RT list: Re: Whartoniana

Happy New Year to the list! I guess I cannot resist appending this on my
previous note, and did I thank the editor of LPP for sharing her
'continuation of the topic' with us?
 
Anyway, I had titled my thing, "Whartoniana" and everyone should be
delighted that the Duke of Wharton indeed noted, some time ago, that cards can
"naturally" mean, and important things, too, like one's destiny in the way of
love. I read from "Whartoniana", a book deposited at the Bodleian and
published in 1717:
 
   "A few Days ago, I took it into my Head to make a
Visit to the celebrated Theresius, in order to
      be
 
            informed
 
       of my Destiny."
 

--
Cfr. Wharton on the Kiparskian factivity of "inform". But, how can you be  
informed of your destiny unless you are a determinist?
--
"—Help thyself to a Seat, said he, my Friend, 
sit down, and give me thy Hand."
--
Cfr. Wharton on digitalisation.
--
"He pored on it for a considerable while, 
cast a Figure,"
--
           Gk. "skhema"  as in
           Grice, WoW,  ii, "something of the
           nature of a  FIGURE of speech"
--
"said not one Word,"
--
    So this would be strictly, _beyond_ Grice's Studies in  the Way of 
*Words*.
--
"but ordered me to return the next Day. His 
Silence seemed to me very ominous, and"
--
      a flout of informativeness, almost.
            Alla  Leech,
            A: We'll  all miss Agatha and Cedric.
            B: We'll  all miss Cedric.
--
"to portend me no Good; yet I much rather 
chose to be at once acquainted with my ill 
Fortune, than to continue longer in a suspenceful 
Uncertainty."
--
    For this, cfr. Grice
    "Intention and Uncertainty", P. B. A.
    For as Grice knows, Hampshire ("Shropshire", in
    N. Allott's blog -- but I disagree) and Hart, for  all
    their talent, do overestimate Certainty in their
    _Mind_ joint paper.
--
"I therefore very importunately pressed him to 
let me know his Reason for giving me no Answer 
to my Quere."
--
   But he stopped at that. For otherwise, he
   could have been reprimanded by his fellow
   conversationalist to let him know _his_ reason
   for asking for the reason not to give him
   no answer to his 'quere', which would lead,
   to echo Grice, to a pseudo-Schifferian
   regress.
--
"Still the old Cuff was mute, making no manner of Reply,"
--
   But didn't he check for the para-gestural?
--
"but reaching a Pack of Cards, sat down by me, 
and challenged me to play a Game with him at Piquet; 
the which, heavy-hearted and out of Humour as I was, 
I could not, nay durst not well refuse. Well.— We cut; 
he has the Hand; I deal; he takes five, and leaves me three.— 
I find in my Hand a Quint in Hearts, three Kings, three 
Knaves, the Queen of Diamonds, and three Spades 
which I discarded. A promising Game! Great Hopes! 
But, Morbleu! Not one Ace in the three Cards I took in!— 
Faith, Madam ; I beg your Pardon for swearing; 
but it was so cursedly provoking, that I cannot keep 
my Temper when ever I think of it. Sixty five? says he.— 
Good.— A Quint to a Knave?— Equal.— He 
then spreads out upon the Table seven Diamonds. 
Sixty five are seven, says my Antagonist, very gravely; 
a Quatorze of Aces, fourteen more.
— All good, cries I, with a deep Sigh.— 
--
   In prosodic terms, /ahh/ a suprasegmental
     sign of _relief_.
--
"Diamonds, says he, playing his Ace, twenty-two, 
and plays out all his Diamonds running.— Down 
went my Queen, accompanied with two Clubs 
and four Hearts.— He next plays his Ace of Clubs, 
and that quite confounds me; for, the most 
unluckily in the World, I had left my King unguarded. 
He redoubles upon me with the Ten of Clubs; 
I fling him a Spade. Next, upon his Ace of Hearts, 
I give my Knave, still depending upon saving the 
Lurch, scarce doubting of his having the Queen.— 
My King of Spades next falls a Victim to his Ace.— 
But, how was I Thunder-struck! How were all my 
Hopes blasted! The Devil a Bit of the Queen of Hearts 
had he, and poor Charles found himself Capoted. I have 
won the Game, said he.— From hence 
 
         learn thy Destiny. 
--
Alla English, but cfr. "Wind in the Willows" for 
    'learn' meaning "teach".
--
"If you must love, pitch upon some Object that is 
more your Match: For if ever you attack the divine 
Pallas, you will infallibly be Lurched.— Adieu. 
Heaven take thee into it’s Protection: Thus we parted."
---
 
Well, don't I have  an ear for class! There I was saying that Whartoniana 
was to echo Edith Wharton,  and while the classy Berkshire-based Edith 
Wharton Society does regularly  promote their Whartoniana ("all about Wharton", 
"Wharton on Wednesdays) when you  try "Whartoniana" online and you get, also, 
a link to this LOVELY digitalised  google book, deposited at The Bodleian 
(across Blackwell, as RT-listers should  know!), called archaically 
appropriately
 
Whartoniana; or, miscellanies, in  verse and prose, by the Wharton 
family,and several other persons of  distinction.
And it's London 1727, if you must!  and it's Wharton, Philip, Duke of 
Wharton, d. 1731.
 
One of these "other persons of distinction" undoubtedly was Sir Henry St.  
John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, for many rush to consult "Whartoniana" for 
this  below:
    "After his return he wrote an ode called "Almahide", a  remonstrance to 
one of his mistresses upon her 
    infidelity (printed in Whartoniana, 1727, ii. ...)
_www.red1st.com/tng603/getperson.php?personID=I1750046432_ 
(http://www.red1st.com/tng603/getperson.php?personID=I1750046432) ...  
But this above is possibly irrelevant -- what _is_, according to a  friend 
who systematically misunderstands Sperber's and Wilson's theory says one  
cannot _be_ irrelevant, if it's a cognitely implanted thing. 
 
The language of berkiria whartoniana and clyptomena whartoniana,
 
Lots of google hits, too for a rare Mexican orchid, if you can believe  
that, whose linguistic alliance is"barkeria whartoniana". So much for the  
inventor of 'floral dictiveness' (Say it with flowers). There is a type of  
fern, too, that goes by the species "whartoniana", so he (this Wharton) was  
really into vegetables. As it relates to the Lady of Berkshire, however  it's
The Mount's Blog!: The Triumphant Return of Wharton on  Wednesdays!
1 Jul 2009 ... They will be collaborating with us and  providing the 
readers for each week's slice of Whartoniana. The first reading is  this afternoon 
(July  ...
helpsavethemount.blogspot.com/.../triumphant-return-of-wharton-on.html 
 
But perhaps the most _relevant_ point has to be what "Whartoniana"  
includes. An online site says about the tarot cards, which I opened this post  with.
 
 
"[I]n Spain at least, there were professional cartomancers in the 17th  
century, and they used layouts with multiple cards and 
 
           positional  SIGNIFICATIONS.
 
[cfr. T. Wharton on 'natural/non-natural' meaning] 
The discovery, in the Whartoniana (1727), shows that diviners could use the 
 play of a regular game as a form of divination. For, indeed, as another 
online  site reads, "Whartoniana" "contained a detailed account of a card game 
that  resulted in a divination. 
 
In the Table of Contents the piece is titled “To the lovely PALLAS, Or the  
Game at Picquet.”"
 
Wharton takes Grice to task. As Martinich has noted (in his _Dialectica_  
essay) it is controversial that one of Grice's examples _travel_
 
   The present budget means-N that we will have a hard  year.
 
I think it does travel, since, well, 'mean' is a classy colloquialism, and  
it should be scare-quoted anyways (sic):
 
   The present budget 'means' that we will have a hard year
 
Note Wharton's caution also that it _might_ be said things like "the  
present budget means will have a hard year". Might be said by people who either  
scare-quote or prosodically otherwise mark any flout of 'animism'. The cards 
of  the Game of Picquet thus therefore exploit the same scare-quotedness of 
how the  positional SIGNIFICATION of this or that Queen of Diamonds 'means' 
that you'll  love life is, if you have to be informed and you'll learn, 
_meant_ to be,  indeed, very GOOD!
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
   for the Grice Club
    
Cheers,
JLS