torpor

I keep forgetting to use that word but I read it yesterday when I looked up a larger definition of accidie. I woke up with it still with me—a little detritus from the night’s cleanup. (I’ll think about REM later.)

So—torpor. Does anyone remember that wonderful line—it might have been in the Tom Jones movie (yes,1963)—

“Rouse yourself from this pastoral torpor.”

Yes! ”Sir!” —The last word in the line. I know because I looked it up just now.

All my vague memories solidified. It was Dame Edith Evans who said it. I could hear her voice as I wrote the words down. And Hugh Griffith was the actor playing Squire Western, who had just collapsed in a drunken stupor, not torpor. Torpor is better.

Lovely word.