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Could you tell me which of these two versions you prefer, and which do you imagine the author actually used?

“ One half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade; the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of ‘Manfred;’ but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are depreciated by the doctors.”

“ One half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade; the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of ‘Manfred;’ but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal emissions in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are depreciated by the doctors.”

I do not need help to solve this problem, I know the answer.

Tallulah Tam · Accepted Answer

Try to do it without cheating by looking it up on Google....

Nona the brit · Answer

That is funny! I imagine the author mistakenly went for emmisions then. Yuk!

CalifJim · Answer

Maybe even emissions.

Tallulah Tam · Answer

According to Jim..........

Tallulah Tam · Answer

Since nobody has come up with the answer, I will tell you that the author Henry James, in his story "Daisy Miller" used the word "meditations". "Emissions" was my idea, strangely, (for me) I had not considered the double meaning, (well spotted by Nona). I just did not think "meditations" was a good choice of word since Mr Winterbourne had murmured Byron's famous lines from "Manfred".

It is possible, (highly probable) that Henry James had already considered and rejected the word. Even with his well documented highly developed sense of humour, if there had been any chance of it being misinterpreted in those days, it would have given great offense.

Nona the brit · Answer

Oh, sorry, TT.

Emissions is not really a word to use for speech anyway, whatever time it happens. I think it unlikely that the author considered emissions.

Tallulah Tam · Answer

If you don't like "emissions" Nona, what alternative word would you use to "meditations" which I did not think was a very good choice.

Meditation:- n. reflection, ponder over, to think quietly and deeply 2. To plan in one's mind.

By the way "emissions" would be quite acceptable for speech.

Emission:- n. send. put forth, stream, light, heat, opinion, etc. OED.

He was speaking out loud, murmuring.

What about "soliloquies" ?

MrPedantic · Answer

I'm not sure the phrase "nocturnal emissions" would suit the context; the speaker is awake, and "murmuring" of his own accord.

My dictionary provides another definition of "meditation": "a discourse, written or spoken, of a meditative character" (cf. Swift's Meditation on a Broom-stick).

The murmured passage from Manfred would fit this description: in the play, it takes place at night, and consists of a meditative spoken discourse by Manfred on the subject of his nocturnal visit to the Colosseum, during which he indulged in "silent worship of the Great of Old".

So in fact both sense 1 (thinking quietly and deeply) and sense 3 (discourse of a meditative character) are present in "meditation". Perhaps James chose his word well after all!

MrP

PS: Surely "deprecated by the doctors"?

Tallulah Tam · Answer

Mr Pedantic, Meditations, implies deep thinking, (contemplating ones navel) rather than murmuring out loud, regardless of what your dictionary says. I just think he could have found a better word.

I agree now, on second thought, that "nocturnal emissions" does not sound quite right, (especially since it has been brought to my notice that it has another meaning). I actually thought when I read it, that nocturnal meditations as James had written it, meant talking to oneself, and though recommended by poets was depreciated by the doctors as a form of insanity, but it does in fact mean that breathing the night air caused them, (they believed at the time) to contract the so called Roman Fever, which was malaria, not caused by breathing night air at all but by the pesky mosquito.

Incidentally Mr. Pedantic do you think Byron's famous words from Manfred were these:-

"But the gladiators' ****** Circus stands,

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!

While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls

Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.--

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon

All this, and cast a wide and tender light,

Which soften'd down the **** austerity

Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,

As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries;

Leaving that beautiful which still was so,

And making that which was not, till the place

Became religion, and the heart ran o'er

With silent worship of the great of old,--

The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule

Our spirits from their urns.--

'T was such a night!

'T is strange that I recall it at this time;

But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight

Even at the moment when they should array

Themselves in pensive order."

MrPedantic · Answer

Sorry if my last post wasn't clear - I think "meditations" refers to Manfred's words, rather than W's murmuring of Manfred's words.

(Manfred's words are a meditation, both in the sense of "reflection" and in the sense of "meditative discourse". We have to distinguish between non-count "meditation", which does now have a navel-gazing, chaps-saying-Om aspect, and countable "meditation", as here, which has spent many centuries happily signifying a particular kind of discourse, written or spoken.)

See you,

MrP

PS: Yes, it's almost certainly that passage.

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