new patients came in, in ever so great confusion, without a quick, discriminating survey of their real and immediate wants and a similar report and supply. She possessed what many better educated women never attain—the ability to postpone the non-essential to the essential, and to distinguish clearly between them.

— Jane Stuart Woolsey, Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse

 

There was never a critical case in hospital on which G.’s intelligence was not brought to bear in some shape. On one of these nights a nurse came hurriedly up with the word: “There’s a man dying in Ward —; we can’t do anything for him.” “Has he taken anything since he came in?” “No’m, can’t eat nothin’; doctor says mustn’t give him no stimulants, stomach’s too weak.” “I’ll have a look at him,” says G.; and after the nurse goes out—”the surgeon doesn’t know a bronchitis from a broken leg. There’s not a man in that ward who ought to die. If he is dying, he is dying of starvation.” She hunts up the doctor and asks if wine-whey, the lightest of stimulants, may be tried. Doctor didn’t know what it was, but had no objection; “man couldn’t live anyhow.” The man took the cup full eagerly, was “out of danger” in the morning, got well,—the doctor directing the nurse to be very particular to “give him his wine-whey regular,”—went back to the field and helped to take Richmond.

It was delightful to see what changes rest, clean clothes, and a few good meals often made. Miserable heaps brought in on stretchers might be found in a week’s time sitting up in dressing-gowns with newspapers in their laps; and in a week more with paper collars and pomatum in their hair.

— Jane Stuart Woolsey, Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse

 

S. was a dear boy, patient, cheerful, and lovely-tempered. He was very anxious to get well, and faithfully followed all instructions. The nurses heard him softly praying in the night, “Dear Saviour, give me strength to see the morning.” His serene temper was in his favor, and to the surprise of all he began to improve slowly and was able at last to get home. David W. died of fever and scorbutic disease, exhausted by long hardship and neglect. He was courtly even in his last agony. I fanned him a great deal, as he liked it, but he said repeatedly, ”Your arm must be tired, pray don’t tire yourself.” “Do you like it?” I asked. “Oh, yes! It is delightful, but don’t tire your arm for me. I couldn’t bear that.”

— Jane Stuart Woolsey, Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse

 

Illness is itself an occupation. [italics added] These men, able to get about, but too weak and spiritless to do anything or care for anything, sickened by the sight of food in quantity, fretted to pain by noise and by the very light of day, thrust aside by busy nurses, rather condemned by surgeons as “lame-backs” and “good-for-nothings,”—how did they ever get through the long and weary hours?

— Jane Stuart Woolsey, Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse

 

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A Deeper Look at Walt Whitman’s Hospital Experiences and His Views of Medicine

 

Such an examination seems warranted, as the quotations from Walt Whitman’s writings below show.

Beginning in late December 1862, Whitman obtained part-time work in Washington, DC and served as a volunteer — a comforter and sort of unofficial nurse — in army hospitals. He continued his hospital work there, ministering to both Union and Confederate soldiers, for the duration of the Civil War and for several months after the war had ended.

Whitman achieved remarkable results as a volunteer aide in Civil War hospitals. This was the result of: (1) the way Whitman approached his patients, reflecting his views of humanity and the human condition in general, as well as of health and medicine; (2) his attention as a caregiver to detail; (3) his kindness and compassion; and (4) his steadfast devotion. He would sit by a patient’s bedside all night without the sick man necessarily talking with him, and no request was brushed aside by him.

In an article by Whitman, “Our Wounded and Sick Soldiers” published in The New York Times on December 11, 1864, he described his hospital visits as follows:

My custom is to go through a ward, or a collection of wards, endeavoring to give some trifle to each, without missing any. Even a sweet biscuit, a sheet of paper, or a passing word of friendliness, or but a look or nod, if no more. In this way I go through large numbers, without delaying, yet do not hurry. I find out the general mood of the ward at the time; sometimes see that there is a heavy weight of listlessness prevailing, and the whole ward wants cheering up. I perhaps read to the men, to break the spell; calling them around me, careful to sit away from the cot of any one who is very bad with sickness or wounds. Also, I find out, by going through in this way, the cases that need special attention, and can then devote proper time to them. … I always confer with the doctor, or find out from the nurse of ward-master, about a new case. But I soon get sufficiently familiar with what is to be avoided, and learn also to judge almost intuitively what is best.

And, in a letter to his mother, he wrote:

He who goes among the soldiers with gifts, etc., must beware how he proceeds. It is much more of an art than one would imagine. They are not charity-patients, but American young men, of pride and independence. The spirit in which you treat them, and bestow your donations, is just as important as the gifts themselves; sometimes more so. Then there is continual discrimination necessary. Each case requires some peculiar adaptation to itself. It is very important to slight nobody—not a single case. Some hospital visitors, especially the women, pick out the handsomest looking soldiers, or have a few for their pets. Of course some will attract you more than others, and some will need more attention than others; but be careful not to ignore any patient. A word, a friendly turn of the eye or touch of the hand in passing, if nothing more. (quoted in Walt Whitman: The Wound Dresser: Letters Written to his Mother from Hospitals in Washington during the Civil War, edited by Richard M. Bucke)

Whitman’s Civil War service provided the basis for two books by him (Drum-Taps and Memoranda During the War), with the poems of the former book expanding the content and scope of Leaves of Grass and Whitman becoming, it could be asserted, not only America’s poet, but our Civil War poet — it has been the focus of many books and articles. (These include Harold Aspiz, Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful; Robert Leigh Davis, Whitman and the Romance of Medicine; and Philip W. Leon, Walt Whitman & Sir William Osler: A Poet and His Physician.)

Whitman’s experiences as a volunteer in military hospitals during the Civil War are a major factor in his biography. His experience as a hospital volunteer has influenced much of my own thinking about medicine. They greatly influenced his writings (as I have noted above) and contributed, ultimately, to a decline in his own health.

Walt Whitman’s friend the naturalist John Burroughs wrote in his Walt Whitman: A Study:

[His] principles of operation, effective as they were, seemed strangely few, simple, and on a low key,—to act upon the appetite, to cheer by a healthy and fitly bracing appearance and demeanor; and to fill and satisfy in certain cases the affectional longings of the patients, was about all. He carried among them no sentimentalism nor moralizing; spoke not to any man of his “sins,” but gave something good to eat, a buoying word, or a trifling gift and a look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a flower or a green sprig in the lapel of his coat. Crossing the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of dandelion blossoms, and red and white clover, to bring and scatter on the cots, as reminders of out-door air and sunshine.

 

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WHITMAN’S CIVIL WAR LETTERS

 

Walt Whitman, letter to his sister-in-law Martha Whitman

January 3, 1863

Yesterday I went out to the Campbell Hospital to see a couple of Brooklyn boys, of the 51st. … O my dear sister, how your heart would ache to go through the rows of wounded young men, as I did—and stopt to speak a comforting word to them. There were about 100 in one long room, just a long shed neatly whitewashed inside. One young man was very much prostrated, and groaning with pain. I stopt and tried to comfort him. He was very sick. I found he had not had any medical attention since he was brought there—among so many he had been overlooked. So I sent for the doctor, and he made an examination of him—the doctor behaved very well—seemed to be anxious to do right—said that the young man would recover—he had been brought pretty low with diarroeha, and now had bronchitis, but not so serious as to be dangerous. I talked to him some time—he seemed to have entirely give up, and lost heart—he had not a cent of money—not a friend or acquaintance—I wrote a letter from him to his sister—his name is John A. Holmes, Campbello, Plymouth county, Mass. …he said he would like to buy a drink of milk, when the woman came through with milk. Trifling as this was, he was overcome and began to cry.

[In an article by Whitman in the New York Times of February 26, 1863, Whitman describes meeting Holmes at Campbell Hospital in January 1863. “As I stopped by him and made some commonplace remark (to which he made no reply), I saw as I looked that it was a case for ministering to the affection first, and other nourishment and medicines afterward. I sat down by him without any fuss; talked a little; soon saw that it did him good; led him to talk himself; got him somewhat interested.”

 

Walt Whitman, letter to Nathaniel Bloom and John F. S. Gray

March 19-20, 1863

I [have] got very much interested in some particular cases in Hospitals here—go now steadily to more or less of said Hospitals by day or night—find always the sick and dying soldiers forthwith begin to cling to me in a way that makes a fellow feel funny enough. These Hospitals, so different from all others—these thousands, and tens and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded, all sorts of wounds, operated on, pallid with diarrhea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, &c. open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines than any yet, showing our humanity, (I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife,) tried by terrible, fearfulest tests, probed deepest, the living soul’s, the body’s tragedies, bursting the petty bonds of art. To these, what are your dramas and poems, even the oldest and the tearfulest?

 

Walt Whitman, draft of letter to Nicholas Wyckoff or Daniel L. Northrup

May 14, 1863

I adapt myself to each case … some need to be humored, some are rather out of their head—some merely want me to sit down [near] them, & hold them by the hand—one will want a letter written to mother or father, (yesterd[ay] I wrote over a dozen letters)-­some like to have me feed them (wounded perhaps in shoulder or wrist) perhaps a few bits of my peaches—some want a cooling drink, (I have some very nice syrups from raspberries &c.)—others want writing paper, envelopes, a stamp, &c.—I could fill a sheet with one day’s items—I often go, just at dark, sometimes stay nearly all night—I like to go just before supper, carrying a pot or jar of something good & go around with a spoon distributing a little here and there. Yet after all this succoring of the stomach (which is of course most welcome & indispensable) I should say that I believe my profoundest help to these sick & dying men is probably the soothing invigoration I steadily bear in mind, to infuse in them through affection, cheering love, & the like, [italics added] between them & me. It has saved more than one life. There is a strange influence here. I have formed attachments here in hospital, that I shall keep to my dying day, & they will the same, without doubt.

 

Walt Whitman, letter to his mother, Louisa Van Velsor Whitman

June 30, 1863

One soldier, brought here about fifteen days ago, very low with typhoid lever, Livingston Brooks, Co B 17th Penn Cavalry, I have particularly stuck to, as I found him in what appeared to be a dying condition, from negligence, & a horrible journey of about forty miles, bad roads & fast driving—& then after he got here, as he is a simple country boy, very shy & silent, & made no complaint, they neglected him— … I called the doctor’s attention to him, shook up the nurses, had him bathed in spirits, gave him lumps of ice, & ice to his head, he had a fearful bursting pain in his head, & his body was like fire—he was very quiet, a very sensible boy, old fashioned—he did not want to die, & I had to lie to him without stint, for he thought I knew everything, & I always put in of course that what I told him was exactly the truth, & that if he got really dangerous I would tell him & not conceal it.

The rule is to remove bad fever patients out from the main wards to a tent by themselves, & the doctor told me he would have to be removed. I broke it gently to him, but the poor boy got it immediately in his head that he was marked with death, & was to be removed on that account—it had a great effect upon him, & although I told the truth this time it did not have as good a result as my former fibs—I persuaded the doctor to let him remain—for three days he lay just about an even chance, go or stay, with a little leaning toward the first—But, mother, to make a long story short, he is now out of any immediate danger—he has been perfectly rational throughout—begins to taste a little food, (for a week he eat nothing, I had to compel him to take a quarter of an orange, now & then)—& I will say, whether any one calls it pride or not, that if he does get up & around again, it’s me that saved his life.

 

Walt Whitman, draft of letter to Mr. and Mrs. S. B. Haskell

August 10, 1863

Dear friends, I thought it would be soothing to you to have a few lines about the last days of your son Erastus Haskell of Company K, 141st New York Volunteers. I write in haste … I thought any thing about Erastus would be welcome. … From the first I felt that Erastus was in danger, or at least was much worse than they in the hospital supposed. As he made no complaint, they perhaps [thought him] not very bad—I told the [doctor of the ward] to look him over again—he was a much [sicker boy?] than he supposed, but he took it lightly, said, I know more about these fever cases than you do—the young man looks very sick, but I shall certainly bring him out of it all right. I have no doubt the doctor meant well & did his best—at any rate, about a week or so before Erastus died he got really alarmed & after that he & all the doctors tried to help him, but without avail—Maybe it would not have made any difference any how—I think Erastus was broken down, poor boy, before he came to the hospital here. … Somehow I took to him, he was a quiet young man, behaved always correct & decent, said little—I used to sit on the side of his bed—I said once, You don’t talk any, Erastus, you leave me to do all the talking—he only answered quietly, I was never much of a talker. The doctor wished every one to cheer him up very lively—I was always pleasant & cheerful with him, but did not feel to be very lively—Only once I tried to tell him some amusing narratives, but after a few moments I stopt, I saw that the effect was not good, & after that I never tried it again—I used to sit by the side of his bed, pretty silent, as that seemed most agreeable to him, & I felt it so too—he was generally opprest for breath, & with the heat, & I would fan him—occasionally he would want a drink—some days he dozed a good deal—sometimes when I would come in, he woke up, & I would lean down & kiss him, he would reach out his hand & pat my hair & beard a little, very friendly, as I sat on the bed & leaned over him. …

I was very anxious he should be saved, & so were they all—he was well used by the attendants—poor boy, I can see him as I write … He never complained—but it looked pitiful to see him lying there, with such a look out of his eyes. He had large clear eyes, they seemed to talk better than words—I assure you I was attracted to him much—Many nights I sat in the hospital by his bedside till far in the night—The lights would be put out—yet I would sit there silently, hours, late, perhaps fanning him—he always liked to have me sit there, but never cared to talk—I shall never forget those nights. …

 

Walt Whitman, draft of letter to William S. Davis

October 1, 1863

I go every day or night in the hospitals a few hours. … As to physical comforts, I attempt to have something—generally a lot of–something harmless & not too expensive to go round to each man, even if it is nothing but a good home-made biscuit to each man, or a couple of spoonfuls of blackberry preserve, I take a ward or two of an evening & two more next evening &c—as an addition to his supper—sometimes one thing, sometimes another … then, after such general round, I fall back upon the main thing, after all, the special cases, alas, too common–those that need special attention, some little delicacy, some trifle—very often, far above all else, soothing kindness wanted—personal magnetism [italics added]—poor boys, their sick hearts & wearied & exhausted bodies hunger for the sustenance of love or their deprest spirits must be cheered up … it is comfort & delight to me to minister to them, to sit by them—some so wind themselves around one’s heart, & will be kissed at parting at night just like children—though veterans of two years of battles & camp life—

I always carry a haversack with some articles most wanted—physical comforts are a sort of basis—I distribute nice large biscuit, sweet-crackers, sometimes cut up a lot of peaches with sugar, give preserves of all kinds, jellies, &c. tea, oysters, butter, condensed milk, plugs of tobacco, (I am the only one that doles out this last, & the men have grown to look to me)—wine, brandy, sugar, pickles, letter-stamps, envelopes & note-paper, the morning papers, common handkerchiefs & napkins, undershirts, socks, dressing gowns, & fifty other things—l have lots of special little requests.

 

Walt Whitman, draft of letter to Margaret S. Curtis, October 4, 1863

I try to distribute something, even if but the merest trifle, all round, without missing any, when I visit a ward, going round rather rapidly—& then devoting myself, more at leisure, to the cases that need special attention. One who is experienced may find in almost any ward at any time one or two patients or more, who are at that time trembling in the balance, the crisis of the wound, recovery uncertain, yet death also uncertain. I will confess to you, madam, that I think I have an instinct & faculty for these cases. Poor young men, how many have I seen, & known—how pitiful it is to see them—one must be calm & cheerful, & not let on how their case really is, must stop much with them, find out their idiosyncrasies [italics added]— do any thing for them—nourish them, judiciously give the right things to drink—bring in the affections, soothe them, brace them up, kiss them, discard all ceremony, & fight for them, as it were, with all weapons. I need not tell your womanly soul that such work blesses him that works as much as the object of it. …

It is now between 8 & 9, evening—the atmosphere is rather solemn here to-night—there are some very sick men here—the scene is a curious one—the ward is perhaps 120 or 30 feet long—the cots each have their white musquito curtains—all is quite still—an occasional sigh or groan … the walls, roof, &c are all whitewashed—the light up & down the ward from a few gas-burners about half turned down. … I have been in the hospital, one part or another, since 3 o’clock—to a few of the men, pretty sick, or just convalescing & with delicate stomachs or perhaps badly wounded arms, I have fed their suppers—partly peaches pealed, & cut up, with powdered sugar, very cool & refreshing—they like to have me sit by them & peal them, cut them in a glass, & sprinkle on the sugar— (all these little items may-be may interest you).

 

Walt Whitman, letter to Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, October 6, 1863

Mother, it is lucky I like Washington in many respects, & that things are upon the whole pleasant personally, for every day of my life I see enough to make one’s heart ache with sympathy & anguish here in the hospitals, & I do not know as I could stand it, if it was not counter­balanced outside—it is curious—when I am present at the most appaling [sic] things, deaths, operations, sickening wounds (perhaps full of maggots), I do not fail, although my sympathies are very much excited, but keep singularly cool—but often, hours afterward, perhaps when I am home, or out walking alone, I feel sick & actually tremble, when I recal [sic] the thing & have it in my mind again before me—

 

Walt Whitman, draft of letter to Hugo Fritsch, October 8, 1863

I still live here as a hospital missionary after my own style, & on my own hook—I go every day or night without fail to some of the great government hospitals—the sad scenes I witness—scenes of death, anguish, the fevers, amputations, friendlessness, of hungering & thirsting young hearts, for some loving presence—such noble young men as some of these wounded are—such endurance, such native decorum, such candor—I will confess to you, dear Hugo, that in some respects I find myself in my element amid these scenes—shall I not say to you that I find I supply often to some of these dear suffering boys in my presence & magnetism that which nor doctors nor medicines nor skill nor any routine assistance can give? [italics added]

 

Walt Whitman, letter to Abby H. Price, October 11, 1863

I am continually moving around among the hospitals. One I go to oftenest the last three months is Armory Square, as it is large, generally full of the worst wounds & sicknesses, & is one of the least visited—to this, or some one, I never miss a day or evening. I am enabled to give the men something—add perhaps some trifle to their supper all round. Then there are always special cases, needing something special. Above all the poor boys welcome magnetic friendship, personality (some are so fervent, so hungering for this)—poor fellows, how young they are, lying there with their pale faces, & that mute look in the eyes. O how one gets to love them, often, particular cases, so suffering, so good, so manly & affectionate—Abby, you would all smile to see me among them—many of them like children, ceremony is mostly discarded—they suffer & get exhausted & so weary—lots of them have grown to expect as I leave at night that we should kiss each other, sometimes quite a number, I have to go round—poor boys, there is little petting in a soldier’s life in the field, but, Abby, I know what is in their hearts, always waiting, though they may be unconscious of it themselves—

I have a place where I buy very nice home-made biscuits, sweet crackers &c—Among others, one of my ways is to get a good lot of these & for supper go through a couple of wards & give a portion to each man—next evening two wards more, & so on—then each marked case needs something to itself—I spend my evenings altogether at the hospitals—my day, often. I give little gifts of money in small sums, which I am enabled to do. All sorts of things indeed, food, clothing, letter-stamps (I write lots of letters), now & then a good pair of crutches &c &c. Then I read to the boys—the whole ward that can walk gathers around me & listens—

 

Walt Whitman, letter to James P. Kirkwood, April 27 (?), 1864

I have now been over a year among the wounded. I find that personal application, tact, & insight, with entire sympathy, are the only means effectual in hospitals [italics added]—every case wants some peculiar adaptation—to some, some little article purchased—many the tender hand & word, oft repeated, never slacking up, till danger is past. … The soldiers are nearly altogether young American men of decent breeding, farmers’ sons ordinarily educated, but well behaved & their young hearts full of manliness & candor. Their condition makes deepest attachments under their sufferings & wounds often brought right to the bitterness of death. Some, indeed, one feels to love deeply, & they return it with interest.

 

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Whitman’s Hospital Experiences, as Recounted and Analyzed by Whitman Scholars

When practicable, he came to the long and crowded wards of the maimed, the feeble, and the dying, only after preparations as for a festival,—strengthened by a good meal, rest, the bath, and fresh underclothes. He entered with a huge haversack slung over his shoulder, full of appropriate articles, with parcels under his arms, and protuberant pockets. He would sometimes come in summer with a good-sized basket filled with oranges, and would go round for hours paring and dividing them among the feverish and thirsty.

— John Burroughs, Walt Whitman: A Study

 

Nothing is of any avail among the soldiers except conscientious personal investigation of cases, each for itself; with sharp critical faculties, but in the fullest spirit of human sympathy and boundless love. The men feel such love more than anything else. I have met very few persons who realize the importance of humoring the yearning for love and friendship of these American young men, prostrated by sickness and wounds.

To many of the wounded and sick, especially the youngsters, there is something in personal love, caresses, and the magnetic flood of sympathy and friendship, that does, in its way, more good than all the medicine in the world [italics added] … Many will think this merely sentimentalism, but I know it is the most solid of facts. I believe that even the moving around among the men, or through the ward, of a hearty, healthy, clean, strong, generous-souled person, man or woman, full of humanity and love, sending out invisible, constant currents thereof, does immense good to the sick and wounded.

— Walt Whitman; quoted in Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman

 

Although [Whitman] sometimes helped the doctors and nurses to change bandages, he was never, in a literal sense, a “wound-dresser,” as [Richard Maurice] Bucke called him. Nevertheless this title suited him perfectly; if he did not attend the wounds of the body, he brought to the wounded or sick soldiers something which was as necessary to their recovery as medical care, but for which the regulations had not provided: the comfort of a loving presence, the sweetness of an almost maternal affection, the delicate attentions [italics added] of an ingenious kindness. He had already rehearsed this role in the New York hospitals where he had often visited sick omnibus drivers. He fulfilled it with perfect tact.

— Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman

 

These are the principles that he put into practice. He went from bed to bed, distributing oranges, lemons, sugar, jam, preserved fruit, tobacco (which the soldiers rarely had) …. and even small sums of money which permitted them to buy some comforts. But, above all, he paused at the bedside of one or another to listen to their stories. He was passionately interested in the fate of each one. … Many of the young soldiers felt abandoned and deprived of affection, and he performed the function of a family and gave them back the will to live. … To those who were too ill to listen or to speak, he offered his silent presence, the presence of a body which from the first days of the war he had consecrated to purity and health. He remained at their bedside for hours if necessary. Thus took place a mysterious transfusion of strength. It was as if his serenity and health were contagious; at his contact the wounded regained hope. He gave them the desire to recover. [italics added]

— Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman

 

… his presence and care sometimes worked miracles. Doctors themselves were obliged to admit it, and in a letter to his mother, he told the story of a cure which he had effected in after several days’ battle with death:

By the power of patience and tenderness he had in fact succeeded in tipping the balance toward the side of life. And he saved the lives of many sick and wounded soldiers the same way:

“Mother, [he wrote a few months later,] I have real pride in telling you that I have the consciousness of saving quite a number of lives by saving them from giving up—and being a good deal with them; the men say it is so, and the doctors say it is so—and I will candidly confess I can see it is true, though I say it of myself.”

— Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman

 

Whitman and his friends fashioned the myth of a hospital visitor endowed with limitless health, spirituality, and “incredible and exhaustless” magnetic-curative powers. “It is no figure of speech, but a fact deeper than speech,” [Whitman’s friend, the naturalist John] Burroughs asserted, that the “lusterless eye [of the suffering soldiers] brightened up at his approach, his commonplace words invigorated; a bracing air seemed to fill the ward and neutralize the bad smells.” Indeed, Whitman was said to possess a “new and mysterious” bodily quality which was indescribable, “but which none who come into his presence can escape, and which is, perhaps, the analogue to the intuitive quality of his intellect.”

Whitman’s efforts to arouse the soldiers’ recuperative powers were consistent with the nineteenth-century medical theory of vitalism, according to which every person possesses, in addition to his physical and chemical organization, an electric life force that is linked to his will and that governs his ability to overcome sickness. It is true that Whitman helped soldiers to survive essentially by rallying their will to overcome illness. But the well-publicized charisma of the healer-persona was compounded, in part, of mystical elements and seasoned with a generous dash of poetic imagination. In sentiments, if not words, that are the poet’s own, [Richard Maurice] Bucke’s Walt Whitman (1883), a joint venture in mytho-biography, declared that Whitman had buoyed up the ailing soldiers “with a few words, with caresses, with personal affection; he bends over them, strong, clean, cheerful, perfumed, loving, and his magnetic touch and love sustain them.” Whitman’s touch, Bucke explained, had “a charm that cannot be described, and if it could, the description would not be believed except by those who know him either personally or through Leaves of Grass. This charm (physiological more than psychological), if understood, would explain the whole mystery of the man, and how he produced such effects not only upon the well, but among the sick and wounded.”

— Harold Aspiz, Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful

 

As Aspiz notes, Whitman “advocated … the treatment of patients in terms of their total personality and organic being.” He “insisted that genuine cures can result only from a careful investigation of the whole person.” He felt that doctors were guilty of having an insufficient reverence for the human body.

It is further noted by Aspiz of Whitman that

… his ministrations were efficacious. Going on his rounds, carrying the familiar leather knapsack filled with gifts and with items the soldiers had asked for—jams and jellies, fruit, tobacco, and coins—writing letters, chatting, sitting beside the sick and dying, changing the dressing on a wound, or reading poetry to the ‘boys’ — white and black, soldier and teamster—he soothed them by his very presence.

The journalist and historian John Swinton, who accompanied Whitman on a tour of the hospital wards, told of the curative effect of Whitman … he said that Whitman’s personality seemed to light up the wards … he handed out comfits and oranges, wrote letters, and delivered messages; he conferred touches, words of cheer, or “a manly farewell kiss.” He seemed to leave a benediction for everyone as he passed along.

[Whitman] took justifiable pride in his efforts to rouse the natural recuperative powers—the vis medicatrix naturae—of the soldiers.

 

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“Nothing is of any avail among the soldiers except conscientious personal investigation of cases, each for itself; with sharp, critical facilities, but boundless love,” Whitman wrote in one of his letters. “The men feel such love more than anything else. I have met very few persons who realize the importance of humoring the yearnings for love and friendship of these American young men, prostrated by sickness and wounds … that does, in its way, more good than all the medicine in the world. … I have the consciousness of saving quite a number of lives by saving them from giving up—and being a good deal with them; the men say it is so, and doctors say it is so.”

[This quote appears in several sources. It appears that the quotation is from a letter from Whitman to his mother, Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, written in 1863, when Whitman was in Washington. I could not find the letter in books published about Whitman or a precise reference to it, and cannot therefore verify the source.]

Have doctors ever given (or thought about giving) this kind of love, let alone affection? Of course not. They would, I would imagine, consider it ridiculous. They are committed to what they view as unshakable “scientific” detachment. To which I would reply. Fine — who am I to say? Except that, absent the kind of care Whitman provided (doctors will say their patient load doesn’t permit it) patients will not get better. This seems to me as certain as the diagnostic facts upon which doctors base their decisions about treatment.

 

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Respect for the Patients’ “Personhood”; The Vis Medicatrix Naturae

As Whitman scholar Harold Aspiz notes in his monograph Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful, the physicians who treated Whitman in his later years, notably William Osler, “demonstrated a wholesome respect for the total organism and personality of their patients and a skepticism toward drugs.”

Doctors want to treat the symptom and do not want to be bothered with the individual.

It was Whitman’s belief that a physician should treat the whole person rather than some localized aspects of his illness. Osler was, like Whitman, skeptical of drugs. He reflected the renewed esteem in the medical world at that time for the vis medicatrix naturae, which has been called (in an article by Max Neuberger in the journal Medical Life, 1932) “the defensive and prophylactic apparatus and the healing powers of nature.” Whitman saw Osler (in Aspiz’s words) as “the born healer who is instinctively aware of the curative powers of nature.”

Aspiz notes:

Ever since Whitman’s newspaper days, the poet had cherished the Hippocratic principle that the innate natural powers are the principal healers of disease. Like the homeopathic and eclectic doctors of an earlier era, he still denied that disease is usually a distinctive condition affecting a specific organ but held that it most often is a derangement of the vis medicatrix naturae. According to an authority [Max Neuberger], this principle meant that ‘the final decision’ between sickness and recovery ‘depends in most cases on the healing powers of nature, and … even the most ideal activity of the physician must find its fulcrum and measure in this regulative-compensatory reaction of the organism, in the natural defensive and protective apparatus.

Whitman declared in later life to Horace Traubel (who kept a record of his conversations with the poet): “By nature, by observation, by the doctors, I have learned that the thing to do when I am really down is to rely upon the vis, as it is called—the inherited forces.” He said that the vis either comes to the sufferer’s rescue or “all may as well be given up at once.”

“[Whitman’s] medical intuitions were sound,” Aspiz writes:

Progressive medical practice, as Richard H. Shyrock points out (in his book Medicine in America), has learned to respect the “concern about complete physiological reactions to disease and injury.” Whitman esteemed Dr. Osler because Osler “treated the whole man rather than his localized aliments, because he applied the principle that a doctor must know the natural course of a disease before he can know his patient’s reaction to any medication used in its cure, and because he was skeptical of drugs. He would have cheered Dr. Osler’s advice to his medical students “to cultivate a keenly skeptical attitude toward the pharmacopeia as a whole, remembering the shrewd remark of Benjamin Franklin that ‘he is the best doctor who knows the worthlessness of most medicines.’ ”

Whitman told his literary friend John Townsend Trowbridge that when he was living in New York in 1860, he could “cheer up” and “strengthen” a sickly lad living in his boarding house by charging him with his (Whitman’s) own “magnetism.” He attributed his success in healing “sick and affection-starved soldiers” (in the words of Aspiz) to what Whitman called his “magnetic personality” — “freely bestowed,” as Aspiz notes — and “the simple matter of [his own] personal presence, and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism [italics added]. It is, he said, “the most solid of facts that “even the moving around among the men, or through the ward, of a hearty, healthy, clean, strong, generous-souled person, man or woman, full of humanity and love, sending out invisible currents thereof, does immense good to the sick and wounded” (in Whitman’s Specimen Days).

“According to Whitman’s reasoning,” Aspiz notes, “once the solider has regained his will to survive, he activates his vis medicatrix naturae (vis is Latin for power or force) — the body’s natural recuperative powers — and begins to regain his health. There is an important principle here. It is that sickness involves not only pathology, it also affects the mind and often involves a sort of paralysis of the will.

How many such persons does one see in hospitals today?

Perfect health is the right relation to nature, Whitman believed. Somehow, in sickness, the relation has become disjointed.

 

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Quotations from Contemporary Critics of Medicine/Healthcare

Medical school was a long, dark tunnel. I barely survived it, and I thought of quitting daily — literally. It was not only the grinding, tedious, endless cacophony of minutiae to be swallowed, nor the traumatic rites of passage in morgue, O.R., etc. that wore me down; the worst part was the stifling (intellectually, creatively, personally) atmosphere created by the Priests of Medicine, my teachers, would-be role models — and, finally, even my cohorts. There are tremendous pressures to conform, assume, the aloof Demigod role, “think” only in ritualized patterns. Metaphysical, epistemological – even ethical — questions are ignored or treated as so much offal from the morgue. A righteous, “scientific” detachment is developed and refined. The only way I survived was to withdraw from the whole scene as much as possible. The ultimate effect on me was a complete radicalization of my thinking. …

— John Dana Ferris MD, letter to Roger W. Smith, January 21, 1978

 

[T]he conventional wisdom is that more diagnosis–particularly, more early diagnosis–means better medical care. The logic goes something like this: more diagnosis means more treatment, and more treatment means better health. This may be true for some. But there is another side to the story. More diagnosis may make healthy people feel more vulnerable–and, ironically, less healthy. In other words, excessive diagnosis can literally make you feel sick. And more diagnosis leads to excessive treatment for problems that either aren’t that bothersome or aren’t bothersome at all. Excessive treatment, of course, can really hurt you. Excessive diagnosis may lead to treatment that is worse than the disease. … an overdiagnosed patient cannot benefit from treatment. There’s nothing to be fixed–he will neither develop symptoms nor die from his condition–so the treatment is unneeded. An overdiagnosed patient can only be harmed. And the simple truth is that almost all treatments have the potential to do some harm. … a substantial portion of my patients … avoid elective surgery. They are hesitant about taking medicines for what they perceive to be minor problems. And they are predisposed to be skeptical about preventive interventions, interventions for conditions that aren’t problems now but might become so in the future. I call it the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought.

— H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa M. Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, 2011

 

“Rather than being fearful of not detecting disease both patients and doctors should fear healthcare. The best way to avoid medical errors is to avoid medical care. The default should be: I am well. [italics added] The way to stay that way is to keep making good choices — not to have my doctor look for problems.”

— John M. Mandrola, “Redefining the Annual Physical: A (Broken) Window into American Healthcare,” Medscape, January 15, 2015 (quoted in Barbara Ehrenreich, Natural Causes; An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, pg. 9)

 

I am no longer interested in looking for [medical] problems that remain undetectable to me.

— Barbara Ehrenreich, Natural Causes; An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer

 

I refuse to accept a medicalized life, and my determination only deepens with age. As the time that remains to me shrinks, each month and day becomes too precious to spend in windowless waiting rooms under the cold scrutiny of machines.

— Barbara Ehrenreich, Natural Causes; An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer

 

It still amazes me that there is still such a concern about the continued use of a more natural approach to one’s health care, as if the current medical model is so perfectly safe, cost effective, accessible and successful. It is not. Why do you think that so many are trying alternative methods? I recently lost two friends (both younger than myself) who went into the hospital (our alleged medical miracle complex) for relatively minor treatment and never came out. I never read articles about the dangers of medicine — and there are MANY. I, myself, am over 70 on NO medications (oh there were times I could have been, but was more concerned about side effects and costs) and have been able (thus far) to keep all aches, pains, transient sicknesses at bay using alternatives. … Please stop scapegoating them, and if you are concerned about research, FUND IT. Until you do, let people use what they find effective, NOT what someone else thinks they should use. P.S. There are numerous studies done on homeopathic treatment that are positive.

— reader’s comment re an op-ed, “ ‘Natural’ doctors face skepticism from practitioners of conventional medicine,” The Washington Post, April 9, 2018

 

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My Experience

 

The following are my own thoughts, based upon my experience of medical care as an occasional “nurse” in my own family, during a period when I worked as in a hospital as an orderly, and as the recipient of medical care from my parents when I was ill as a child. And, as an occasional visitor to doctors’ offices as an adult.

Doctors do not want to hear what you think your illness might be or how you think it might be treated. They regard your illness as their problem (to solve).

There were many old-fashioned ideas and popular medical theories in Walt Whitman’s time that were quack brained or based on pseudoscience. The same applies to many current medical fads.

Whitman was influenced by such views. But not all of them, past or present, are quack brained. Much is or was based on common sense and wisdom (notably Whitman’s views and those of like-minded advocates of what might be termed holistic medicine) and has, unfortunately, been neglected or disregarded. There is a lot of nonsense and wishful thinking in alternative or folk medicine today. Yet, I trust my own intuitions, as Whitman did his.

 

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Treat the person, not the disease.

 

The fundamental question, the matter about which I feel the experts know practically nothing, is how to care for sick people. It starts, at least for me, with one’s family and home.

Treat the PERSON, not the disease. Treating the disease is actually nurturing/fostering it.

This is what you do first, dear reader.

You give the sick or indisposed person your full, undivided attention, no matter how trivial (or serious) the complaint seems to be. As doctors almost never do, you listen. Patiently. And sympathetically. Without interruption.

You will be surprised how therapeutic this can be.

The patient is caught up in a web of misery. Due to being sick. There may be suffering or acute pain, or it could be that someone just doesn’t feel well.

But the miserable feelings have become predominant. The patient feels overwhelmed and unable to cope.

You do little things to alleviate the sense of oppression, miserableness, and powerlessness. To relieve or soothe the miserable feelings. The things the sick person feels too exhausted to do.

The patient begins to feel a little better. Is able to summon, call upon, his or her own curative propensities. And, perhaps, ultimately (it happens more often than one would imagine), face the disease and overcome it.

How does one help people get better?

Attend to their needs.

I believe that illness is, fundamentally, more emotional in nature than physical, which is not to deny or pretend that there is not — as there obviously is — a physical basis. Can one distinguish between etiology and cause? Some germs lodged in one’s throat. They breached the ramparts of the immune system because the victim was feeling tired and rundown.

I also believe, absolutely, that sick persons, including the sickest, have — as part of their makeup and constitution — “health factors” which can combat germs and disease. Restorative capabilities. The focus is always on pathology. Not to be a flat earth type denier of the scientific consensus (the opposite view), but how about looking at the capability we all have to feel well? The “health factors” inherent in our constitutions and the environment. There are curative (non-medical) factors all around us in our environment: in foods and drink, in the outdoors; in rest and sleep; in various little comforts as simple as a bed, clean sheets, a blanket, or a pillow; which diversions can get one’s mind off one’s illness or misery and can lead to physical healing. (I have observed it often).

And I believe that attentive care and alertness to complaints and needs, as well as sympathy and empathy, can work miracles. That a sick person needs these the most.

 

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Personal Examples; Home and Family

 

My father and mother were great with our illnesses. They responded with compassion, sensitivity, and empathy to all sorts of childhood maladies, from a sore throat or upset stomach to measles or chicken pox. They didn’t distinguish between a discomfort or something more serious. Paid minute attention to the needs, discomforts/comforts of myself and my siblings. I experienced this with my own parents and applied their “treatment methods,” which were mostly “extra medical,” to my own sons.

My older son was feeling wretched. Prostrate on his bed with a pail to vomit in. Nauseous and feeling clammy. I was advised to give him something or other. Pepto-Bismol? Cough medicine? (As if that would do any good for an upset stomach, but when someone is sick, others want to supply a remedy, any remedy, making them feel that they’ve done something, and something supposedly drawing upon readily available, effective curatives. If all the advertisements say it works wonders, it can’t do any harm, right?) What my son took I don’t recall. What I did, as is my wont, was to give him sympathy and, most importantly, my full attention. “How do you feel? What can I get for you?”

He recalled somehow that I had once given him Tom Collins Mix (because my parents used to use this remedy on me for an upset stomach). It works somehow. We had ginger ale at home, but Tom Collins Mix works better. It was late. Any stores still open? Would they have it? I didn’t hesitate. I got myself in gear and rushed to a local supermarket before closing time. I knew what he wanted and needed exactly; he had to have it right then. Not the next day, which would have meant going through another night of misery. A small thing, but — this is key — it was what he wanted and needed to bring him relief. That’s where one can be effective. At the ground or micro level. Not frantically calling doctors or rummaging through the medicine chest.

How about the bed sheets? He was feverish and sweaty. Let’s change them and make him more comfortable. Clean and straighten up the room.

Fussiness over, attention to, such details seems to have an ameliorative effect. When one is sick, the simplest task can seem onerous. Changing the sheets, taking a shower (just getting out of bed to do so), grooming, a change of one’s undershirt: These simple things can seem like too much effort. One is lying in “helpless squalor.” A “good angel” comes along and does these things. The sick individual starts to feel that the situation is not hopeless, and the little things, such as replacing a sweaty T-shirt with a fresh, clean one, can have tangible benefits that are felt immediately.

I’ve seen it numerous times. The patient, my son, your son or daughter, begins to feel a bit better. Or a little less miserable. Some kind of mutually reinforcing series of ameliorative phases, or intermittent intervening stirrings of “betterness,” set in. The “patient” gets better. Dr. Smith has worked his magic.

All it takes (no special training required) is assiduous attention to the patient’s needs as he or she sees them.

The sick person heals himself.

The person tending to him or her is a sort of intermediary, a facilitator, who by providing comfort and encouragement makes this possible.

 

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Mr. Falkenburg: a successful outcome resulting from attention to the individual patient

 

I stated above that attentive care and alertness to complaints and needs, as well as sympathy and empathy, can work miracles. That a sick person needs these the most.

Mr. Falkenburg is a case in point.

In the early 1970’s, I was employed as an orderly in the cardiac intensive care unit at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

An elderly man was admitted. He was confused and disoriented. His behavior was somewhat erratic. He would get out of bed at the wrong time, seen unsure where he was or whether to dress or undress, things like that.

The nurses responded by treating Mr. Falkenburg, and speaking to him, in condescending, patronizing fashion. Lecturing and sort of scolding him in a falsetto voice as you see parents do with an errant child, e.g., “watch where you’re going!”; “eat your food, don’t play with it!”

I was assigned male patients and had a routine to follow: bathe them, make bed, etc.

Along with the routine, I talked with Mr. Falkenburg. He had a frightened, haunted look in his eyes. I treated him with respect and took my time with him.

The nurses couldn’t believe the change. He calmed down and acted normally. He was no longer the crazy patient.

Not only did his attitude and demeanor change, but within a couple of days he was discharged, the medical emergency over.

His wife came to visit him a couple of times prior to his discharge. They were taking calmly and did not seem alarmed. I could see great relief on her part that his “delirium” had passed and his condition was under control. She expressed gratitude to me several times. She realized what I had done.

I did not feel like a hero — I did feel very pleased. It gladdened me too to see the change; my focus all along had been on the patient as a person, not myself or my role.

I reacted instinctively. That is how I had always treated people, how I myself would want to be treated, and how my parents had treated me when I was sick. I was doing what to me seemed elementary, irrespective of whether it would be taught in a nursing course.

(This goes to show: It seems that some of the most important things we learn in life are by example and not by precept.)

To the extent that I was keenly aware of and focused on my role in Mr. Falkenburg’s sudden improvement, it was that it seemed to corroborate my ideas (and Whitman’s) about treating the person rather than the disease and putting empathy first.

 

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Essential Restorative Factors; Why Are Fresh Air and Sunshine Ignored When It Comes to Modern Health Care?

 

Has it ever occurred to doctors that the elements, which are omnipresent and free, available to everyone — namely, fresh air and sunshine — are superior to and much more efficacious than all their medicines?

Walt Whitman describes this in his poem “Song of the Open Road,” in which he portrays himself as the supremely healthy and health-giving poet/persona:

Healthy and free-footed, … the persona takes to the road and absorbs its lessons. Invigorated and energized by the electrical and spiritual qualities of the open air, … He interchanges his own magnetism with that of others. … his astounding assumptions are not unfounded. Before this poem was composed, [Bronson] Alcott and others had cited Faraday’s discoveries concerning the electric properties of oxygen in order to show that fresh air imparts physical and psychic revitalization. Health, electrical biologists argued, is a condition characterized by abundant body electricity, properly balanced between positive and negative charges. In the open sunlit spaces, the person’s blood can become oxygenated and electrified by his deep breathing, and his body can be vitalized by the atmospheric currents.

— Harold Aspiz, Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful

Chief among these: the benefits of fresh air. As Walt Whitman put it: “I think I could stop here myself and do miracles”; “I inhale great draughts of air.” (Leaves of Grass, 1860 edition.)

And sunshine. As Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass: “Why are there men and women that while they are nigh to me the sunlight expands my blood?” The women he admired, he said were “tanned in the face by shining suns and blowing winds.” And he preferred, he said, faces “well-tann’d to those that keep out of the sun.”

The best medicines, healing factors, restoratives, curatives are omnipresent in the environment, everywhere around us, and are free, such as fresh air, breezes, sunlight, and water. No prescriptions, medical insurance, or claim forms are required. You won’t find them in hospitals, and this is a problem, because in hospitals people are denied the very things they require to be able to get well. As Louisa May Alcott remarked in her Hospital Sketches, she experienced considerable frustration trying to provide fresh air for hospitalized men: “the windows had been carefully nailed down above, and the lower sashes could only be raised in the mildest weather.”

 

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There seems to be something to the idea — to me it is incontrovertible — that the ability to help unhealthy or sick persons depends upon intuition, sensitivity, and personal magnetism. And upon minute observances (including the utmost decorum and considerateness towards the sick person/sufferer) on the part of the would-be healer (as discussed above). And, equally, upon the health and “wholeness,” the “inner integrity,” of the would be nurse or healer. It is notable how Walt Whitman prepared for hospital visits with a bath and attention to his grooming and dress.

The healthy among the sick. Ministering to them. Imparting wholeness and health. They are very efficacious. Or, to put it another way, the sick should not be segregated, any more than is absolutely necessary; they should be among the healthy. Not in a hospital. Not in a hospital, if there is any way to avoid it. Sick people should not be shut up with other sick people. A hospital is (it sounds and is counterintuitive) not the place for sick people. Sick persons should not be segregated with other sick persons. The risk of nosocomial infections is reason enough to say this.

It is not good for sick persons to be immobilized. They need to get up if possible. (Medical personnel recognize this.) Move their limbs.

And sweat out the toxins. That’s where sunshine comes in. What Henry Ward Beecher called “a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air.”

 

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Medical Meddlers

 

For some reason, in discussing health and wellness issues and various remedies and treatment modalities, people become very opinionated, defensive about their own views, and easily angered.

They also feel entitled to give advice and are easily offended when they experience disagreement or find their advice to be either not welcome or not fully appreciated. (And, sometimes, resented.)

As Florence Nightingale observed, “No mockery in the world is so hollow as the advice showered upon the sick.”

As an instance of this, a reader of my post

“Roger’s rules for staying healthy (disregard at your peril!)”

Roger’s rules for staying healthy (disregard at your peril!)

wrote: “I thought it was ironic that someone with your medical condition was writing to tell others how to take care of theirs.”

[Readers of this blog whose native language is not English may not be aware of the connotation of the word condition as used here. One might say, “I am in good condition,” meaning good physical condition, in which context the word condition has a neutral connotation. But condition can also have a negative connotation, as it did here. It can mean a serious medical problem such as cancer or heart disease that requires attention. You will sometimes here someone saying, “I am concerned about your condition.” It is a way of hinting at a serious medical problem “delicately,” without coming right out and saying it.]

I thought to myself that, as far as I know, I am in good health: No doctors have raised alarms. Why the mention of “your condition”? I had recently experienced stress during what was actually a short period of a week or less. I had gone to a dentist during this time, my blood pressure was taken, and it was unusually high. I told this to my acquaintance, not by way of saying, I am concerned about my own health, but rather: “If you don’t believe I have had a stressful past few days, let me tell what my blood pressure was this morning.” Blood pressure can fluctuate wildly due to various factors.

I wrote back to my acquaintance, saying:

I have had no BP readings since the most recent one at my dentist’s. I have no doubt that high BP is hereditary in my case and runs in the family, ditto heart disease. Staying off meds seems to work for me, in general. (I am sure a critic would say, it depends which ones and that some meds are more important than others.) I feel good in general about my overall health and lifestyle. I do not presume to generalize from my own experience. I realize there may be hereditary factors predisposing me to hypertension and heart disease. I am doing something which is mentioned as recommended for controlling blood pressure: exercising and controlling my diet and weight. Because I see walking not as a chore, but something enjoyable, I continue doing it. I have never had a good experience with meds. I don’t believe in them. I feel that doctors are ignorant about or ignore the harmful side effects they can produce. I actually feel that I’m in good health. Natural treatment, should I need it, is the way to go for me.”

My correspondent wrote back to me, in a message with a mean-spirited undercurrent: “I don’t agree with any of your positions on this, but that’s OK — I do agree that it’s your life to live or lose in any way you see fit.”

My “life to live or lose”? I hadn’t been contemplating losing it. Death is a certainty for us all. I don’t enjoy contemplating the prospect, but I do do so from time to time. I prefer, however, as does Barbara Ehrenreich, not to dwell on it, not to obsess about it. The medical meddlers want to scare you, hector you with unasked for advice, and if you are not inclined to listen, they can become enraged. I ask: What good does such medical meddling do for anyone? Is it helpful to arouse one’s anxiety about the possibility of their becoming horribly ill at some future time when it is now only a hypothetical?

 

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CONCLUSIONS

 

All medications (including over-the-counter ones) are inimical to the body’s homeostasis. They should be avoided.

The best and only cures are the natural ones, available to all, for free: fresh air and sunshine, fluids, food, rest and sleep.

The natural environment is the best place for sick as well as healthy persons, meaning the outdoors in all seasons and under all weather conditions. Hospitals are the worst place. They should be avoided.

Avoid surgery. “Every single time you do surgery and cut into tissue, you damage nerves. It doesn’t matter if it’s breast surgery or eye surgery,” Dr. Anat Galor (an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami) was quoted as saying in a recent New York Times article (June 11, 2018) on adverse side effects experienced by patients undergoing laser eye surgery, which had been advertised as virtually risk free. I have seen similar things in the case of surgeries undergone by my own family members. I had a painful tonsillectomy when I was around five years old, and have always regretted it. My wife had a similar experience and feelings. As a reader commenting on a New York Times article:

“Blurred Vision, Burning Eyes: This Is a Lasik Success?” by Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times, June 11, 2018

put it: “I try to live by a motto with respect to surgery: I consider it a last resort when all other modalities of treatment have failed. … Every surgery has potential complications and sequelae.”

Attitude is as important as any other variable in determining the outcomes of illness. This includes the attitude of health care providers and that of the patient. I am not necessarily advocating mind over matter, but much illness seems to be as much psychological as physical: a depression of spirits accompanying pain or physical debility. One should not ignore physical complaints or pretend they do not exist, but one’s attitude and outlook can often help one to cope with and even overcome physical problems. Dwelling on symptoms and “illness” can often be counterproductive.

The healer must be healthy and have the will to help his subject. Another way to put this is that the health of the healer is equally important to the state of the patient — neither is a negligible factor. One can see this in Walt Whitman’s case, as a healer or facilitator of healing during the Civil War. Personal magnetism can work wonders, as can compassion and concern. Regarding the latter, it is a matter of empathy, which most doctors, sadly, seem to lack. As Walt Whitman said in a letter of his quoted above: “I sometimes put myself in fancy in the cot, with typhoid, or under the knife.” That’s empathy. I saw it occasionally in the hospital where I worked, but rarely.

Advice of would be doctors (family, friends) and “medical meddlers” should be taken with a grain of salt. Doctors, while deserving respect, should not be treated as priests of medicine. Their advice should be taken warily. Which is to say, unless they have already established confidence, ask yourself if you yourself agree and are prepared to submit to a recommended treatment, operation, or procedure. One should always remember that it is your body, not the doctor’s. The body should be treated as a sort of sacred temple, not to be breached or compromised. The patient should demand respect, and, if it is not given, should look elsewhere for a doctor.

It goes without saying that expertise and competence (to say nothing of the knowledge resulting from years of study) are de rigueur when it comes to health care — I hope I do not seem to be implying that they don’t matter or are less important than, say, compassion. But, I firmly believe that the essential ingredient of health care is not treatment of symptoms or of disease — it is treatment of the person. And this means that what the patient needs most is to be treated as a person and not as a nuisance, or just another case (or as an abstraction, such as a “mastectomy”). Which means that the doctor or nurse should first listen to the patient, to ascertain the nature of their complaints and what their needs are. And, if this does not occur, treatment will not be effective.

 

— Roger W. Smith

    June 2018

 

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Addendum:

Regarding the quotes from Walt Whitman with which I began this essay, Whitman’s sentiments pretty much match my own. My feelings towards doctors are mixed. Like Whitman, I am skeptical of doctors, while at the same time I venerate their calling, considered as such.

I don’t as a rule have that much respect for doctors as practitioners. I have had encounters with too many whom I found seriously wanting: in patient care, humanity, and what I would call “medical common sense.” This includes encounters with doctors I have consulted for my own medical issues and those I have consulted or had interactions with because a family member was being treated by them. My experience with doctors has not been positive, for the most part.

And yet, the profession of physician, considered in the Platonic sense, as an ideal, is one I greatly respect. It seems to me to be one of the noblest callings one can imagine.

Along with my disdain for doctors I have had great admiration for quite a few whom it has been my privilege to get to know either through personal acquaintance or because of a long association with them as health care providers. They range from pediatricians, general practitioners (including one who has treated my entire family at different times who essentially practices holistic medicine), several ophthalmologists whom I have consulted (including one who treated me when I was very young), a psychiatrist, an obstetrician-gynecologist whom a family member consulted, an oncologist who treated my mother, and others. They exhibited the epitome of medical knowledge and skills; total dedication; genuine humanity; often wide-ranging inquisitiveness and intelligence; and warmth and empathy. They are some of the persons I have admired the most as professionals during my lifetime and considered myself privileged to have met.

 

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Addendum, March 2022:

Whatever I said about blood pressure above, my assessment of my condition proved to be wrong. I neglected the problem of a very high blood pressure, lost contact with my internist (who had decreased by blood pressure medication), and did not do anything when my blood pressure became dangerously high. This lead to serious medical problems affecting my vision. I am now taking blood pressure meds regularly, and my condition of high blood pressure is under control.

Roger W. Smith, “On Friendships: Forming, Preserving, and (Sometimes) Knowing When to End Them”

 

‘on friendships’

 

“Inter mundana omnia nihil est quod amicitiae digne praeferendum videatur.” (There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.)

— St. Thomas Aquinas, De regimine principum (On Princely Government)

 

“For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted, or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our souls. But in the friendship I speak of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.”

— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship,” Essays, Chapter XXVII

 

“May we not include under the title of conference and communication the quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst friends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another?”

— Michel de Montaigne, “Of the Art of Conference,” Essays, Chapter VIII

 

“Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,—a possession for all time. … My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“… let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“A friend therefore is a sort of paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle and dinners at the best taverns. The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man’s life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series

 

“Why can’t we be friends? I want one sadly, and so do you, unless your looks deceive me. We both seem to be alone in the world, to have had trouble, and to like one another. I won’t annoy you by any impertinent curiosity, nor burden you with uninteresting confidences; I only want to feel that you like me a little and don’t mind my liking you a great deal. Will you be my friend, and let me be yours?”

— Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience

 

“It has by now been sufficiently demonstrated that the human being has, as part of his intrinsic construction, not only physiological needs, but also truly psychological ones. They may be considered as deficiencies which must be optimally fulfilled by the environment in order to avoid sickness and subjective ill-being.

“If both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, then there will emerge love and affection and belongingness needs. ….

“The fact is that people are good. Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.”

— Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

 

“To be able to have friends is one of the most wonderful things about human existence. Few experiences rival it. It has meant everything to me throughout my life and has made me the person I am. I never forget an old friend.

“I never really chose a friend except upon the criterion that we enjoyed knowing one another. The give and take among friends is wonderful; the sense of acceptance and of affirmation of one’s personhood, yours and theirs. The jokes, confidences, stories, friendly disputations. The things you learn from a friend that you would have otherwise never known. The miraculous meeting and befriending of people whom fate puts in one’s way.

“A friend is someone from whom one does not require approval, only the desire for companionship, the desire to share.”

— Roger W. Smith

 

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This is a post about friendships: their importance in one’s life (touched upon very briefly here); and, mainly, the importance of trying to maintain them.

How do they start? I would aver, unhesitatingly, that friendships start entirely naturally, and without any fanfare.

You come across someone. You get to talking. You find you have mutual interests (these are a very important glue in friendships), click on some issue; find it pleasant to be talking; sense some mutual compatibility. You don’t think about it much at the time.

This happened to me in my school days and in my neighborhood, in college, and in work and other contexts in my adulthood. Many relationships, needless to say, did not lead to friendships, but, then, an idle conversation, a chance encounter would. You would get to talking and become fast friends almost instantaneously, though at the time it did not seem like anything notable was occurring.

One thing — or a couple — that I think is material is that (1) neither of you has pretensions or reservations about the other person; (2) there are one or two or three “nodal factors” that connect one — for example: you both live nearby and ride your bikes on the same route to school every day; you both love classical music (it doesn’t matter if you agree entirely on preferences); (3) you have an interest — it could be language, literature, history, culture, local attractions, and the like — that the other person can relate to.

It amazes me how often this occurs. I don’t take it for granted, despite the fact that it is a common occurrence. And, it never ceases to gladden me. It helps to make life worth living. More bearable. Immensely satisfying. Because of what other people give you. And the joy of reciprocating.

 

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Mutual interests can be fructifying when it comes to relationships. For example, I made a friend through my wife not long ago. We would not seem to have that much in common, and he does not share my cultural interests (although he is a highly educated, retired professional). Yet, we are both lifelong baseball fans. It gives us something to talk about. (Though, should the talk be limited to baseball, it would be stultifying.) Sports has always been a “social glue” and a reliable conversation starter for American males, in the workplace and elsewhere. I am certain that there are many such areas of shared interest (in general) among women.

But, it should be noted that — the novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s hilarious, dead on concept of a granfalloon comes to mind — as concerns the initial impetus for a friendship — the prime mover, so to speak — in my experience, it is not shared interests that matter, it is some deeper chemistry. What happens is that you and your friend may discover, probably will, over time, that you have mutual interests, and this will be a sort of bonus factor. But …

Maybe an example will help. You meet someone. It is almost always by serendipity. It is never preplanned. Or at least there were no particular intentions. It may be the case — often is — that you meet because you work for the same company, go to the same school, live in the same town. But, the magic of friendship happens independently of these factors, since most people in one’s workplace, school, or town do not become one’s friends.

So, say someone introduces me to somebody at an event or gathering and assumes that since you both like to collect antiques or you are both golfers you will have something in common — ergo, you will probably want to become friends. It’s actually not likely, and such assumptions are faulty.

Friendship is much deeper and subtler than that and, like all of the exhilarating, wonderful things in life, it happens of its own accord.

 

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In view of what I see as the importance of one’s being able to form and maintain ongoing friendships with people whom one would not have perhaps expected to form a friendship with or to be able to along with, the question may at some point arise with some friends whom one has acquired, is it worth maintaining the friendship?

To answer my own question and frame the issue in a nutshell, I would say: You’ve got to give people a chance — to extend a friendly hand, so to speak; to show, all things being equal, a willingness to become acquainted with others (rather than acting as if you are too important or busy); to not be too hasty to judge or jump to conclusions with regard to what you might think of the other person.

You’ve got to be willing — once a friendship has been formed, and particularly in the case of longstanding relationships — to put up with the failings and annoying habits of others, if they desire a friendship. (Note that I said “they,” not “you.”)

That is the key, in my opinion, because if the other person desires a friendship, they probably have something to offer.

Don’t turn them away, reject them. You’ll be cutting off your nose to spite your face. You will never know what you may have missed.

Every friend is precious, just as every person is unique and precious. Our lifetimes are finite, and our experience is limited — we can’t get to know everyone. Our life histories — indeed, our personalities — are a “compost” of all the people we have been privileged to become acquainted with. Being a social butterfly with lots of acquaintances is not what I’m talking about — I tend to form deep, lasting friendships. The frequency and nature of your meetings and interactions may vary. But every new friend acquired, every friendship is valuable, a valuable “possession,” as it were. None is superfluous. Recall that hardly anyone was interested in going to Ebenezer Scrooge’s funeral in the vision the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him in A Christmas Carol.

You’ll be surprised what people — including those you may sometimes find boring, tedious, or difficult — can offer.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule!

People to AVOID:

people who are always negative; and,

people whose only interest in associating with you is as a sounding board for them to talk about their problems. A relationship by definition involves two people. There must be back and forth. It can’t be just be the other person talking about their problems.

To get back to my main point.

People will surprise you with the things they come out with. Just when you have grown tired of them or their company, they will say something interesting or funny; perhaps tell you something you didn’t know; provide information that you were not privy to and are glad to have; provide helpful advice or a useful suggestion or tip.

Sometimes people when you least expect it will reveal something good about themselves — it could be intelligence, insight, their humanity, or a positive or winning character trait that you had not hitherto appreciated.

 

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Another thing I would like to point out about my experience with friendships — speaking solely from my own experience — is that it behooves one to be patient and to give them time. To hear one’s friends and acquaintances out. To clear the decks for them so to speak, when they want to communicate, talk.

Say, for example, that a friend calls me when I am very busy and I don’t answer the call. I make it a point to tell him that I am sorry I missed the call but that I will get back to him shortly. I tend to refrain from saying that I am “busy,” because that might convey an unstated message that I’m too darn busy to talk now and in the near future. Instead, I simply say that I am sorry I missed the call but will be getting back shortly.

I sometimes do the same thing with an email, if I’ve been sitting on it for, say, two or three days: send back a very brief message saying “pleased to hear from you, will reply at length within the next day or two.” It’s a common courtesy that costs nothing in terms of effort.

Regarding “putting up” with people, when one is very busy. What I have found is that, if I can somehow manage to tear myself away from whatever it is that is preoccupying me and lend an ear, give attention to my friend, it pays off in the long run. I preserve the friendship, and it is usually not a waste of time. Not only because one is sort of acting benevolent, but also because, what I have found is that, at bottom, I myself am not too important or never really that busy to pay attention to someone else. The loss in time that I would have otherwise had to myself — what economists call “opportunity cost” — is a gain in terms of populating my time and life with interesting people and valued friends.

Bottom line: I would say, make time for your friends; create space in the interstices of your life for them to fit into.

 

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In writing this post, I thought of friends who can sometimes try one’s patience. Who perhaps have annoying habits or seem to be deficient in certain social and interpersonal skills. And, of some who seem to be — at times — lonely and needy. Perhaps because they sense that people are not eager to form friendships with them, or because they have lost a few friends. It has been my experience that if I can manage to persist, in cases were the other person is desirous of companionship and is well intentioned — which is to say does want to establish and maintain a friendship — over time the other person’s defenses seem to be attenuated and the less desirable traits seem to become less noticeable or problematic. What I think may be the case and may be happening is that as the other person senses that you are not inclined to reject them, they relax, become less insecure, and become more companionable and enjoyable to be with. I see this as a win win situation in which I have gained another friend who becomes increasingly enjoyable to be with. One should be grateful for friends, and sometimes those who don’t at first blush seem to have that much to offer can become good friends should you be willing to meet them half way.

And people grow on you. A person’s oddities and neuroses, and habits or opinions of theirs that may be at variance with yours, tend to become less annoying as you get to know and, for the most part, like them. Think of all the characters in Charles Dickens’s works and other fiction who are eccentric yet essentially likeable if not unforgettable.

 

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A caveat.

I hope I don’t seem ingenuous in what I have been advocating in this post. At the risk of contradicting or undercutting practically everything I have said above, I must admit that there are some people who are just plain pernicious as far as interpersonal relationships are concerned (inimical, at a minimum, to one’s own self-interest, that is), persons who are detrimental to one’s wellbeing when it comes to associating with them. Which is to say that some people might find them to make wonderful friends, but one knows — which is to say that the individual, in this case you or I, knows, by instinct, usually right away, or nearly so — that you and that person will never get along. Not only that, but that you yourself and that person are so different in terms of personalities, core values, and behavior that association should be avoided or kept to a minimum.

From such people, one often gets a sense of derision or outright hostility. To the extent that they are aware of you, they do not esteem you.

Often, it seems — well not that often (if it were a common occurrence, it would not have been much more of a problem) — this has occurred to me with authority figures — a teacher, say; a boss; a coach — who takes an immediately negative view of oneself or deems you wanting in some respect and lets you know it. Not a potential “friendship situation,” but worth mentioning here as something sometimes experienced and instructive in a harsh way.

In other instances where I have experienced an immediate mutual dislike and/or lack of any rapport whatsoever between myself and another person, it was usually with a fellow student or a coworker. One has a sixth sense about such things. I call it the “tip of the iceberg” theory. Very early on, some unpleasantness manifests itself, and one knows that the person should be avoided.

But, I am not talking about friendships here, right? Such “relationships” rarely proceed to that point.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  April 2017; updated August 2020

the importance of professionalism (as seen by a writer)

 

Last winter, I emailed a relative with the following comment: “Largely because of having had professional experience, I know I’m not fooling myself when I say my stuff is good, unlike a lot of people who fancy themselves writers or poets.”

A few months later, we were having a discussion about various matters, including my blog. I came from a very literate family and have three siblings, all of them gifted writers (as were my parents). I emailed my relative again, saying: “I am ahead of the rest of our family in one key respect: I have had professional writing experience (plus a journalism degree) and have written for publication in scholarly journals, reference books, major newspapers.”

My relative seemed to think I was bragging, was guilty of puffery, for no reason, and, besides, what was the point of making the comparison, which it appeared to my relative was an invidious one, but which I thought was worth mentioning. “I am not questioning your writing credentials, which are very strong and give you more knowledge of and experience in writing than anyone in our family,” the relative wrote back. “But I do not understand why you are comparing yourself to your family in this regard. There is no family writing competition.”

 

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I did not intend, did not mean, to disparage anyone, or to exalt myself. I merely wished to make a point. To wit: that professional experience is crucial for anyone who wants to master a craft.

I was thinking when I made the observation to my relative, and have often thought in the past, about my father in this regard. My father was professional musician: a pianist, church organist, and piano teacher. He was born with musical talent. His mother was a church organist and attended a music school in Boston for a couple of years (of which she was very proud). It was said that her mother (my father’s maternal grandmother) played and/or conducted choir music in a church in Dorchester, Massachusetts, where my grandmother grew up.

My grandmother recognized my father’s talent and encouraged him. He began piano lessons at a very early age. By the time he was a teenager, he was moonlighting as a musician with bands in the Boston area. At a young age, he was hired as a piano teacher in a studio in Boston, where he worked for several years before becoming an independent piano teacher. He appeared on radio programs in the 1930’s, playing and discussing music.

His experience was extensive. After serving in the Army in World War II, he went back to college and got an A.B. degree from Harvard College in music. In his senior year, he took five music courses. One was a course in composition with the renowned composer Irving Fine. He told us children that on the final exam, Fine said: “You have been studying composition all semester. Your requirement for the final is to write a four-part piece.”

My former therapist, discussing my versatility in writing, once brought up the actor James Cagney during a session with me. He quoted Cagney as once having said, “I could always play any part, any type of character, they asked me to.” He said that this was a significant statement. My father was the same way. He played in nightclubs, on a pleasure boat making daily cruises, at ice skating shows, briefly in a burlesque house orchestra, with back up Big Bands, as an accompanist to singers such as Dinah Shore (who was making a demo record early in her career), at functions such as wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs, as a church organist, and for many years as the entertainment in a restaurant/lounge. He played the accordion when required (e.g., on the excursion boat) and the organ in a Unitarian church. He told me, “I never mastered the organ,” explaining that to really do so required mastering the pedals and stops. This admission by him was not a sign of weakness. It showed the kind of awareness that professionals have of what their true strengths are, as well as their limitations. Similarly to my father’s case, I know that I excel as an essayist and writer of scholarly articles, and have reportorial and research skills. At the same time, I know that I can’t write fiction or poetry.

 

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My father once had a revealing talk with me, which I never forgot, about his technical skills and expertise as a pianist. It wasn’t braggadocio, it was a matter of actual fact.

For years, my father was the pianist at the Chart Room, a restaurant bar in Cataumet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. He would play there six nights a week for around six hours each night. People came to hear him play.

My father told me something that might have seemed trivial or not worth noting, but that I found quite significant for what it said about him, and his self-awareness when it came to professional capabilities. He would take a 15 to 20 minute break after a set. During the break (when he was probably enjoying a drink at the bar and would be chatting with customers), someone, it seemed, would always get up, sit down on the empty piano stool, and start playing. My father had no problem with this.

As my father told me, they would play simple tunes and enjoy emulating him, encouraging customers to sing along. My father pointed out to me — this was significant — that they would always play in the key of C. To my father, this distinguished the amateurs from him. He could play in any key that was required and was proficient at accompanying vocalists and singers because of this. And, by the way, my father had perfect pitch. One of my siblings would be practicing piano in the living room when my father was in the dining room. If they hit a wrong key, he would say, without leaving his chair, “E flat!” or “G sharp!”

 

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Like my father with the advantages of not only being born with musical talent but also of having had professional experience — where he honed his skills and kept developing and refining them — professional experience in writing has been invaluable to me. One learns certain lessons as a professional that are crucial to one’s development. And, then, as was true in my father’s case, and was also true in mine, there is formal education.

What seems to be the case with most people (athletes are a good example) is that there has to be inborn talent — one has to have the “genes,” endowment, or makeup for achieving the highest levels of excellence in writing/verbal expression, music, or sports — but then one will never reach that level without rigorous training and professional experience. This often means formal training, such as a good writing instructor(s) or education in general, or a professional level coach. Some writers and athletes seem to be naturals who do not get that much formal training. But think of all those who do. Writers such as Thomas Wolfe and James T. Farrell come to mind. They started out as writers in college and graduate school. Similarly, my writing instruction began in the “writing workshop” (writers’ boot camp?) of my high school English teacher, Robert W. Tighe — where we wrote almost every day, and were trained to do so “on demand,” on any given topic, in class — and continued with a superb education in the humanities in college and as a postgraduate special student taking college courses in languages, editing, and translation.

My point is that some would be athletes, musicians, writers, and so forth never progress beyond the amateur stage. In the playgrounds and parks of New York, there is a plethora of amateur athletes who exhibit great talent — basketball players, say — but who, at some point, never progressed beyond achieving distinction on sandlots and in playgrounds.

 

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From professional experience, which means writing for pay and actual publication, I have learned:

— to become less fearful of criticism and failure as a writer

— to be able to write to specs, adhering to a specific word limit (not to be exceeded under any circumstances; I found out that 600 words means 600 words, not 625 or 650; your editor does not want to have to do the work of cutting your submission to achieve the right length); and how to “shoehorn” in ideas and information that you want to include in a piece — within, so to speak, a tight space

— becoming hyper attuned to the actual editor who you turn your work into, and to the “editor in the sky,” and thereby to become more vigilant and careful in trying to avoid errors, having the final, published piece and how it will look always very much in one’s consciousness (a rule of thumb I learned when working as a freelancer for a daily newspaper: if your pieces go into the paper virtually unedited, that means you are meeting expectations and can consider yourself a success)

— continually engaging in fact checking as one writes (the way a copy editor does) and not relying on someone else to do it for you — in short, having a hyper sense of responsibility when it comes to accuracy. (A good writer knows that when one is sloppy about facts — as well as about grammar, for that matter — the whole piece is likely to be called into question.)

— being very alert to one’s audience — that is, readers — and cautious about making assertions or stating facts that might be ambiguous or questionable.

Regarding the “inner editor,” I notice that nonprofessional writers — good ones, well-educated ones — frequently make the same mistakes repeatedly because they lack professional experience. For example, a professional writer working in a newsroom or for a publishing firm knows where a period or comma goes: inside or outside closing quotation marks. Some basic style points have never been learned by amateurs who are otherwise excellent writers. The same thing with spelling. I never really learned to spell until I wrote professionally. An instructor I had in journalism school (a longtime New York Times reporter) told the class that there was zero tolerance in the newsroom for stories submitted with any errors whatsoever, including typos. Another way of putting this is that any professional (including writers) learns at the outset of his or her career some common mistakes to avoid. But you can spot the amateurs because of the obvious errors (small but nevertheless “impermissible” ones) they make.

 

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I worked for four years in the publishing industry before getting my first freelance writing assignments. My job was writing advertising copy for scholarly/technical books and textbooks. The job and subsequent ones enabled me to acquire an essential skill: how to process and digest information for rendering, so to speak, in publishable form.

Someone hands you a prospectus — often no more — of a book about to be published. One of the first I ever wrote advertising copy for was a textbook on neurology. From a professor’s dry summary of a few paragraphs (often leaving out key points that would be relevant from a sales point of view), I would come up with a cogent, readable advertising brochure. I faced similar challenges early on as a freelance writer for reference book publishers and as a freelance reporter for a daily metropolitan newspaper and a business magazine. One has to dig for information and quotes, weigh them, verify them, then do the best one can with what one has by way of facts/information and quotes. Until one has worked for a daily newspaper, I doubt anyone realizes how difficult it can be to get good quotes. To get an interview. To dig out information and verify its accuracy. I once wrote a routine article having to do with an elementary school. I was at my cubicle in the newsroom for a good part of the evening calling a source again and again to make sure I had all of the school personnel’s names spelled correctly and got other facts about the school (from the picayune to what some of the major issues were) right.

The editor of the business magazine liked my writing and had me writing a couple of stories every month, including cover stories. When you are a beginning writer, you are thrilled to get any sort of assignment.

The editor asked me to write an article about cooling systems (e.g., fans) used in commercial buildings, which ones were most cost and energy efficient and so on. It was not a topic of interest to me, but it was to businesspeople in the area, and that was what mattered to the editor. Needless to say, I had zero knowledge, but I interviewed building managers, asking them not only which systems they preferred but also to educate and bring me up to speed on the subject.

I pulled it off à la James Cagney.

 

— Roger W. Smith

    June 2018

on happiness vis-à-vis sadness (and the other way around)

 

“We are more apt to feel depressed by the perpetually smiling individual than the one who is honestly sad. If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself.”

— Rollo May, Paulus: Reminiscence of a Friendship (1973)

 

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These thoughts, this post, are occasioned by a film I saw about beleaguered people in a foreign country.

I was transfixed — totally engrossed in the people’s stories and the picture the film gave of their daily lives.

I shared my enthusiasm for the film with someone close to me and suggested that she see it with me.

She said no, she had no interest (despite my strong recommendation) in seeing the film.

“Why?” I asked.

She answered (perhaps she was looking for excuses), “I don’t want to see something that will make me sad.”

This struck me as patently ridiculous. Since when has it been imperative to avoid things — in life, in art — with the potential to make oneself sad?

 

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It should be obvious that true art mixes joy and beauty with pathos.

In his Poetics, Aristotle developed the theory of catharsis (from the Greek κάθαρσις, catharsis, meaning “purification” or “cleansing” — the purification and purgation of emotions — especially pity and fear — through art”; as explained on Wikipedia). Note that, as explained in the online encyclopedia article, catharsis represents an “extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration” (italics added).

The film which I saw was a documentary about North Korea entitled Under the Sun. More about this below.

 

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So much for theory. Let’s consider some examples. But first, a digression about happiness in PEOPLE.

To what extent is happiness a desideratum? Can we expect it? Is there even such a thing — is it real? How should we regard others who are, seem to be, or claim to be, happy?

My father, Alan W. Smith, thoroughly enjoyed life, on many levels: an interest in things (including the delight he took in little things, such as observing what happened once to dry ice when he threw a chunk of it over the side of a ship into the water; he wanted us to see it), including intellectual curiosity; a love of music (chiefly as a performer); a delight in people and their company; a delight in little amusements; pleasures such as eating, drinking, and the outdoors (experienced as an everyday citizen, not as a woodsman; e.g., raking leaves in the fall, a walk with his wife or the dog on the seashore, a blizzard). He had a keen appetite for life.

Unlike a lot of adults, he loved his work. He never begrudged, never complained about anything. Welcomed everything and anyone who came his way.

He could loosen and cheer up a group simply by being himself and by virtue of his presence. He didn’t mind looking ridiculous, making fun of himself (or being made fun of), or being regarded as extravagant or incautious.

Oftentimes, he would enter a parlor with people leaning forward in their chairs — tight lipped, looking uncomfortable.

“What’s everybody looking so glum for?” he would say. The complexion of the group would change just like that and people would begin talking and joking. In the words of Louisa May Alcott*, he “pervaded the rooms like a genial atmosphere, using the welcome of eye and hand which needs no language to interpret it, … making their [his guests’] enjoyment his own.”

He took the weather with equanimity, be it a blizzard, a hurricane, or an earthquake.

My father happened to be in the Bay Area, visiting my older brother in the late 1980’s, shortly before the former died, when an earthquake struck. “I’ve always wanted to be able to experience what an earthquake feels like,” he told me afterward. As my former therapist pointed out, such an attitude showed an appetite for life and an eagerness to experience it.

A hot summer’s day? A great excuse for setting off a few fireworks in our back yard, or for a lobster cookout (which both my parents loved) in the front yard of our rented summer house on Cape Cod.

I remember a blizzard in my home town of Canton, Massachusetts when I was in high school. Everything was shut down. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do. An idea came to my father. Wouldn’t it be great to toast marshmallows and cook hot dogs in our living room fireplace? There was a problem, however — we didn’t have the ingredients. Such niggling problems never seemed to stand in the way of the fun planned by my father. Come to think of it, how about a walk? We walked, tramped about two miles each way through snowdrifts, found a store that was open, and bought marshmallows, hot dogs, and buns.

There was, of course, another side to him. He could be pensive and gloomy. He could be irascible and had a bad temper. His cheerfulness was only one side of the coin.

When something untoward happened to him — an argument with his second wife, for example — he would say to himself through gritted teeth (as she used to tell me), “I’m not going to let it ruin my day.”

*In Alcott’s novel Work: A Story of Experience (1873).

 

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Phony Cheerfulness

A truism: no one is happy all the time.

There was a nice looking, perky girl in the class a year ahead of me in college: Marie E______.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say this. It will sound petty and perhaps mean spirited. But Marie’s perpetual cheerfulness grated on me.

A friend of mine, who lacked emotional depth and (often) insight into human relationships, was eager to get to know Marie and had several tennis dates with her. The relationship went no further.

“The thing I like most about her,” he told me, “is that she’s always cheerful.” This comment seemed obtuse and fatuous. It nettled me. I would be willing to bet that Marie’s perpetual cheerfulness was her way of dealing with insecurities that she probably felt.

 

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Happiness in a person without an admixture of sadness seems to be inimical to the human condition. One wants to get to know both sides of a person — to hear about their highs and lows from him or herself.

What about my father? you might ask. Didn’t I just wax rhapsodic over his cheerfulness and capacity to enjoy life?

I noted that he had another side that, while it was less often seen, would suddenly be displayed in bursts of anger. And, my father knew profound grief from family tragedies for which he did not bear responsibility but in which he was the chief mourner and suffered the most.

A capacity for joy does not preclude an awareness of sadness, does not obviate sadness.

Who wrote the Ode to Joy? The same composer who in his late quartets, beautifully, incomparably, expresses pathos, sadness.

 

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The film mentioned above is Under the Sun (2015), a documentary about North Korea. It was directed by the Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky.

It is beautifully done and tugs and pulls at the viewer emotionally on many levels. The central person in the film, who is unforgettable, is an adorable eight-year-old North Korean girl named Zin-mi. The plot is ostensibly about Zin-mi going through steps, including school, as she prepares to join the Korean Children’s Union. At the film’s conclusion, she breaks down and cries upon being admitted to the children’s union. She is perhaps crying from relief that the stress of achieving the goal is over and, it seems, from what one would call joy mixed with sadness.

As I noted in a previous post:

re “Under the Sun” (a film about North Korea)

https://rogersgleanings.com/2016/08/25/re-under-the-sun-a-film-about-north-korea/

The compelling thing about the film is that you come away caring about the people and touched by the film’s PATHOS — despite the fact that one is aware that the people live incredibly hard, regimented lives in a totalitarian state where they have been effectively brainwashed and reduced almost to automatons (or so it often seems).

The film features beautiful, elegiac music composed by a Latvian composer, Karlis Auzans. It captures the pathos musically, for example, in a scene where you see North Koreans having family photos taken in a sort of assembly line fashion. A couple stands proudly in front of an automatic camera with their children. The photo is taken and another couple poses. And so on. As they stare into the camera, one sees expressions of pride but also feels a great sadness. The music rises to an emotional pitch and captures this. One feels empathy with the people posing, with the North Koreans! One feels that they are people, just like us. That, despite very hard lives, they experience feelings like ours. One feels like crying oneself, but one, at the same time, experiences a kind of joy in contemplating the miracle of human existence, and how this elemental reality links us all, regardless of circumstances.

 

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This got me thinking about pathos in literature and music. About the comment “I don’t want to see something that will make me sad.”

Anna Karenina ends sadly. Does that make one any less desirous of reading it? It seems that in most operas the plot involves a tragic love affair, often with someone committing suicide, dying of grief. Art (in the broad sense of the word) is full of grief, so to speak, as well as happiness — as depicted by the artist drawing upon a profound knowledge of human life. Would one wish all art to be reduced to the level of a situation comedy?

What about music? Ever hear stirrings of pathos? In Beethoven’s late quartets, in Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique symphony, and so forth?

Case closed.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  February 2018; updated May 2018

on poverty

 

“In civilised society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most. … When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be evidently a great evil.”

— Samuel Johnson (quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.; 20 July 1763)

 

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Poverty is not glamorous, as Samuel Johnson said. When I first came to New York, I lived, on a meager salary, from paycheck to paycheck. I had just enough money to pay my bills, and not much for luxuries such as entertainment or dining out. I used to worry about having enough money in the bank at the end of the month to pay the rent. My bank account was a few hundred dollars.

Worse than impoverishment, it seems, are the constant stress and worry that come with it.

I am not rich and have never been. But, I am more established now, financially as well as otherwise. I am no longer living at the margin. This means that I don’t have to worry from day to day about having enough money for expenses. I know that I can pay my bills, and if, say, I indulge myself with some non-essential purchase, I may ask myself whether I should have made the purchase, but I know that I will be able to pay the credit card bill when the time comes.

I wish to obtain an out of print book. There is a copy available for sale online for a hundred dollars. That’s a lot, but I have to have it. I’ll pay! A must-see Haydn oratorio is being performed at Carnegie Hall? I’m going! Whatever a ticket costs, whether it’s fifty or a hundred dollars.

 

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An observation I would make based upon experience is that: If you have enough and don’t have to worry about money, irrespective of whether you would be considered rich, it behooves one to pay a little more for quality. It makes sense.

A couple of examples.

For a while, I was getting haircuts from a local barber at a cost of about seventeen dollars including a generous tip. I realized over time that he was not giving me good haircuts. He would rush through the haircut and would never fuss over me or provide any extras that some barbers provide as part of a normal haircut. I never looked good. It occurred to me recently that I should find a better barber. I found a barber shop in in Manhattan that I have been going to for the past few months. The cost for a haircut there is about thirteen dollars more per haircut with a generous tip. I look a hundred percent better.

I probably get a haircut about nine or ten times a year. So, the extra cost works out to about 120 or 130 dollars more per year. For me, the difference is negligible; it’s well worth it.

Similarly, my wife and I shop at a local Italian grocery where one can purchase quality foods. We could obtain such items cheaper at a supermarket. But the Italian store provides quality and is a pleasure to shop at. (It is quite popular.) A few dollars more does not concern us.

And, when it comes to dining out — including the occasional meal with my wife, or eating in Manhattan restaurants when I am in the City during a weekday — I don’t think that much about price. I try to choose the best place. This does not mean very high-priced eating establishments, which I do not patronize, since to me, to do so would make no sense — I am not a gourmet. What I am thinking of is when there is a choice between a cheap place with inferior food and a slightly better place. Without hesitation, I will choose the better place if I can find one.

 

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A final thought. This, I think, is crucial to keep in mind.

If one is poor, one doesn’t have the luxury of opting for better service. One should always keep this in mind so that things are kept in perspective and one doesn’t assume a snobbish “let them eat cake” stance; or look down on the poor for their poor choices in, say, eating establishments or dress. If you are making minimum wage and can barely afford the rent, if you are a single parent who can barely support your children, keeping one step ahead of impoverishment is a constant preoccupation. So, when you eat out, which you may be doing because your job doesn’t give you time to cook, you have to choose the cheapest place, and thank God there are McDonalds’s and such places where one can fill one’s stomach. Luxuries and entertainments permitted are few. If your kids need a haircut, a low-cost barber is the only choice. One can’t consider paying ten dollars or so more for a better haircut, as I now do. One is always looking for bargains.

 

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I think back to the stress of my early days as a wage earner living in the City. To have enough money for a date, a restaurant meal, a concert, a sports event, or whatever was often problematic. I was not totally deprived, but each expense had to be weighed, came with the nagging thought that it might deplete my pocket money and leave me short at bill paying time.

I am glad those days are past for me. That I can purchase books ad libitum and pay a bit more for good service. My life is less stressful now. Poverty isn’t glamorous, as Johnson observed so acutely.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   April 2018

meddlers

 

“In confederations that hold but by one end, we are only to provide against the imperfections that particularly concern that end. It can be of no importance to me of what religion my physician or my lawyer is; this consideration has nothing in common with the offices of friendship which they owe me; and I am of the same indifference in the domestic acquaintance my servants must necessarily contract with me. I never inquire, when I am to take a footman, if he be chaste, but if he be diligent; and am not solicitous if my muleteer be given to gaming, as if he be strong and able; or if my cook be a swearer, if he be a good cook. I do not take upon me to direct what other men should do in the government of their families, there are plenty that meddle enough with that, but only give an account of my method in my own.”

— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”

 

“The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

— John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty”

 

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As John Stuart Mill says, one should be able to feel that one is entitled to live one’s life as one sees fit without “the moral coercion of public opinion.” It could be a matter of “big issues” of morality or overall behavior, or smaller issues such as behavior manifested in one’s family or personal relationships or personal matters such as appearance, dress, health, and the like.

And, often “public opinion” amounts to the thoughts (read presuppositions) of a narrow minded friend, neighbor, coworker, or relative.

Consider the following.

One of the best friends of my wife and myself is a married man with an adopted son; he has been a friend of ours forever.

I admire him greatly for his intellect and personal qualities.

He has a horrible family situation: great difficulties with his adopted son, such as the son refusing to attend school a few years ago and emotional outbursts.

The worst thing is his wife. She treats him horribly. He almost never complains (to us or from what we can observe), but we observe it all the time.

I often ask my wife, how can he put up with such treatment? (The adopted son takes cues from his mother and also treats his father, our friend, abusively.)

I always qualify what I say to her and add: It’s his family and marriage; he chooses to remain in it. It’s not for us to say.

We are very sympathetic about his situation but would never comment further unless he should ask for feedback; he is not a complainer.

It seems that situations often arise where someone whom one knows well is in a situation which you (i.e., the observer, the other party) would not approve of whatsoever if it were your life or situation. The reality may be complicated; the other party may be conflicted over the situation themselves and unsure about how to deal with it, but meddling by others (who usually have only a nodding acquaintance with the details) may increase their anxiety and make them even more uncomfortable.

Along these lines, I was thinking: Imagine a sort of inquiry board or truth commission before which all and sundry were required to appear, with everyone being subjected to the same questions:

the state of your marriage(s);

your performance in parenting;

the success or lack of it of your progeny; their adjustment and any developmental issues.

Think a few poor souls might be squirming under such scrutiny?

 

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Some further thoughts.

Constructive, helpful advice, originating with empathy, founded upon kindness, is one thing.

But beware meddlers posing as concerned do-gooders, who are intent upon proving their own moral superiority — their overall superiority to others whose lives they are critical of.

They can actually be some of the meanest people on the planet. They are usually worse morally than the people they pick on. They have zero capacity for compassion or empathy, and they don’t care in the least about other people.

Middle class morality … do-gooders … meddlers. Perhaps there is a place for them in the grand scheme.

Not in this case, nor, I would suspect, in most.

 

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Addendum:

Another problem, the bane of one’s existence (or at least some people’s), is health meddlers.

They enjoy inquiring about your health, without your having asked for advice; and then continually pestering you about it. Have you had a checkup for _______ (some condition or other)?

Often, they suffer from similar problems themselves. By focusing attention on you, they seem to be hoping to divert it from themselves and to somehow make themselves feel better. It doesn’t matter what your actual condition is, or whether or not you are worried about it, they will do the worrying for you. Did you know your weight is above normal for your height and your age? Are you monitoring your blood pressure? You may be at risk for a stroke.

People love to give advice about doctors and treatments. One of the most boring things is to hear a detailed story about how they overcame a back condition that was preventing them from playing golf, or about the cancer treatment some friend of theirs whom you don’t know had, causing the cancer to go into remission, and “he’s been healthy for the past ten years.” You are wondering about how this relates to you, since, as far as you know (pray God), you don’t have cancer; and, it’s a heartwarming story, but you never met or have heard of the person before, so it’s hard to relate to. There are thousands of people dying from cancer every month.

This cohort can actually cause stress with their meddling, and, believe me, unless you happen to be looking for a recommendation from a friend of a doctor they know and like, their meddling will do you no good whatsoever.

 

— Roger W. Smith

   July 2017; updated April 2018

Roger W. Smith, “Baseball: An appréciation”

 

‘Baseball; An appreciation’

A downloadable Word document of this post is above.

 

Baseball: An appréciation

by Roger W. Smith

There is no clock to regulate duration of play. “With no clock, no regulation of seconds, minutes, and hours, baseball need not submit to the inexorability of temporal limitation,” notes English professor George Grella, singing the praises of the sport in The Massachusetts Review. A “team cannot stall, or run the ball into the line to kill the clock, or manipulate the clock in order to score. A tie game does not exist — all games must end in a victory and a defeat, and a tied game could conceivably go on forever. The game succeeds in creating a temporary timelessness perfectly appropriate to its richly cyclical nature.”

It is a sport not limited in any total sense by boundary lines; think catcher or third or first baseman leaning into the stands for a foul ball.

It has a wonderfully fair method of scoring — one for each run. And each team has to get the same number of outs — 27 outs made by the opposing team — to beat them in a nine inning game. Any long time fan has seen it, often: A team that appears to have an insurmountable lead ends up losing when the opposing team mounts a late inning rally.

I once saw a game on television where the eventual winning team, the home team, was down by seven runs with two outs and a man on first in the bottom of the ninth inning. They scored eight runs and won 13-12. It’s not as uncommon as one might think for teams to come back from such deficits. In this particular game, eleven batters in a row reached base with two out: There were four singles, six walks, and a grand slam home run. The opposing team couldn’t say, “Time’s up. Game over.” They had to — but couldn’t — get that twenty-seventh out. Time is “stretched,” or trumped, in a sense, because the losing team is entitled to keep batting as long as they have another out left. It doesn’t matter what inning or what the score happens to be.

Baseball is a blend of the team and the individual. (Most commonly at any given moment during a game it is a question of nine men against one.)

It is a game which consists of the unexpected occurring — nobody on the field or in the park knows where, when, or if the ball will be hit.

It is an uncluttered and beautifully designed game. In baseball, the scoring is done by the team that doesn’t have the ball. “There is no grubby battling for possession; there are no interceptions,” as Charles Einstein pointed out in his preface to The Fireside Book of Baseball.

“A nine-year-old knows baseball inside out, yet … it utterly confounds the foreigner,” observes Einstein. It is a uniquely American sport.

There have been few basic changes in baseball rules for over one hundred years, making it possible to compare players of different generations.

The baseball field is beautifully designed. “[W]ith its congested infield arching around home and its vast and underpopulated outfield expanding in an ever-widening arc beyond the congestion,” as literary scholar Ed Folsom puts it. The bases are a magic ninety feet apart. Consider how often a batter is thrown out by half a step, compared to instances when he outruns a peg from deep short. According to Grella, “One of the most fundamental and significant truths of the game derives from the peculiar shape of its playing area. With the exception of cricket … baseball is the only team sport played with a ball that does not use a rectangular field. All other ball games are territorial and circumscribed; all play occurs within a box, where a team defends one end and attempts to penetrate the other. In such games success is measured by the number of penetrations a team perpetrates and/or permits; football is so territorial that one of its hallowed statistics deals with land acquisition, i.e., yardage gained and lost. Territorial games rely upon time, depending always upon a predetermined duration of the clock. Baseball, on the other hand, virtually denies the limitations of space and time.” Or, as novelist W. P. Kinsella has written, “[T]he field runs to infinity. … There’s no limit to how far a man might possibly hit a ball, and there’s no limit to how far a fleet outfielder might run to retrieve it. The foul lines run on forever, forever diverging. … Every other sport is held in by boundaries, some of absolute set size, some not: football, hockey, tennis, basketball, golf. But there’s no limit to the size of a baseball field.”

A baseball. The ball itself. Holding one in your hand. Idly tossing it. The shininess and hardness. The stitching. The delight of boys in having a new, white, shiny, unscuffed ball. The crack of a wooden bat (or the ping of a metal one) connecting with a ball and sending a fly well past the infield.

Almost everything in baseball looks easy and evident (as a skilled player having honed his skills through endless practice makes it appear), but learning the game is not. Watch kids trying to swing a bat and connect, throwing weakly (perhaps a dribbler), or being inept at catching a ball tossed underhand at close range. But, then, the child begins to get the hang of it. And, doing the simplest things such as throwing and catching is so satisfying to be able to do. Giving a young person a sense of grace and athleticism.

It’s a game which requires inborn athletic ability — athleticism: strength, agility, speed. A hitter’s power, a pitcher or fielder’s arm, a baserunner or outfielder’s speed.

Yet a boy or man possessing these attributes — a natural athlete — will not necessarily succeed in baseball without the desire to do so and an interest in the game, and without years of first learning the fundamentals and then endless practice — the same as with a virtuoso musician — both in the “backyard” and in actual games. Playing in games from youth leagues to high school and college and amateur and perhaps semipro to the minor leagues is crucial for learning how to “leverage” one’s skills (a pitcher learning different pitches, for example, and finding which pitches work best for him) and, perhaps most importantly, developing “baseball instincts” and learning strategy.

A batter is up in a crucial situation. Hand eye coordination and raw power are crucial. The ability to hit is, needless to say, a sina qua non. Intense concentration is required. But it is all for naught without perfect execution. Swing a little too early or late, get a little over or under the ball and it’s a swinging strike, a dribbler, a pop up or lazy fly ball. Doesn’t matter whether you’re Ted Williams or Mark Belanger.

And just how do you play the game well? I heard a player say once, in a televised interview, that this is — which he implied without using the word — paradoxical. To play the game, he explained, requires intense concatenation at every moment — one can never tell when the ball will be hit to oneself; a batter must be totally focused on the pitcher’s windup and delivery. At the same time, to succeed in baseball, a ballplayer has to be relaxed. Think of an overanxious fielder bobbling a ball.

The sport is relatively free of contact. The predominant focus of a game is THE BALL. Where it is at a given moment: zooming into home plate (or perhaps floating like a knuckleball); a scorching grounder hit towards an infielder or a seemingly routine one perhaps taking a bad hop; shot in a straight line as a line drive that may or not be snared; the high arc of a fly ball floating and perhaps hanging in the air before it comes down to an outfielder, or launched toward the deepest point of the park, or over the fence; the “pill” being whipped to first to nip a runner or to another base to perhaps catch a lead runner. The cutoff man. Relays. Rundowns. (Sometimes they seem to go on forever, with scoring such as 5-2-6-3-5-2-1, or whatever — so many players are involved.) All eyes follow the ball, which controls what happens. There is something pure about this.

How a game progresses, from batter to batter, pitch to pitch, and inning to inning.

The flight of the ball. An outfielder catching up with it in flight. Or gathering it in in pre-game practice. “It is a beautiful sight to see a good outfielder gather in a fly ball,” as Mark Harris wrote in his novel The Southpaw, “moving over as graceful as you please while from 250 or 300 feet away someone has tossed the ball up in front of himself and laid into it and sent it upward and upward in a high arc until the ball is just a white speck against the blue sky, and then it hits its highest point and begins to drop, and you look down and there is a player loping over, moving fast or slow, depending on how he sizes up the situation, and he moves under the ball and it zooms down in his glove. It looks so easy when a good ballplayer does it. It is not easy. Ask any kid that has ever tried to play ball whether it is easy, and he will tell you. But when a big-league ballplayer does it, it looks easy because he is so graceful, and he gathers it in and then runs a few steps on his momentum and digs his spikes in the ground and wheels and fires that ball back where it came from, and it hops along, white against the green grass.”

The fact that, in different baseball stadiums, dimensions are not uniform, which affects strategy and the composition of teams — such as a team built on defense and speed or one with a lineup of left or right-handed sluggers. The intricacies and oddities of different ballparks, such as cozy Fenway Park with its left field wall. Cozy Ebbets Field, where fans were on top of the action. The short porch in right field in Yankee Stadium, and Death Valley in left field of the old stadium before it was renovated in the 1970’s. The odd shape of the now demolished Polo Grounds, home of the New York Giants, with its very deep center field (where Willie Mays made his famous catch in 1954) and its very short right field (to which Dusty Rhodes hit a pinch hit home run in the tenth inning of the same game to win it for the Giants). How managers and players have taken advantage of these features, such as Carl Yastrzemski masterfully playing caroms off The Wall at Fenway Park, holding the batter to a single, and Roger Maris hitting his sixty-first home run into the short porch in right field in the final game of the 1961 season. How stadiums affect the makeup and personality of teams: Dodger Stadium: defense and pitching … Comiskey Park in Chicago and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore: the same … Shea Stadium: a dismal stadium with no personality or aesthetic appeal and colorless Mets teams.

It is such an aesthetically satisfying game to play and watch. The shortstop throwing out a runner, narrowly nipping him, from deep in the hole. Watching a double play executed with such speed and dexterity, in a matter of a seconds. A peg which just nips the runner. (“A peg as flat as the tape a runner breaks,” in the words of the late poet Donald Hall.) A gasp-inducing throw to the infield or home plate by an outfielder with a rifle arm. It all comes down to this: A man or boy trying to outrun a ball.

The slow, deliberate pace, which seems more typical of another era. The absence of a clock. The feeling that time stands still as suspense about the outcome mounts. “The game’s slow rhythms creating a natural tension,” as a writer in The Economist put it. Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer.

Watching pre-game practice. “I can’t think of any other sport … where the practice sessions are worth the price of admission,” notes sportswriter Wilfrid Sheed. A coach or player with a fungo bat lofting fly balls to the far reaches of the field. Fly-shaggers arching them back towards home plate. Batting practice. Infield practice. Coaches slapping grounders to infielders, two deep at every position. The ball snarls around the horn. Third, short, second, first, catcher. Pepper games by stars and lesser players in front of the dugouts.

The fact that Major League baseball is played almost daily in the spring and summer months.

The opportunities for improvisations such as pickup games and tossing a ball around or taking swings in a relaxed setting such as a back yard.

The simple pleasure and restful rhythm of playing catch. The thud (a sort of snapping sound) of a ball thrown straight and hard in a boy or man’s glove. Father and son tossing a ball back and forth. Two friends. Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter doing so (as I used to observe before Yankee games) in front of the Yankee dugout. The fun, joy, of playing catch. How it induces tranquility, an almost hypnotic state.

The serene and meditative state baseball can induce in the spectator, and even in a participant (an outfielder, say); the enjoyment and pure delight in simply watching. It is a thinking man’s game because it can be observed and contemplated with great satisfaction, not only by spectators or viewers, but also — even — by players. (As former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Alex Grammas put it: “there’s a lot of dead time in baseball” — this permits contemplation. *) Rather than working the mind up to a frenzy, as other sports such as football and basketball do, baseball relaxes the mind — can do so if one is so disposed.

“In addition to its richness of ritual and history, its fascination of character and event, baseball offers ample material for philosophical speculation,” Grella notes. “The true fan is not only a spectator, enthusiast, and historian, but also must be a student of the ethics, aesthetics, and ontology of the game. The thoughtful fan investigates more than simply the obvious lore; he pursues the essence of baseball, its shape and meaning, its resonant possibilities.” And, baseball’s vast archive of statistics, current and past. Who had the highest on base percentage of all time? How many times did a power hitter such as Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio strike out in his career?

That the spectator/watcher can reflect upon what is happening on several levels, both through anticipation, or foreknowledge, of possible scenarios, strategies, and outcomes; and later, through the re-creation of games in one’s mind, discussions of games, and memory and retrospective analysis of games and plays from decades or even centuries ago that are still remembered.

The fact that baseball is played and enjoyed, by both players and spectators, on so many levels: by the very young in yards, fields, and playgrounds; on sandlots and in youth leagues; in high school and college; in amateur, semiprofessional, and adult leagues (including softball, which is a form of baseball). The “farm system” and the Major Leagues.

In all these settings, game situations, and locales, including amateur leagues and sandlot games, there is a kind of “universal grammar” of the sport which is “reassuring.” You see situations, plays, and minutiae, such as a batter digging in and taking a stance; a base runner taking a lead and the pitcher trying to pick him off; whiffs or balls flying off the end of the bat; foul balls; wild pitches; the ball being tossed around the horn after an out; great plays or the opposite; daring base running; arguments over whether the runner was safe or out; and so forth. From a game observed in a local park to one in Yankee Stadium.

Situations and scenarios. Men on base. How many outs? The count. Pitcher versus batter. Left handed versus right handed when it comes to pitcher-batter matchups. Which players are on the field and at what positions.

The way ball games can be charted with such precision, as noted by historian and fan Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose father taught her at age six how to keep score so she could tell him about the day’s Brooklyn Dodger game, as announced on the radio by Red Barber (most games were played in the daytime then), after the former came home from work.

The rituals of the game overall, and of each game. Tossing the ball around the infield before an inning and after an out. The umpire dusting off the plate. “Play ball!” The pitcher’s windup and delivery. The on deck circle. Other rituals which even kids sometimes copy from major leaguers.

How it is such a mental game, much of which comes from the way the game is designed and played, and as such, how baseball games can be reconstructed afterwards in the mind with such pleasure, including long after, so that the fan remembers how the Yankees tied up the seventh game of the 1960 World Series in the top of the ninth and then lost it to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth. Sandy Amoros snaring Yogi Berra’s fly to left field with a one-handed catch in the final game of the 1955 World Series. When Rick Burleson did not take third base on Jerry Remy’s single in the ninth inning of the 1978 tie-breaker game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, very possibly preventing the Red Sox from tying the game. What happened in the tenth (final) inning of the final game of the 1912 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants.

The moments which live in the memory of old and new fans: Boston Red Sox shortstop and relay man Johnny Pesky failing to nip the St. Louis Cardinals’ Enos Slaughter at home plate in the final game of the 1946 World Series. Andy Pafko watching Bobby Thomson’s home run sail over the left field fence in the final game of the 1951 national league playoff. Willie Mays’s unbelievable catch in the first game of the 1954 World Series and his awesome throw to prevent a base runner from tagging up and scoring. Ted Williams hitting a home run in his final career at bat. The Houston Astros’ José Altuve’s mad dash around the bases to score the winning run in Game 2 of the 2017 American League Championship Series. And countless other games and plays. These plays stay in the mind because of their simplicity (perhaps one should say, clarity or preciseness), their beauty of execution, and the drama of how and when they happened. In short, one can recreate games in one’s mind. Yes, there are dramatic moments in football and basketball. But almost every play, inning, and game in baseball can be recreated this way. Baseball is “a lot easier to analyze than, say, football, which has so many moving parts,” says baseball author Stew Thornley, who was quoted in a New York Times article. Suppose Jim Brown wrote in an autobiography: “I was huffing and puffing as I strained to get from the 40-yard line to the end zone. I shed two tacklers and made it to the end zone.” As New York Times sportswriter Filip Bondy put it: “baseball is a sport made for … scholarly examination.” And for endless dissection.

Unlike, say, basketball or football, baseball does not seem to favor players of any particular build or size. All that matters is that one can play it well. You see wiry players (Richie Ashburn, Hank Aaron, Didi Gregorias), stocky ones (Babe Ruth, Carl Furillo, Pete Rose), “muscle men” (Ted Kluzewski, Greg Luzinski), tall ones (Aaron Judge, Carlton Fisk, Frank Howard), short ones (Phil Rizzuto, David Eckstein, José Altuve), rotund ones (Fernando Valenzuela, David Wells, David Ortiz, Prince Fielder). “[S]ize doesn’t matter in baseball. In many ways, size is irrelevant,” notes New York Times reporter Billy Witz.

How the positions have different identities, generically speaking. The shortstop. The best defensive player on the team. A wizard with the glove. Has fast hands. Gets rid of the ball in a fraction of a second, transferring it from glove to hand. The second baseman. Usually a scrappy player. The pivot man. The third baseman. The stolid guardian of the hot corner. Known for diving backhand stabs of balls hit down the line. The first baseman. Often left handed; usually tall with a long reach; needs to be a slugger. The catcher. Squat and almost square in shape. The field general and most knowledgeable player on the field, strategy wise; has a unique vantage point from his position affording a view of the entire field and the rest of the defense. The center fielder. Ball hawk. Rivals the shortstop for defensive importance. A gazelle swift of foot and graceful. Able to run down balls the corner outfielders can’t get to. Usually a star who can hit too.

No player really predominates. It is sometimes said that the best hitter and run producer carries the team. But, each player (one should specify each position player in leagues that have adopted the designated hitter rule) has his spot in the batting order; everyone must bat in turn. A player such as the shortstop or center fielder may appear to play a predominant role in the defense — and in fact will often do so — because of his position on the field and the probability that more balls will be hit to him than, say, a corner outfielder, but all this doesn’t matter when a ball is hit to the right fielder. (Think of Dwight Evans catching Joe Morgan’s fly ball in the eleventh inning of the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. The game hung in the balance. Evans’s catch prolonged it and turned the momentum around.) Every player in the lineup is important, and each has a role to play. No player can dominate, and if, say, a player comes to bat in a crucial situation that can determine the outcome of the game, or if a play is made or not made by a fielder, it is essentially by chance, what is called the luck of the draw. If a ball is hit to a fielder, he instantly becomes the focal point of the action. (Other fielders may become involved in the play as it unfolds.) When a batter is facing a pitcher, no other player can help him hit a pitch. If a runner is trying to score, no other player can help him avoid being tagged out, unlike where in football a lineman can block a potential tackler.

Colorful characters: Casey Stengel, Babe Ruth. Saintly types (aka “nice guys”) such as Mel Ott and moral exemplars such as Christy Mathewson. Rogues, villains, and miscreants such as Hal Chase, Leo Durocher, and Pete Rose (who, before his suspension for betting, gravely injured Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse in a home plate collision that never should have happened). Greek gods who seemed to play with effortless grace, such as the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio. Pathos: Lou Gehrig — icon and hero tragically struck down. Courage and dignity: Jackie Robinson. Heartbreak: Ralph Branca.

Nicknames; Moose Skowron, Birdie Tebbetts, Smoky Burgess and Smoky Joe Wood, Jim Mudcat Grant, Dizzy Dean, Cool Papa Bell, Yogi Berra, Pumpsie Green, Willie Puddin’ Head Jones, Wahoo Sam Crawford,** Gabby Street, Schoolboy Rowe,*** Tom Plowboy Morgan, Oil Can Boyd, Bobo Newsom, Choo-Choo Coleman, Sal (The Barber) Maglie, Ken (Hawk) Harrelson, Joe (Ducky) Medwick, Jim (Catifsh) Hunter, Herold D. (Muddy) Ruel, Shoeless Joe Jackson,**** Pistol Pete Reiser, Sad Sam Jones, Jumping Joe Dugan, Indian Bob Johnson, Pee Wee Reese.***** Big Poison and Little Poison (Paul and Lloyd Warner).****** The Flying Dutchman, The Grey Eagle, The Georgia Peach, The Yankee Clipper.

Baseball has a rich vocabulary. Many terms with other, more common usages have been adapted for baseball, such as ace (the best starting pitcher on the team), diamond, fireman (a team’s top relief pitcher), green light, sent to the showers (for a pitcher), table setter, cup of coffee (meaning a short time spent by a player at the major league level), on his horse (in reference to an outfielder tracking down a fly ball), leather for a fielder’s glove (a player with good leather is a good defensive player), lumber for a bat and bag or sack for a base, submariner for a pitcher with a low slung style of delivery, mop-up man for a relief pitcher used in a non-critical situation, mustard referring to a high amount of velocity on a fastball, and nail-biter for a close game. “I wus robbed” when a fielder’s spectacular play denies the batter a hit or a home run. And, many baseball terms have been incorporated into the English language, often as slang, with a broader meaning not limited to baseball. For example: bush league, choke up, telling someone you will take a rain check on an invitation.

Baseball coinages: around the horn, bench jockey, bullpen, Grapefruit League, seeing-eye single, inside out swing, hill (the pitcher’s mound), hit ’em where they ain’t, swing for the fences, horsehide for a baseball, hot corner and hot stove league, keystone sack, men in blue, round tripper for a home run, seventh-inning stretch, shoestring catch, putting your foot in the bucket, suicide squeeze.

Can of corn: an easy-to-catch fly ball hit to the outfield. The phrase is said to have originated in the nineteenth century and relates to an old-time grocer’s method of getting canned goods down from a high shelf. Using a stick with a hook on the end, a grocer could tip a can so that it would fall for an easy catch into his apron. One theory for the use of corn as the canned good in the phrase is that a can of corn was considered the easiest “catch” as corn was the best-selling vegetable in the store and so was heavily stocked on the lowest shelves.

Catbird seat: a desirable or auspicious situation in a game. Popularized by Red Barber, longtime broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dodgers. James Thurber wrote in his short story of the same title: “[S]itting in the catbird seat means sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him.” The catbird is said to seek out the highest point in a tree to sing his song, so someone in the catbird seat is high up.

Gopher ball: a pitch that leads to a home run, one that the batter will “go for.” (The term has nothing to with gophers.)

Hook: a curveball, but also used in the sense of a manager removing a pitcher from the game for a reliever. A manager who is said to have a short hook is typically quick to remove a starting pitcher. It is said that this usage may have come from the large hooks that were sometimes used in vaudeville to yank unsuccessful acts off the stage if they were reluctant to leave on their own. Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson was called Captain Hook.

Miscue for an error. The usage comes from billiards, when the cue stick slips or just brushes the cue ball, thereby leading to a missed shot.

Southpaw or portsider for a left-handed pitcher. Most baseball stadiums are built so that home plate is in the west and the outfield is in the east, so that when the sun sets it is not in the batter’s line of sight. Because of this, a left-handed pitcher’s arm is always facing south when he faces the plate. “Port” refers to the left side of a ship.

Rabbit ears to indicate a player who becomes nervous or chokes when opposing players or fans yell at or razz him. Or an umpire who picks up on every complaint hurled at him from the dugout.

Rocking chair. Refers to the position occupied by the third base umpire, likely because the third base umpire does not generally have to make as many calls as the other umpires. An ingenious and humorous coinage.

Fungo, which designates a fly ball hit for fielders to practice catching. This is accomplished by a batter tossing the ball a short distance up in the air and then batting it himself. (No one has ever determined with certainty its etymology.) And, shag (as in shag flies) and shagger.

Rhubarb. A rhubarb is a plant. Brooklyn Dodgers announcer Red Barber used the word for an argument, fight, or a mix-up on the field of play. He called Ebbets Field “the rhubarb patch” because there were so many arguments there.

And phrases you will often hear used during a game from players or spectators, often in the case of Little League and sandlot games, such as “a walk is as good as a hit,” “good eye,” and “keep your eye on the ball.”

Baseball invites good writing. Consider the wonderful literature the sport has spawned, by writers such as Zane Grey, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, James T. Farrell, Mark Harris, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo; and the poets Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, and Donald Hall. The same can be said of nonfiction works and sports writing by writers such as W. C. Heinz, Arnold Hano, Roger Kahn, Roger Angell, and Red Smith describing Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard around the world” in the New York Herald Tribune: “Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”

 

* Quoted in This Side of Cooperstown: An Oral History of Major League Baseball in the 1950s, by Larry Moffi.

**Born in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1880.

***Lynwood Thomas “Schoolboy” Rowe received the nickname “Schoolboy” while playing on a men’s team as a 15-year-old high school student.

**** Shoeless Joe Jackson got his nickname during a mill game played in Greenville, South Carolina. Jackson had blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats, which hurt so much that he took his shoes off before he was at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, and shouted “You shoeless son of a gun, you!” The other players kidded him, calling him Shoeless Joe, and the name stuck.

***** Harold Reese, nicknamed Pee Wee, was a championship marbles player in Kentucky, where he grew up. A pee wee is a small marble.

****** Big Poison and Little Poison (brothers and Pittsburgh Pirate outfielders Paul and Lloyd Warner) got their names when a sportswriter overheard an Ebbets Field fan mispronouncing “person” as “poison” — as in here comes that “big poison” or “little poison.”

 

— Roger W. Smith

   March 2018

 

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See also:

 

Roger W. Smith, “On Baseball”

 

Roger W. Smith, “On Baseball”

when knowledge (and learning) can prove to be useful; the pleasures of pedantry

 

“We all know that as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (an address delivered in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1837 before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society)

 

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I am reading Henry David Thoreau’s essay on walking.

From a recent exhibit at the Morgan Library, I learned that Thoreau, who some moderns may think of as a sort of proto hippie, was very studious and had a very good education in classical and modern languages.

In his walking essay, Thoreau uses the Latin phrase ambulator nascitur, non fit.

After a moment’s hesitation, the meaning came to me: the walker is born, not made.

A curious person as he goes through life acquires all sorts of knowledge. Someone once remarked to me that it is very pleasurable to be able every now and then to USE those scraps of learning.

It was pleasurable to me to think I have retained a little bit of my high school Latin from over 50 years ago, including present passive verb endings.

Back in my high school days I was in a bus station in Boston once, using the men’s room. Some French sailors wearing funny hats with tassels were there too. They were in high spirits. They were teasing one another, joking and laughing. They couldn’t stop laughing. One jest led to another.

They noticed me and seemed friendly. We exchanged glances. I thought, I’m taking French. I can come up with something to say to them. I said, “Vous êtes de la marine française?” They nodded with smiles and seemed to be pleasantly surprised that an American teenager was speaking French to them.

It was very edifying to actually be using the French I had been learning out of a textbook.

 

–Roger W. Smith

September 30, 2017

 

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AN UPDATE

On Friday, March 2, riding on the subway, I saw the following advertisement:

“LE SALVÉ LA VIDA A MI AMIGA”

Encontré a mi amiga desplomada en la cama. Se estaba poniendo azul y no podía respirar. Corrí a buscar mi naloxana y se la dí. Creí que estaba muerta. Cuando volvió en si, no sabía lo que había pasado ni por qué yo estaba llorando. Me alegro de haber tenido naloxona; le dio una segunda oportunidad.

La NALOXONA es un medicamento de emergencia que evita la muerte por sobredosis de analgésicos recetadas y heroína.

 

imageedit_1_2395197600

I was very pleased with myself in that I understood it completely, every word, in Spanish.

It seemed to me again that a little learning can be a good thing.

 

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I have been reading the charming novel Good-bye Mr. Chips (1934) by James Hilton. The following passage struck me:

A pleasant, placid life, at Mrs. Wickett’s. He had no worries; his pension was adequate, and there was a little money saved up besides. He could afford everything and anything he wanted. His room was furnished simply and with school­masterly taste: a few bookshelves and sporting trophies; a mantelpiece crowded with fixture cards and signed photographs of boys and men; a worn Turkey carpet; big easy-chairs; pictures on the wall of the Acropolis and the Forum. Nearly everything had come out of his old house­master’s room in School House. The books were chiefly classical, the classics having been his subject; there was, however, a seasoning of history and belles-lettres. There was also a bottom shelf piled up with cheap editions of detective novels. Chips enjoyed these. Sometimes he took down Virgil or Xenophon and read for a few moments, but he was soon back again with Doctor Thorndyke or Inspector French. He was not, despite his long years of assiduous teaching, a very profound classical scholar; indeed, he thought of Latin and Greek far more as dead languages from which English gentlemen ought to know a few quotations than as living tongues that had ever been spoken by living people. He liked those short leading articles in the Times that introduced a few tags that he recognized. To be among the dwindling number of people who understood such things was to him a kind of secret and valued freemasonry [italics added]; it represented, he felt, one of the chief benefits to be derived from a classical education.

Reminded me of the pleasure I have always taken — when boning up on literature or classical music, doing research, traveling watching films, etc. — in the knowledge I have obtained of several foreign languages, without having mastered any of them.

Know what I mean?

 

— Roger W. Smith

   March 5, 2018