Word To Use Today: topaz.

For years - years - I've been repeating to myself the quotation the topmost topaz of an ancient tower and wandering what on earth it was on about.

Why would anyone put a topaz on a tower?

I've looked up topaz in dictionaries, hoping for an obscure and enlightening meaning; I've pondered the possibility of the line invoking some ancient sunrise tradition; but nothing I've been able to discover has made it make anything like sense.

I've never even, until now, been sure from where the quotation came. It has the powerful, mystical feeling of Tennyson - and if it was Tennyson then it must mean something!

But at last, at last, I've found the origin of the line. It's from a thirty one page book called The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant, written by G Ragsdale McClintock, a man now, sadly, only remembered for the wonderful review by Mark Twain of the above opus.

And Mark Twain, thank heavens, explains all.

The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it [the book] wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of imagination, ingenuity of construction, purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of statement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent narrative, connected series of events - or philosophy, logic, or sense.

And later, bless him, Twain gets on to the topmost topaz.

We notice how fine and grand it sounds. We know that if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet there isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning in it.

No ray of sense or meaning...

I can't tell you how relieved I am by that!

A topaz is just a topaz. A jewel. It's beautiful, and has been said to cure lunacy.


photo by Pithecanthropus4152 

But not, I'm afraid, in the case of The Enemy Conquered, or Love Triumphant.

Poor G Ragsdale McClintock.

Word To Use Today: topaz. This word probably comes from the Greek Topazos, the old name of St John's Island in the Red Sea where a similar mineral was mined. Or the word might come from the Sanskrit tapas meaning heat or fire.

The whole of Mark Twain's scintillating review can be found HERE.