A 30 Cent Treasure

I was reading a book (Mrs. Miniver) the other day and the author (Jan Struthers) used the word "prestidigitation". It was fairly obvious from the context what the meaning was but I looked it up just to be sure ("sleight of hand"). There were a number of other words in the book that I had to look up and I can only conclude that the vocabulary level in pre-WWII England was much higher than in the US today.

I found the book in the used book room at the Alhambra library and it was marked $0.30. It is a first American edition (published 1939) and I was delighted to find it. I'd read references to this book many times but had never read it myself. It is an absolutely delightful book and one I'll re-read at regular intervals. By the way, if you've seen the movie - well, read the book.

One of the things I love about reading is finding a thought put into words in a way that resonates so deeply with my own experience but which I had never put into words or perhaps even conscious thought. It is so satisfying when someone else hits the nail on the head for you! Or when the author presents a picture that communicates an idea in the perfect way. Here's one from Mrs. Miniver:

As she walked past a cab rank in Pont Street Mrs. Miniver heard a very fat taxi-driver with a bottle nose saying to a very old taxi-driver with a rheumy eye: "They say it's all a question of your subconscious mind."

Enchanted, she put the incident into her pocket for Clem. It jostled, a bright pebble, against several others: she had had a rewarding day. And Clem, who had driven down to the country to lunch with a client, would be pretty certain to come back with some good stuff, too. This was the cream of marriage, this nightly turning out of the day's pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.

Anyone who is married knows that habit of tucking away little incidents to share. I'd just never put it into words or a picture like she did, that of pebbles stored in the pocket. That's what good wordcrafters do, I guess, put a frame around pictures of life so we remember them or perhaps even become conscious of them.