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It had taken some care to get used to the literal-minded conversation that resulted; but eventually Mike felt he had worked out a satisfactory communications ability with the overly obvious "cow." What he wanted now was a situation report. If he simply asked for that, however, he'd have received such miles of data that he'd have been listening for hours.
I may not know God, but whatever else He is, I feel sure that He is not a precise stickler-god, that He is not pompous about spiritual manners, a huge, literal-minded, Proper Person, who cannot make allowances for human nature, who cannot hear what humble, rough men like these, hewing their vast desires for Him out of darkness, and out of little foolish words, are trying to say to Him.
A modern intelligence can scarcely prefigure heaven or hell as a reward or punishment for mere carnal comfort or discomfort as many literal-minded persons believe that Jesus taught. The Son of Man was too subtle a philosopher to teach that a rich man is lost by his wealth and a poor man saved by his poverty, though primitive minds took this to be his meaning.
Probably some of the more literal-minded grandsons of Holland were somewhat unappreciative of the precise scope of the author's genius and the bent of his humor; but if this "veritable history" really elicited any "doubts" or any hostility, at the time, such misapprehension has doubtless been long since removed.
"Upon my word, who's idealizing the Yankee mountaineer now?" she cried, laughing out as she spoke at the idea of her literal-minded neighbors dressed up in those trailing rhetorical robes. "I thought you said they were so dull and insensitive they could feel nothing but an interest in two-headed calves, and here they are, characters in an Italian opera.
We have learned a good many things since the forties." "The fact is," I said, "no literal-minded man should be trusted with Downing." "Any more than with the Holy Scriptures," exclaimed the woman. "Exactly!" I responded with the greatest enthusiasm; "exactly! We go to him for inspiration, for fundamental teachings, for the great literature and poetry of the art.
Dorothy received his game, and as she took the ducks and other fowls, she spoke to him. "Thank you, Pigeonswing," said the young matron. "No pale-face could be a better provider, and many are not one-half as good." "What provider mean, eh?" demanded the literal-minded savage. "Mean good; mean bad, eh?" "Oh! it means good, of course.
And she wanted a chat with Dave's guardians; she did not really know them intimately. "The two little ones must be almost like your own children to you, Mr. Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation. "Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from constitutional good-faith. "If you had had any was what I meant."
It is inadequate if the listener is merely passive, if he falls into the mistake of the literal-minded who expect words to contain a precise image of reality. They never do. All language can achieve is to act as a guidepost to the imagination enabling the reader to recreate the author's insight.
And to make it worse, Marilda is the most literal-minded girl. Fasting was quite a new mind to her, for she never realises what she does not see; and she got Clem into a corner, where I heard him going on, nothing loth, about days of abstinence, out of Mr.
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