FOOTNOTES:
[161] This and the next letter were written in answer to Mr. Furnivall, who, upon being questioned what appearance in the clouds was intended by the word "fret" in the above passage, referred the point to Mr. Ruskin, whose answers were subsequently read at the forty-fifth meeting of the Society, Oct. 11, 1878.
[162] In modern English "chasing" has got confused with it, but it should be separated again.
NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE.
II.
Edinburgh, 29th Sept., 1878.
Dear Furnivall: Your kind letter comes to me here, and I must answer on this paper, for, if that bit of note is really of any use to you, you must please add this word or two more in printing, as it wouldn't do to let it be such a mere fret on the vault of its subject. You say not one man in 150 knows what the line means: my dear Furnivall, not one man in 15,000, in the 19th century, knows, or ever can know, what any line—or any word means, used by a great writer. For most words stand for things that are seen, or things that are thought of; and in the 19th century there is certainly not one man in 15,000 who ever looks at anything, and not one in 15,000,000 capable of a thought. Take the intelligence of this word in this line for example—the root of the whole matter is, first, that the reader should have seen what he has often heard of, but probably not seen twice in his life—"Daybreak." Next, it is needful he should think what "break" means in that word—what is broken, namely, and by what. That is to say, the cloud of night is Broken up, as a city is broken up (Jerusalem, when Zedekiah fled), as a school breaks up, as a constitution, or a ship, is broken up; in every case with a not inconsiderable change of idea and addition to the central word. This breaking up is done by the Day, which breaks—out, as a man breaks, or bursts out, from his restraint in a passion; breaks down in tears; or breaks in, as from heaven to earth—with a breach in the cloud-wall of it; or breaks out, with a sense of outward—as the sun—out and out, farther and farther, after rain. Well; next, the thing that the day breaks up is partly a garment, rent, more than broken; a mantle, the day itself "in russet mantle clad"—the blanket of the dark, torn to be peeped through—whereon instantly you get into a whole host of new ideas; fretting as a moth frets a garment; unravelling at the edge, afterwards;—thence you get into fringe, which is an entirely double word, meaning partly a thing that guards, and partly a thing that is worn away on the ground; the French Frange has, I believe, a reminiscence of φρασσω in it—our "fringe" runs partly toward frico and friction—both are essentially connected with frango, and the fringe of "breakers" at the shores of all seas, and the breaking of the ripples and foam all over them—but this is wholly different in a northern mind, which has only seen the sea
Break, break, break, on its cold gray stones,—
and a southern, which has seen a hot sea on hot sand break into lightning of phosphor flame—half a mile of fire in an instant—following in time, like the flash of minute-guns. Then come the great new ideas of order and time, and
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bowed her hand, etc.,