sharing my love of books with you
Prevaricate – to quibble; to shift or turn aside from or evade the truth; to equivocate or speak evasively
“[Da] opened the door of the Scriptorium. Instead of going in, he turned and looked up at me. I knew this look and waited for him to invoke Lily’s greater wisdom. She would know what to do, he would say, without offering his own encouragement or warning… But this time he did not prevaricate.”
Esme of her father, The Dictionary of Lost Words, pip Williams
I also defined Prevaricate here.
Fascicle – a small bundle; one of the installments of a book published in parts
“As we stood on the threshold, I felt all the responsibility of introducing Ditte to the pigeon-holes full of words and quotations, to all the old dictionaries and reference books, and to the fascicles, where the words were first published before there were enough for a whole volume.”
Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words
Provenance – derivation; origin
“You might be surprised to learn that some words take their provenance from nothing more substantial than a technical manual or a pamphlet. I know of at least one word that was found on the label of a medicine bottle.”
Aunt Ditte to Esme, The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
Nonce – the present occasion; the time being
“I thought about the words in the trunk. Some I hadn’t heard or read until I saw them on a slip. Most were commonplace, but something about the slip or handwriting had endeared them to me. There were clumsy words with poorly transcribed quotations that would never end up in the Dictionary, and there were words that existed for one sentence and no other: fledgelings, nonce words that never made it. I loved them all.”
Esme, The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
Bodleian – pertaining to Sir Thomas Bodley, or to the library founded by him at Oxford, England, in the sixteenth century
“He turned and looked at me above his spectacles. “Not even the Queen is permitted to borrow from the Bodleian.”
“You would be doing me a service if you could visit the Bodleian and check the date for this quotation for flounder.”
Dr Murray to Esme, The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
The Bodleian Library was founded in sixteenth century Oxford England by Sir Thomas Bodley. It is the oldest library in Europe. It has an extensive collection of books and manuscripts, many of which have been in continuous use since the Middle Ages. If you wish to learn more about the history of the Bodleian Library, or to see pictures, please visit this link:
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/history-bodleian
Scriptorium – a room for writing; especially a room in a monastery for the writing or copying of manuscripts
“These are the pigeon-holes that hold all the slips,” I said, waving my arm up and down the nearest wall of pigeon-holes, then doing the same for the other walls around the Scriptorium, “Da said there would be thousands and thousands of slips [for words] and so there needed to be hundreds and hundreds of pigeon-holes. They were built especially, and Dr Murray designed the slips to be the perfect fit.”
Esme speaking to Aunt Ditte, The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
Preposterous – wrong, absurd, contrary to nature or reason, foolish
“[David] is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God!”
Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 51
Psalm 51:7-8 (KJV) Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Have you ever felt like you didn’t have any more joy in your life? I don’t know your circumstances, but I know in my life, when I have felt like that, it was when I was battling sin or guilt in my own strength. Usually, I was trying to hide from the Lord out of shame.
I’m sure that’s how David felt when he wrote Psalm 51. David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. Then he planned how to kill her husband so his sin wouldn’t be found out. He was adding sin to sin. And he was trying to hide from God – whether he would admit it or not. David forgot that God had seen and knew his secret all along. God sent Nathan the prophet to point his finger in David’s face and tell him, “Thou art the man!” I don’t know how long David tried to hide from God, but I can imagine he must have been miserable. I can hear his misery in Psalm 51:
Have mercy upon me, O God!
Blot out my transgressions!
My sin is ever before me!
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned!
After admitting he had sinned, David started praying for cleansing. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice” (Psalm 51: 7-8). Charles Spurgeon said of these verses, “He is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God!” I love that! Yes, what a preposterous request, but it is one that God longed to hear from David. He longs to hear this request from us too. Sin breaks our fellowship with God. When He chastises us, He is trying to get our attention. Sometimes God has to break us. God broke David, but instead of complaining about brokenness, David acknowledged it was God who broke him so that he could be restored. Remember, it wasn’t until David was faced with his sin that he repented and turned back to God.
Did you notice David’s petitions for cleansing in verse 7? Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. David was praying for complete cleansing. He was praying with the expectation that God not only could, but would, wash him whiter than snow. He didn’t just want a surface cleansing either. He wanted perfect purity. White as snow.
Then in verse 8, David requested that his joy be restored. In his hiding, in his misery, the weight of sin and guilt had burdened him so that he had no joy left. Perhaps he tried to sing and felt his voice crack; or maybe he tried to write but couldn’t move his pen. It reminds me of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Christian, so burdened by the weight on his back he could barely walk until he got to the cross and the burden rolled away. Joy was restored when sin was confessed. The Lord removed the burden. Bones that were broken by that weight of sin were healed by the One who did the breaking. Spurgeon said, “yet if he who crushed would cure, every wound would become a new mouth for song.”
I believe God restored David’s joy. Though David’s life was turned upside down from that time forward, with war and heartache on every side, he had the joy of a forgiven man. He knew the Lord had broken him and the Lord had restored him. He would know heartache, but he would also write Psalms. Even today, we read the Psalms of David and find encouragement, comfort, and solace. We look at the life of David, and we see a man who messed up but continued to seek the Lord. Acts 13: 22 calls David a man after God’s own heart.
We can follow David’s example. When we sin, when we feel the weight of guilt, we can ask for forgiveness. We can pray like David, in faith and with expectancy that God will cleanse us. Then, we can ask for joy to be restored – that preposterous prayer, as Spurgeon called it. That prayer God will both hear and answer. He will forgive, and He will restore our joy. I don’t know what you’re dealing with today, but I know this: you can have joy again.
Nine Horses, by Billy Collins is a collection of about 50 poems. His subject matter ranges from art to birthdays to Colorado.
Now, I get it: poetry is not everybody’s cup of tea. But I want to encourage you to try – every once in a while – to read a small book of poems.
Poetry is not about understanding the “deep” or “hidden” meanings in the lines, as many of the critics will tell you. It’s about using words to express emotions that we all feel because we are all human beings.
You won’t like every poet. And of those you like, you won’t like every poem. But there’s something special about trying to see the world through someone else’s eyes and realizing you feel the same things.
Blue Horses is my first exposure to Billy Collins. A quote on the back of the book likens him to Robert Frost. Another says he’s charming. To be honest with you, I haven’t read enough Robert Frost to know if that’s true, but I can say I was not “charmed” by Collins. In fact, I found him rather negative and pessimistic. Collins’ poems, like the nine horses that adorn the cover of the book, could be called modern art. While they lack the beauty I usually seek in the written word, they offer something for everyone to observe.
There were several poems that I enjoyed because I realized we share common ground in the way we think about certain things. Those poems I will share with you because I don’t condemn a collection of poems just because I don’t like one. I want you to decide for yourself whether you think this is an author worth reading further. Reading, even if you don’t care for the material, helps us grow as humans. I can walk away from Collins glad I read his work for myself. And occasionally if I remember something he said about this or that, I can smile because in that small way, we are still connected.
What is the last book of poems you read?
“Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son – a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone’s rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption.”
Elizabeth Elliot, “Humdudgeon or Contentment?”, in Refresh my Heart: Meditations for Women
Hi! I'm Cadie. Welcome to my Collection of Bookish Thoughts where I will share with you everything I love about books.
© 2025 A COLLECTION OF BOOKISH THOUGHTS
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑