MDDM Ch 76: did all hesitate, upon the Border?

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

Of course, we are always poised, aren't we, on
the border- each having paid the price of admission- 
between past and future? Ives' objections are 
strictly pro forma: Hadrian's wall, the traditional
boundary betwixt civilization and the "unknown"
being only ca. 73 miles long. Missing eachother
by a hundred miles, would put one or the other of
them in the sea. Making his point, I suppose.

But Ives will soon be joining "the Junto" and
Franklin, who can fill him in on the missing
details of Mason's coming demise- first hand,
if he desires.

This chapter represents the birth of criticism,
self and otherwise, and as such, is similar to V.
in Love. Rather than mirrors, we are given "Mist
thro' the Window-Panes." There is much about
the jacobean Johnson which would make him a/the 
soul mate of Mason- the melancholy, the gothic 
sensibilities, the visitations by a dead wife, even
his essential humanity inspite of himself. Yet he
remains Ursa Major to Mason's minor. He is the
quintessential critic and maintains his distance.

The line: "Yet (speculates the Rev'd)..." seems key.
Here the author is allowing us an unhindered view of
the narratologic process. And so, Boswell, as both
character and referent, obliquely acknowledged as
"any third Observer" in the next chapter, helps
concentrate the sense of the possibilty of self-
objectivity, which coincides with Mason's raison,
here: an Errand of Gravity. Gravity, in the future, 
which is really part of Pynchon's past, will be 
understood in the future, as a property of space
alone, in order to overcome that Newtonian Achilles 
heel: instantaneous effect, or, action at a distance.

But there is no distance, no space, no time on the
quantum level, effect is cause. And yet, we all die
alone. The price of transcendence...? "sacred Asset,
yet a secular Liability." And Johnson hopes ever for the
maintenance of a distinction between the two, "You must
keep unfailing Vigilance." I.e., do not be fooled by the
profane artifices of men, who would have you believe 
that their creations are sacred. To the critic, no
creation of man is beyond criticism, including The 
Principia. Johnson senses a kindred spirit in this Star-
Gazer.

"Hatred." cf- It's Corollary, 696.12. With love, there
are no strings, or plumb lines, attached, of course.
And yet,

    "...We feel as components of Gravity His Love,
    His Need, whatever it be that keeps us circling."
    {96.05]

Major Gravity to the minor gravity of Schiehallion.