The Joy of Words

[Redbeck]

There is something joyful about a string of words that fall so elegantly into a piece of prose that they create the same feeling of graceful elation as an ascending lark. For me there are excerpts from books of many genres that strike me between the eyes and mental ears with that never forgotten effect. For example, Dylan Thomas' opening of Under Milkwood or Kenneth Grahame Wind in the Willows - Chapter 7 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, there are many, some quoted chapter and verse elsewhere on this forum.

One work that is not is James Hilton's Goodbye MR. CHIPS first published in 1934,

The opening paragraphs of Chapter 1 are a spiritual masterpiece.... and we claiming to be humankind should first take heed and then take even greater care of one another.

CHAPTER 1
When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape. It was like that for Chips as the autumn term progressed and the days shortened till it was actually dark enough to light the gas before call-over. For Chips, like some old sea captain, still measured time by the signals of the past; and well he might, for he lived at Mrs. Wickett's, just across the road from the School. He had been there more than a decade, ever since he finally gave up his mastership; and it was Brookfield far more than Greenwich time that both he and his landlady kept. "Mrs. Wickett," Chips would sing out, in that jerky, high-pitched voice that had still a good deal of sprightliness in it, "you might bring me a cup of tea before prep, will you?"

When you are getting on in years it is nice to sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea and listen to the school bell sounding dinner, call-over, prep, and lights-out. Chips always wound up the clock after that last bell; then he put the wire guard in front of the fire, turned out the gas, and carried a detective novel to bed. Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world. For his days and nights were equally full of dreaming.

He was getting on in years (but not ill, of course); indeed, as Doctor Merivale said, there was really nothing the matter with him. "My dear fellow, you're fitter than I am," Merivale would say, sipping a glass of sherry when he called every fortnight or so. "You're past the age when people get these horrible diseases; you're one of the few lucky ones who're going to die a really natural death. That is, of course, if you die at all. You're such a remarkable old boy that one never knows." But when Chips had a cold or when east winds roared over the fenlands, Merivale would sometimes take Mrs. Wickett aside in the lobby and whisper: "Look after him, you know. His chest... it puts a strain on his heart. Nothing really wrong with him— only anno domini, but that's the most fatal complaint of all, in the end."

[Redbeck]

'The Earth does not belong to man,
Man belongs to the Earth;
We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children;
Man did not weave the web of life,
He is merely a strand in it,
Whatever he does to the web,
He does to himself.'

Chief Seattle 1780-1866

There is perhaps none as well known, among the Native American Indians of the Pacific Northwest, as Chief Seattle, who departed this his favourite part of the earth some 130 years ago. Called Sealth by his native Suquamish tribe, the chief’s fame mainly rests upon the extract quoted from a speech above, which was made popular during the 1970s. However, they are fine words and when I was in my sociologically impressionable twenties in the 1970s I beccame completely absorbed by a book entitled, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, published in 1970 by American writer named Dee Brown, which covers the history of Native Americans in the American West from the second half of the nineteenth century. So consequently any noble chiefly speeches tended to somehow beat their way to my door. Read it you may find the same.

As a young adult, Sealth made his mark as a warrior, orator and diplomat. He worked hard to increase cooperation between the 42 acknowledged divisions among Salish people occupying Puget Sound, including his own Suquamish. In later years, it was recalled that the old chief '...had a resonant voice that carried half a mile and that eloquent sentences rolled from his lips like the ceaseless thunders of cataracts flowing from exhaustless fountains'. Foghorn-ophonic qualities one might say.

Anyway, a certain Dr. David (Doc) Maynard entered the picture in 1855 following the failure of a previous trading post. The Denny-Boren party had landed in 1851 to found their own town on Puget Sound, and Sealth was onhand to encourage the construction of a trading post, which saw little success and the business collapsed. Meanwhile, Maynard had left his wife of 20 years in Ohio to head out west and make his fortune. Doc was undoubtedly a dreamer, and he saw nothing but dollar signs appearing on a cash register astride the shores of Puget Sound. No sooner had he filed on a large piece of property, next to the Dennys and Borens development, than he began to give it away to encourage growth. He opened a trading post along the shores of the Duwamish River, and one of his best customers was Sealth. They became such good friends that Doc named the new city after him, Seattle being as close a pronunciation as most British and European tongues would permit. However, the 'tyee' [chief], a hereditary title by which he was known amongst the tribes, was less than happy with his awarded distinction, fully convinced as he was that following his death, every time the word Seattle was spoken he would be moved to turn in his grave.