"winders of the circuit of circuits"

[Wilson Gray]

Geoff Nunberg writes:

"... an itinerant clergyman..."

FWIW, in the Methodist Church, of which I was a member before
converting to The One True Faith, such clergymen, once (still?) a
defining feature of that church, were (are?) known as "circuit
riders."

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 1:09 PM, Andrea Morrow <aandrea1234 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Andrea Morrow <aandrea1234 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "winders of the circuit of circuits"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A couple of instances of "circuit of circuits" from a few decades after
> Whitman wrote "Song of Myself":
>
> "O my soul, I have given thee new names and gay-coloured playthings, I have
> called thee 'Fate' and 'the Circuit of circuits' and 'the navel-string of
> time' and 'the Azure bell.'"
> from Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Neitzche 1880s
>
> "=85[Nature], however, never remains entirely or eternally determined and
> fixed into any permanent and unalterably persistent reality as such, but is
> forever in a continual course of change and flow, ever returning out of its
> special and particular realizations, in a circuit of circuits, into the
> absolute unity, fullness, and allness of the universality=85"
> from Realistic Idealism in Philosophy Itself, Nathaniel Holmes 1888
>
> The quotations above suggest a linking of the phrase with the spiritual or
> metaphysical, but as someone else has said, "Song of Myself" is poetry, so =
> I
> doubt there is one fixed meaning for the phrase.  It's more both/and than
> either/or, especially with Whitman.
>
> Andrea
> On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: "winders of the circuit of circuits"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> At 12/28/2008 09:47 AM, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>> >Song of Myself
>> >My sun has his sun, and round him obediently wheels ; He joins, with his
>> >partners, a group of superior circuit ; And greater sets follow, making
>> specks
>> >of ...
>>
>> This could be consistent with my supposition of the clockwork of the
>> universe.
>>
>> Joel
>>
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