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narcotic principle of opium largely used to alleviate pain)?
These are some of the substances I recall hearing about in my youth, outlawed today, I’m sure, but common enough in those and previous times to be features of conventional literature: "The Confessions of an Opium Eater, Anna Karenina” and “Long Days Journey Into Night," for starters.
When that little meteorite of a poem dropped beside me, I memorized it and when I became a teacher. I asked my students to memorize it too. One acquired not only “anodyne” but also inquisitor,” that official of the ecelestical tribunal for the suppression of heresy.
Who was the officiously prying fellow worrying to death the heart of Emily Dickinson? Have any of us encountered such a “being” asking us whether we believe or disbelieve what we should know better than to question?
The connotations of both “anodyne" and “Inquisitor” give us matter to ruminate upon for the rest of our lives, and an insight into Emily Dickinson’s mind that few otherscould do for theirs w ith eight repetitious lines.
One of the ways I have learned to distinguish out-of-town words from essential ones is to study poetry. A poet is first of all a w ord lover and if the right word turns out to be from out of town, a poet knows how to convert it to an insider.
DIANA BIRD
Elint Hill
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