My heart was stirred at the reading. For the first time, I looked up to gaze at the Human Condition and saw a shimmering comet of Hannah Arendt flying across an inked-filled page,
“In 1957, an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe, where for some weeks it circled the earth according to the same laws of gravitation that swing and keep in motion the celestial bodies — the sun, the moon, and the stars. To be sure, the man-made satellite was no moon or star, no heavenly body which could follow its circling path for a time span to us mortals, bound by earthly time, lasts from eternity to eternity. Yet for a time it managed to stay in the skies; it dwelt and moved in the proximity of the heavenly bodies as though it had been admitted tentatively to their sublime company.”
I was attracted to her prose for the same reason eyes are attracted to the wonders of nature. It was like reading through a telescope to behold a milky-wayed mind. After spending the night in her prologue, I was curious to see if she was a lover of poetry, for her language seemed to have been rooted in the rich soil of poets. I decided to pick up a biography of Arendt by
in order to discover more about her reading life.I learned that at an early age Arendt spent her leisure indoors in her father’s library memorizing “the poetry of Friedrich Schiller, Goethe, Friedrich Holderlin, and Homer.”1 She felt a need to not only read, but to climb the mount of memory. For there were beauties worth chewing, not only beholding, but possessing. It was not the mere holding in hand, but the having in heart she quested.
I’ve noticed that all the writers I admire tend to be avid and contemplative readers. It was said of Bunyan, “Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline." Cut them and it seems as if their writing bleeds, texts are covered in the crimson of allusion, and the echoes of Western canon. A tapestry of sorts. As Mary Carruthers noted in The Book of Memory, “The Latin word textus comes from the verb meaning ‘to weave’ and it is in the institutionalizing of a story through memoria that textualizing occurs.” She went on to further explain textus and how it was demonstrated in the life and works of Aquinas,
“Textus also means ‘texture’, the layer of meaning that attach as a text is woven into and through the historical and institutional fabric of a society. Such ‘socializing’ of literature is the work of memoria. Thomas Aquinas was a highly literature man in a highly literate group, yet his his contemporaries reserved their greatest praise not for his books but for his memory, for they understood it was memory which allowed him to weave together his astonishing works.”2
It was said, “great writers are great readers.” Indeed, this statement is true, but found pregnant, awaiting to give birth to another addition. Perhaps to this tree of wise sayings, one must add the leaf of memory. As the Prince of Preachers once said,
“A man who never reads will never be read. A man who never quotes will never be quoted. A man who never uses the thoughts of other men’s brain proves that he has no brain of his own.” - Charles Spurgeon
Our pens too stand on shoulders. As a food connoisseur can identify ingredients with a skilled specificity, I can sometimes taste Illich and Ellul in a sentence of Sacasas. Perhaps he too like Arendt sat in the library of their prose. There is something sublime about dwelling for decades in the works of a writer. Mike Phillips told me his best friend is and not was Augustine. I love the essays of Hadden Turner and can tell his eyes drink from the cup of Wendell.
Our great tragedy is that we have outsourced writing and abdicated language to tools. Words no longer taste like berries but are commodities for profit. Where is the man with a poem in his heart and a Psalm in his chest? Let the waters of Brooks nourish our dry habits and drooped thinking,
“[For] it is not the bee's touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.”
There was a time when scribes were called plowmen, where the stylus scratched the wax creating furrows by which words were planted like seeds.3 For what does it mean to read but to harvest the treasures of old and present? Our souls need rose and redwood, not only sayings but epics. Hear the songbirds of haiku, hike the trails of sonnet, and cross the rivers of speeches. Be filled like fruit trees and let others pick apples when times are winter.
Look in the fields and learn from Hannah Arendt who bundled poems and gathered lines fresh with dew in the basket of her heart. Notice that intangible eating, not with mouth but longing. In her father’s library, she sat in solitude with simmering verses on tongue. She ate, and ate well. For this, I am reminded of that story Maurice Sendak once shared,
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
May we hear the voice repeating, “Take up and eat; take up and eat!” It need not be grand or cosmic, “even the snail reached the ark” by perseverance. Start with a line from Frost, a quote from Substack, or even a tweet. The point is to see, to love, and to eat. The world is full and beaming with beauty. For some this is hard, and a work too daunting. But let us learn from farmers and the book of creation. The work of memory requires slowness and patience.4 Let not your vision be crippled by the burdens of speed.5 Let us take heed and turn to the words of Turner,
“The good farmer; however, is well aware of the slow pace of creation, and his need to work with slowness and not against it. If his crops grow too quickly, he will pay the price when the wind gales howl. If he tries to speed up processes of growth, formation, and maturity he will find himself running against the grain and rhythm of creation - and will necessarily reap destruction.” -
This newsletter is called the Craft of Memory, but we must not forget the heart of memory. As Heidegger once observed that “the essence of technology is nothing technological”, one can also say that the essence of memory is nothing mnemonic. I’m not so much concerned about what technique you use, whether you follow Cicero, Quintilian, Hugh, Ramus, or Bruno. My hope is that your soul is nourished and that you experience the joy of memory. So, take up and eat; take up and eat!
Hannah Arendt (Critical Lives) by Samantha Rose Hill. I recommend this biography of Arendt and to check out this interview where she briefly talks about how much Arendt memorized: Hannah Arendt and Political Thinking.
For further reading on the meaning textus and memoria, I recommend “The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture” by Mary Carruthers.
Here is more commentary on the language of reading as eating by Ivan Illich: “When Hugh reads, he harvests, he picks the berries from the lines. He knows that Pliny had already noted that the word pagina, page, can refer to rows of vine joined together. The lines on the page were the thread of a trellis which supports the vines. As he picks the fruit from the leaves of parchment, the voces paginarum drop from his mouth; as a subdued murmur.” In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon, p. 37.
For further reading on the role of patience in the work of memory. I recommend the essay, “The Great Forgetting” by
. She made an important point that I think we all need to hear in an culture that is obsessed with speed and efficiency: “The next step is to deliberately nurture memory. This requires patience, diligence, and time. But just like teaching your own children, planting a garden, raising chicks, or baking your own bread, it produces a worthwhile and uniquely satisfying outcome.”“The Burdens of Speed” by Hadden Turner is a powerful and convicting essay, I enjoyed it so much that I am memorizing word-for-word because I constantly need to be reminded. I think it should be required reading for anyone seeking to study the art of memory.
Fascintaing read Ronald! Thank you also for referring readers to The Great Forgetting, I hope it encourages more people to attend to the danger of outsourcing memory and rediscovering and honing their natural abilities. Your piece made me think of the quote, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Eating words means living the words. Thanks again - I look forward to more of your writing.
Excellent! Plenty to "take up and eat" right here.