putterings 285 < 286 > 287 index
or thought of having a thought, at every turn he cannot see
...The explainer can not let himself go. The puttering love of explaining, and the need of explaining, dog his soul at every turn of thought or thought of having a thought. He not only puts a microscope to his eyes to know with, but his eyes have ingrown microscopes. The microscope has become a part of his eyes. He cannot see anything without putting it on a slide, and when his microscope will not focus it, and it can not be reduced and explained, he explains that it is not there.
— Gerald Stanley Lee, “The Habit of Letting One’s Self Go,” in East & West 1:12 (October 1900) : 386-392 (389) : link (Stanford copy)
same (but Indiana U. copy, via hathitrust) : link
people
Gerald Stanley Lee (1862-1944)
wikipedia :
link
and his several entries in this putterings project : link
East & West was founded and edited by fellow Columbia University students William Aspenwall Bradley (1878-1939) and George Sidney Hellman (1878-1958)