On Noticing Twain

Noticing is a lost art, or so it was pointed out to me.

After reading Ron Powers’ mammoth biography of Mark Twain, I walked away fascinated with Powers’ assessment of Twain as an “enormous noticer.” In other words, Twain’s towering wit emerged from his keen senses. Twain read people like a steamboat captain might read the contours of a river, but he also crafted visual and aural observations that read like bemused chuckles at the unity of nature and humanity.[10] In Life on the Mississippi, Twain gives us one of his best blended descriptions, at sunrise:

First, there is the eloquence of silence, for a deep hush broods everywhere. Next, there is a haunting sense of loneliness, isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawn creeps in stealthily … the tranquility is profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, another follows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music. You see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of song.

I could spend a while reveling in a mind that arrives at the phrase “atmosphere of song,” but that is a point for another article. Twain also recognized that noticing can go a bit too far and become too precious. Hear the cloying satire as he describes a scene from the islands of Hawaii:

What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the clear sky! What snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over yonder in the plain! How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the dream-haunted Mauoa Valley!

Even when he writes in winks, Twain is impressive.

Twain might say “to notice is human.” But, there is another writer who reminds me that “to notice is divine.” The seventeenth-century metaphysical poet George Herbert’s ode to Christ’s love is a celebration of our Savior’s arresting notice:

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

“Love” (emphasis mine)

I enjoy thinking of the Lord as quick-eyed, like a parent who sees a quivering lip and knows the remedy. He not only sees us in sum, He notices even the smallest motivation in the shadows of the soul. People measure us by the pound, but the Lord measures us by the ounce. As a dear friend likes to say, “God sees the whats and the whys.” More than an accountability measure, the Lord’s inescapable notice should be a target of emulation: “Lord, let me come to love what I currently cannot even see.”

I value Herbert’s poem because educators can find inspiration in it. We all know students who walk into class only to “draw back.” The recoil may not spring from an awareness of “dust and sin,” but it is still unmistakable to the quick-eyed educator. Imagine the arresting power of an encounter in which a teacher approaches a student to ask if he or she “lacked anything.”

The point of this reflection, however, is not simply to encourage greater attention to our students or to endorse undue scrutiny. Instead, Twain and Herbert have taught me an abiding lesson that I think is vital at any moment school year.

I believe that noticing promotes emotional buoyancy.

In other words, alert senses can thwart monotony, they can combat fatigue, they can inspire, they can entertain, and they can reverse the cynicism that is starting to define our national culture.

Thanks for noticing, Twain.