MDMD 1: Nerve-Lines of concentrated Light

[Thomas Eckhardt]

"Snow lies upon all Philadelphia, from River to River, whose further
shores have so vanish'd behind curtains of ice-fog that the City today
might be an isle upon an Ocean. Ponds and Creeks are frozen over, and
the trees a-glare to the last slightest Twig,-- Nerve-Lines of
concentrated Light." (6)

I think this is a wonderful image, but it strikes me as a little
anachronistic. To my ears this metaphor sounds more like something out
of modern poetry, Ezra Pound perhaps, than something our narrator - the
implied narrator, a gent who just like Cherrycoke seems to be an
inhabitant of the 18th century as far as we can tell from the English he
writes - would use. Also, the word "Nerve-Line", or "nerve line" or
"nerveline", can not be found in the OED.

Thomas