FIX every wandering thought upon

[David Morris]

Ah, you CAN do better.
This is very good.
Thank you.

>From: Queen Liz
>
>Sidney Stencil, on the scene in Florence in 1899, ponders
>the working of his "theory" :
>
>Oh, The Situation. The bloody Situation. In his more
>philosophical moments he would wonder about this abstract
>entity The Situation, its idea, the details of its
>**mechanism**. He remembers times when whole embassies full
>of personnel had simply run amok and gibbering in the
>streets when confronted with a Situation which refused to
>make sense no matter who looked at it, or from what angle.
>He had
>decided long ago that no Situation had any objective
>reality: it only existed in the minds of those who happened
>to be in on it at any specific moment. Since these several
>minds tended to form a sum total or complex more mongrel
>than homogeneous, The Situation must necessarily appear to a
>single observer much like a diagram in four dimensions in
>only three. Hence the success or failure of any diplomatic
>issue must vary directly with the degree of rapport achieved
>by the team confronting it. This had led to
>the near obsession with teamwork which had inspired his
>colleagues to dub him Soft-shoe Sidney, on the assumption
>that he was at his best in front of a chorus line. But it
>was a neat theory, and he was in love with it.
>
>The only consolation that he drew from the present chaos was
>that his theory managed to explain it.
>
>Sidney creates a structure that imposes order on otherwise
>exasperatingly random events.
>
>How else can one respond?
>
>Of course the catch is that it is not "real " and only
>permits private meanings and interpretations.
>
>Herbet's desire to discover what V. is "as his legacy from
>his father" leads him to make connections that Eigenvalue
>suspects may be spurious.
>
>Stencil, then, highlights the two problems:
>
>1.  the problems inherent in discerning reality.
>
>2.  the problems inherent in  interpreting reality.
>
>As the "century's child" Herbert Stencil embodies a search
>for meaning and identity which is tangentially diverted from
>its final goal by fear of actually reaching that goal.
>
>His father was in love with his own theory, it made sense of
>chaos.
>
>But for Henry Adams, I mean young Stencil, in love with his
>Father's theory, this is like walking into a church and
>discovering a machine humming a tune to the sleeping christ
>child, as the
>"centuries child" (Stencil/Adams) he is in love with theory
>but also with the chaos,  the Situation, his own Death is a
>quest for His  Story..
>
>So we are, reading Henry Adams again, Henry IV and the Hot
>House. And Stencil is ostensibly seeking V. and knowledge of
>how his father died. How did the Virgin become the dynamo?
>Two forms of catholicism David. Not pro or con. It's not a
>religious tract it's a work of fiction. It's about big
>things, young Tommy, in his very first novel, wants his
>players on the world's stage, "all the world's a ship and
>men but Pigs and Seamen," I think Melville said something
>like that anyway… and the catholicism is very very important
>not because Young Tommy was a catholic, no this is a fact
>but not too important at the moment, but because the
>catholic religion is where the virgin that is now a dynamo
>lived.
>
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