.i“ * ^ / . . . . . ` `~

“reins rather than oars” Pindar, Pythia 4 17-18:

ἀντὶ δελφίνων δ᾽ ἐλαχυπτερύγων ἵππους ἀμείψαντες θοάς,
ἁνία τ᾽ ἀντ᾽ ἐρετμῶν δίφρους τε νωμάσοισιν ἀελλόποδας.

Horses: The ‘stale of horses’ [1.4.68-73]; “O happy horse to bear the weight of Anthony”[1.5.26]; “And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,” [1.5.55]; “the ne’er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia/ We have jade out o’ the field.” “The third o’ the world is yours, which with a snaffle/ You may pace* easy, but not such a wife.” [2.2.81-81]; [3.2.27-28]; Eno., “Will Caesar weep?” Agr., “He has a cloud in’s face.” Eno., “He were the worse for that, were he a horse/ So is he, being a man.” [3.2.66]; “The wife of Antony/ Should have an army for an usher, and/ The neighs of horse to tell of her approach/ Long ere she did appear.” [3.6.54-57]; “If we should serve with horse and mares together,/ the horse were merely lost; the mares would bear a soldier and his horse.” [3.7.10-12]; “Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land/ And our twelve thousand horse.” [3.7.73-74]; “You keep by land/ the legions and the horse whole, do you not?” [3.7.88-89]; “to casear will I render my legions and my horse.” [3.11.41-42]; “That which is now a horse, even with a thought/ the rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct as water is in water.” [4.14.12-15];

* ‘snaffle’ and ‘pace’, terms used in horsemanship.

Inches: “Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?” [1.2.61]; “I would I had thy inches! Thou shouldst know/ There were a heart in Egypt.” [1.3.54-55];

Slime: “By the fire/ that quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence/ Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war/ As thou affects” [1.3.86-89]; “slimy jaws” of fishes [2.5.16]; “As it ebbs, the seedsman/ Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,/ And shortly comes to harvest.” [2.7.22-24]; “These fig leaves/ have slime upon them.” [5.2.428-429].

“My Good Lord of Fridge Corner”, says The Laver. “Hello Laver,” says Lord Fridge Corner. “Dost thou persist in thy dirty coldness, My Lord?” says the Laver…. The Laver Confronts Lord Fridge Corner

Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, [pp. 91]… Thomas Birch.

“It has been circulated, I know not with what authenticity, that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, ‘Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.'”

For her book “The Submerged State,” she asked a scientifically selected sample of 1,400 Americans whether they had ever used a government social program. Only 43 percent copped to having done so. Then she read off 21 social programs, such as Medicare and the home-mortgage interest deduction, and asked the same question again: Have you ever used a government social program? This time, 96 percent said yes, in fact, they had. (Klein)

“All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.” (James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues.)

A son pied, des vendeurs de courges, de melons d’eau, de bouquets de ciboulette, de cerfeuil et d’aneth…

The Page of the R’s or: “much feels like it’s happening although nothing is moving” …

Ticking is: “A strong cotton or linen fabric used to cover pillows and mattresses.” Etymology. Images. I come across it in the first paragraph of Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger” which is also just a great paragraph:

Mr. Head awakened to discover that the room was full of moonlight. He sat up and stared at the floor boards –the color of silver– and then at the ticking of his pillow, which might have been brocade, and after a second, he saw half of the moon five feet away in his shaving mirror, paused as if it were waiting for his permission to enter. It rolled forward and cast a dignifying light on everything. The straight chair against the wall looked stiff and attentive as if it were awaiting an order and Mr. Head’s trousers, hanging to the back of it, had an almost noble air, like the garment some great man had just flung to his servant; but the face on the moon was a grave one. It gazed across the room and out the window where it floated over the horse stall and appeared to contemplate itself with the look of a young man who sees his old age before him.”

“In 2000, only five countries counted China as their largest trading partner; today (2017) more than than a hundred countries do, from Australia to the United States.” [NYT 5.2.17]

This was a first pass at looking at the word Hands in the stupendous Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Pursuing this further, it would be interesting to see exactly (i) how various characters used their hands and to what extent those characters were defined by this usage; and (ii) what sorts of actions hands perform in general and what that means (holding other hands, holding shoulders, the head being placed into hands, the hands being made into fists, the hands being stuck into pockets, etc.)

Some number crunching. Story with the most hand mentions: “Hands” with 31. Story with least mentions (excepting “Book of the Grotesque”, which has none): “Tandy”, with one. Average (this depends somewhat on how you count various things): about 8 per chapter.

THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE: 0
HANDS: 31
PAPER PILLS: 8
MOTHER: 10
THE PHILOSOPHER: 8
NOBODY KNOWS: 5
GODLINESS (i): 4
GODLINESS (ii): 6
GODLINESS (iii): 6
GODLINESS (iv): 3
A MAN OF IDEAS: 9
ADVENTURE: 4
RESPECTABILITY: 6
THE THINKER: 13
TANDY: 1
THE STRENGTH OF GOD: 6
THE TEACHER: 5
LONELINESS: 4
AN AWAKENING: 22*
“QUEER”: 12
THE UNTOLD LIE: 11
DRINK: 4
DEATH: 18
SOPHISTICATION: 9
DEPARTURE: 3

*includes the 11 references to Ed Handby.
(Also to look at, fists, feet, pockets, adventure…)

HANDS (Wing Biddlebaum): “whose nervous little hands fiddled about the bare white forehead”; “his hands moving nervously about”; “rubbing his hands together and looking up and down the road”; “Wing Biddlebaum talked much with his hands“; “The story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands“; “The hands alarmed their owner”; “the quiet inexpressive hands of other men “; “with his hands pounding busily talked with renewed ease”; “The story of Wing Biddlebaum’s hands is worth a book in itself”; “In Winesburg the hands had attracted attention merely because of their activity”; ” Winesburg was proud of the hands of Wing Biddlebaum”; “As for George Willard, he had many times wanted to ask about the hands“; “Wing Biddlebaum became wholly inspired. For once he forgot the hands.”; “Again he raised the hands to caress the boy “; “thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets”; “I’ll not ask him about his hands“; “His hands have something to do with his fear of me and of everyone”; “Let us look briefly into the story of the hands“; “Perhaps our talking of them will arouse the poet who will tell the hidden wonder story of the influence for which the hands were but fluttering pennants of promise.”; “Here and there went his hands, caressing the shoulders of the boys”; “In a way the voice and the hands, the stroking of the shoulders and the touching of the hair were a part of the schoolmaster’s effort to carry a dream into the young minds”; “Under the caress of his hands doubt and disbelief went out of the minds of the boys and they began also to dream.”; “I’ll teach you to put your hands on my boy, you beast,”; “With lanterns in their hands a dozen men came to the door of the house”; “one of the men had a rope in his hands“; ” going timidly about and striving to conceal his hands“; “he felt that the hands must be to blame”; “the fathers of the boys had talked of the hands“; “Keep your hands to yourself”; “In the darkness he could not see the hands and they became quiet.”

PAPER PILLS (Dr. Reefy): “an old man with a white beard and huge nose and hands“; “The knuckles of the doctor’s hands were extraordinarily large”; “When the hands were closed they looked like clusters of unpainted wooden balls as large as walnuts fastened together by steel rods”; “Sometimes, in a playful mood, old Doctor Reefy took from his pockets a handful of the paper balls and threw them at the nursery man. ” They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy’s hands“; “One of them, a slender young man with white hands, the son of a jeweler in Winesburg, talked continually of virginity”; “At times it seemed to her that as he talked he was holding her body in his hands“; “She imagined him turning it slowly about in the white hands and staring at it”;

MOTHER (Elizabeth Willard): “At the back door of his shop appeared Abner Groff with a stick or an empty milk bottle in his hand“; “Elizabeth Willard put her head down on her long white hands and wept”; ” Her long hands, white and bloodless, could be seen drooping over the ends of the arms of the chair”; “As she went along she steadied herself with her hand, slipped along the papered walls of the hall and breathed with difficulty”; “When she had reached a safe distance and was about to turn a corner into a second hallway she stopped and bracing herself with her hands waited, thinking to shake off a trembling fit of weakness that had come upon her”; “In the light that steamed out at the door he stood with the knob in his hand and talked”; “Going to a cloth bag that hung on a nail by the wall she took out a long pair of sewing scissors and held them in her hand like a dagger”; ” On the side streets of the village, in the darkness under the trees, they took hold of her hand and she thought that something unexpressed in herself came forth and became a part of an unexpressed something in them”; “When she sobbed she put her hand upon the face of the man and had always the same thought”; “As a tigress whose cub had been threatened would she appear, coming out of the shadows, stealing noiselessly along and holding the long wicked scissors in her hand“;

THE PHILOSOPHER (Doctor Parcival): “The saloon keeper was a short, broad-shouldered man with peculiarly marked hands. That flaming kind of birthmark that sometimes paints with red the faces of men and women had touched with red Tom Willy’s fingers and the backs of his hands. As he stood by the bar talking to Will Henderson he rubbed the hands together. As he grew more and more excited the red of his fingers deepened. It was as though the hands had been dipped in blood that had dried and faded”; “As Will Henderson stood at the bar looking at the red hands and talking of women, his assistant, George Willard, sat in the office of the Winesburg Eagle and listened to the talk of Doctor Parcival.”; “There I stood over the dead body and spread out my hands“; “It was very amusing. I spread out my hands and said, ‘Let peace brood over this carcass.'”; “We will quarrel and there will be talk of hanging. Then they will come again bearing a rope in their hands.”

NOBODY KNOWS (Louise Trunnion): “Louise Trunnion came out across the potato patch holding the dish cloth in her hand“; “The boy could see her standing with the doorknob in her hand“; “George thought she must have rubbed her nose with her finger after she had been handling some of the kitchen pots”; “He wanted to touch her with his hand“; “He took hold of her hand that was also rough and thought it delightfully small.”

GODLINESS (i) (Jesse Bentley): “They were dressed in overalls and in the winter wore heavy coats that were flecked with mud. Their hands as they stretched them out to the heat of the stoves were cracked and red”; “everyone on the farms about and in the nearby town of Winesburg smiled at the idea of his trying to handle the work that had been done by his four strong brothers”; “When the war took his brothers away, he saw the hand of God in that”; “send to me this night out of the womb of Katherine, a son. Let Thy grace alight upon me. Send me a son to be called David who shall help me to pluck at last all of these lands out of the hands of the Philistines and turn them to Thy service and to the building of Thy kingdom on earth.””

GODLINESS (ii) (Jesse Bentley): “Dismissing the driver she took the reins in her own hands and drove off at top speed through the streets”; “With her own hands Louise Hardy bathed his tired young body and cooked him food”; ” one of the farm hands spoke sharply to the horse”; “the farm hands had now all assembled to do the morning shores”; ” The farm hands looked at him and laughed”; “It amused David so that he laughed and clapped his hands“; “When a rabbit jumped up and ran away through the woods, he clapped his hands and danced with delight”; “With a cry of fear, David turned and, shaking himself loose from the hands that held him, ran away through the forest”; ” but it was only after Jesse had carried him to the buggy and he awoke to find the old man’s hand stroking his head tenderly that the terror left him.”

GODLINESS (iii) (Louise Bentley): “It had not become that definite, and her mind had only alighted upon the person of John Hardy because he was at hand and unlike his sisters had not been unfriendly to her”; “The age-old woman’s desire to be possessed had taken possession of her, but so vague was her notion of life that it seemed to her just the touch of John Hardy’s hand upon her own hand would satisfy”; “The farm hand, a young fellow with black curly hair,”; “Louise frightened the farm hand still more by turning and putting her cheek down upon his shoulder.”; “Sometimes she stayed in the room with him all day, walking about and occasionally creeping close to touch him tenderly with her hands“;

GODLINESS (iv): (David Hardy): “One day he killed a squirrel that sat on one of the lower branches of a tree and chattered at him. Home he ran with the squirrel in his hand“; “As he ran he put his hand into his pocket and took out the branched stick from which the sling for shooting squirrels was suspended”; “when he saw his grandfather still running toward him with the long knife held tightly in his hand he did not hesitate”.

A MAN OF IDEAS (Joe Welling): “There was a cloud in the west down near the horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand“; “rolling his eyes about and running a thin nervous hand through his hair”; “Watch my fingers! Watch my hands! Watch my feet! Watch my eyes!”; “always carried a heavy, wicked-looking walking stick in his hand“; “When he laughed he scratched his left elbow with his right hand“; “The son had the heavy walking stick in his hand and sat near the door”; “scratching his left elbow with his right hand“; “George Willard went to his own room and sat down at his desk. He tried to write but his hand trembled so that he could not hold the pen”; “Absorbed in an idea he closed the door and, lighting a lamp, spread the handful of weeds and grasses upon the floor”.

ADVENTURE (Alice Hindman):”Beside the drug clerk she walked in silence, but sometimes in the darkness as they went stolidly along she put out her hand and touched softly the folds of his coat”; “He was an old man and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand to his mouth, he shouted. “What? What say?””; “She was so frightened at the thought of what she had done that when the man had gone on his way she did not dare get to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees through the grass to the house”; “Her body shook as with a chill and her hands trembled so that she had difficulty getting into her nightdress”.

RESPECTABILITY (Wash Williams): “Not everything about Wash was unclean. He took care of his hands“; “His fingers were fat, but there was something sensitive and shapely in the hand that lay on the table by the instrument in the telegraph office”; “They are creeping, crawling, squirming things, they with their soft hands and their blue eyes”; “In the little paths among the seed beds she stood holding a paper bag in her hand. The bag was filled with seeds. A few at a time she handed me the seeds that I might thrust them into the warm, soft ground”; “I thought that if she came in and just touched me with her hand I would perhaps faint away. I ached to forgive and forget”.

THE THINKER (Seth Richmond): “Seth’s two companions sang and waved their hands to idlers about the stations of the towns through which the train passed”; “The baker had an empty milk bottle in his hand and an angry sullen look in his eyes.”; “The notes had been written in a round, boyish hand and had reflected a mind inflamed by novel reading.”; “”That’s Belle Turner,” whispered Helen, and put her hand boldly into Seth’s hand“; “The hand of the girl was warm and a strange, dizzy feeling crept over him”; “Beside him, in the scene built in his fancy, lay Helen White, her hand lying in his hand“; “Releasing the hand of the girl, he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets”; “Seth arose from the bench and put out his hand“; “Putting her hand upon Seth’s shoulder, she started to draw his face down toward her own upturned face”; “”I think I’d better be going along,” she said, letting her hand fall heavily to her side”.

TANDY (Tandy Hard): “The stranger arose and stood before Tom Hard. His body rocked back and forth and he seemed about to fall, but instead he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk and raised the hands of the little girl to his drunken lips. He kissed them ecstatically. ‘Be Tandy, little one,” he pleaded. ‘Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.”

THE STRENGTH OF GOD (Reverend Curtis Hartman): “He was not one to arouse keen enthusiasm among the worshippers in his church but on the other hand he made no enemies”; “On the window, made of little leaded panes, was a design showing the Christ laying his hand upon the head of a child”; ” good although somewhat worldly women, had smoked through the pages of a book that had once fallen into his hands“; “She also had arisen and had gone for a walk and the hand that raised the shade was the hand of Aunt Elizabeth Swift”; “It is only the hand of God, placed beneath my head, that has raised me up.”

THE TEACHER (Kate Swift): “With hands clasped behind her back the school teacher walked up and down in the schoolroom and talked very rapidly”; “As he turned to go she spoke his name softly and with an impulsive movement took hold of his hand“; “Again her hands took hold of his shoulders and she turned him about”; “When he came and put a hand on her shoulder she turned and let her body fall heavily against him”; “When he became drowsy and closed his eyes, he raised a hand and with it groped about in the darkness. ‘I have missed something'”.

LONELINESS (Enoch Robinson): “He began to get lonely and to want to touch actual flesh-and-bone people with his hands“; “There was a woman with a sword in her hand“; ” He sat on a cot by the window with his head in his hand and George Willard was in a chair by a table”; “Her hands were so strong and her face was so good and she looked at me all the time”;

AN AWAKENING (Belle Carpenter): “One day she went home at noon and carried a handful of soft mud, taken from the road, into the house”; ” he gripped her shoulders with his strong hands“; ” the laborers worked in the fields or were section hands on the railroads”; “He felt unutterably big and remade by the simple experience through which he had been passing and in a kind of fervor of emotion put up his hands, thrusting them into the darkness above his head and muttering words”; “He felt that all of the people in the little street must be brothers and sisters to him and he wished he had the courage to call them out of their houses and to shake their hands“; “If there were only a woman here I would take hold of her hand and we would run until we were both tired out”; “In the dim light the man sat motionless holding his head in his hands“; “‘You’ll find me different,’ he declared, thrusting his hands into his pockets and looking boldly into her eyes”; “As in the vacant lot, by the laborers’ houses, he had put up his hands in gratitude for the new power in himself”; “Gripping George by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet, he held him with one hand while he looked at Belle Carpenter”; “On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard stared at the scene before him and tried hard to think”; [Ed Handby named 11 times.]

“QUEER” (Elmer Cowley): “With the shoes in his hand he sat looking at a large hole in the heel of one of his stockings”; “Well, well, what next! exclaimed the young man with the shoes in his hand, jumping to his feet and creeping away from the window”; “A flush crept into Elmer Cowley’s face and his hands began to tremble”; “With one of the shoes still held in his hand he stood in a corner of the shed and stamped with a stockinged foot upon the board floor”; “With one hand he quickly unfastened a collar from his shirt and then fastened it on again”; “Still holding the shoe in his hand Elmer Cowley went through the store, past the two absorbed men, to a glass showcase near the front door”; “Sitting on a barrel he pulled on and fastened the shoe he had been holding in his hand“; “Sullenly the tall young man tramped along the road with his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets”; ” He kept his hand on the knob as though prepared to resist anyone else coming in”; “He thrust his hands into the overcoat pockets and looked inquiringly at his companion”; “Taking the two ten-dollar bills from his pocket he thrust them into George Willard’s hand“; “Like one struggling for release from hands that held him he struck out, hitting George Willard blow after blow on the breast, the neck, the mouth”;

THE UNTOLD LIE (Ray Pearson): “Ray Pearson and Hal Winters were farm hands “; “Ray, who was the more sensitive and always minded things more, had chapped hands and they hurt”; “He was almost a foot shorter than Hal, and when the younger man came and put his two hands on the older man’s shoulders they made a picture”; ” He shook Hal’s hands loose and turning walked straight away toward the barn”; “His wife went into the bedroom and presently came out with a soiled cloth in one hand and three silver dollars in the other”; “Of a sudden he forgot all about being a quiet old farm hand and throwing off the torn overcoat began to run across the field”; “he hadn’t wanted to be a farm hand, but had thought when he got out West he would go to sea and be a sailor or get a job on a ranch and ride a horse into Western towns, shouting and laughing and waking the people in the houses with his wild cries”; “Then as he ran he remembered his children and in fancy felt their hands clutching at him”; “It was almost dark when he got to the fence and he put his hands on the top bar”; “Hal Winters jumped a ditch and coming up close to Ray put his hands into his pockets and laughed”; “He seemed to have lost his own sense of what had happened in the corn field and when he put up a strong hand and took hold of the lapel of Ray’s coat he shook the old man as he might have shaken a dog that had misbehaved”;

DRINK (Tom Foster): “Her hands were all twisted out of shape. When she took hold of a mop or a broom handle the hands looked like the dried stems of an old creeping vine clinging to a tree”; “It was past seven o’clock at night when the grandmother came home with the pocket-book held tightly in her old hands and she was so excited she could scarcely speak”; “. When George Willard was insistent he put out his hand, laying it on the older boy’s arm, and tried to explain.”

DEATH (Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard): “He was not a graceful man, as when he grew older, and was much occupied with the problem of disposing of his hands and feet.”; “the sick wife of the hotel keeper began to weep and, putting her hands to her face, rocked back and forth”; “The tall beautiful girl with the swinging stride who had walked under the trees with men was forever putting out her hand into the darkness and trying to get hold of some other hand“; “Elizabeth had married Tom Willard, a clerk in her father’s hotel, because he was at hand“; “Being unable to arise, he put out his hand and pulled the girl’s head down beside his own”; ” By a small desk near the window sat the doctor. His hands played with a lead pencil that lay on the desk”; ” I didn’t like him well enough. There was always paint on his hands and face during those days and he smelled of paint”; “The excited woman sat up very straight in her chair and made a quick girlish movement with her hand as she told of the drive alone on the spring afternoon”; “In the darkness of her room she put out her hand, thrusting it from under the covers of her bed, and she thought that death like a living thing put out his hand to her”; “On the evening when disease laid its heavy hand upon her and defeated her plans for telling her son George of the eight hundred dollars hidden away”; “There was oil in the preparation he used for the purpose and the tears, catching in the mustache and being brushed away by his hand, formed a fine mist-like vapor”; “He put out his hand as though to greet the younger man and then awkwardly drew it back again”; “His body trembled and his hands shook”; “The feeling that the body before him was alive, that in another moment a lovely woman would spring out of the bed and confront him, became so overpowering that he could not bear the suspense. Again and again he put out his hand“; “In the hallway outside the door he stopped and trembled so that he had to put a hand against the wall to support himself”; “When Aunt Elizabeth Swift, who had come to watch over the body, came out of an adjoining room he put his hand into hers and began to sob, shaking his head from side to side, half blind with grief”.

SOPHISTICATION ( Helen White): “With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another”; “The confused boy put his hand on the girl’s arm. His voice trembled”; “He held a whip in his hand and kept tapping the ground”; “Come on, he said and took hold of her hand. With hanging heads they walked away along the street under the trees”; “The presence of Helen renewed and refreshed him. It was as though her woman’s hand was assisting him to make some minute readjustment of the machinery of his life”; “In the darkness he took hold of her hand and when she crept close put a hand on her shoulder”; “When they had come to the crest of Waterworks Hill they stopped by a tree and George again put his hands on the girl’s shoulders”;

DEPARTURE (George Willard): “On the station platform everyone shook the young man’s hand“; “Gertrude Wilmot, a tall thin woman of fifty who worked in the Winesburg post office, came along the station platform. She had never before paid any attention to George. Now she stopped and put out her hand“; “Butch Wheeler the lamp lighter of Winesburg hurrying through the streets on a summer evening and holding a torch in his hand.”