The keenest pleasure in life, of course, is to find a Kindred
Spirit--one whose mind glows and teeters with delight at the same queer
things that rouse us to excitement. We have just found one, and yet
we shall never know him, except by his address, which is Y. 1926, the
_Times_, E. C. 4, London. For we are much too busy to write to any one,
even to a Kindred Spirit.
We will tell you _why_ we feel sure he is a Kindred Spirit; but in
parenthesis, it was Mr. Pearsall Smith who lamented the fact that the
English language contains no satisfactory word for “a person who is
enthusiastic about the same things that you are enthusiastic about.” It
is too grossly clumsy to say _fellow-fan_ or _co-enthusiast_; so Mr.
Smith, a philologist of charming finesse (have you read his little book
_The English Language_ published by Henry Holt?) boldly proposed to
fill the vacancy by coining the word _milver_. This, he said, would be
useful to poets, since there is no rhyme in English for _silver_.
The word _milver_, alas, leaves us cool, in spite of its usefulness
as a rhyme. It does not strike down in the great subsoil of the
language--the dark deep skein of inherited word-roots from which our
present meanings blossom and put forth. We suggest--without much
thought--a mere contraction. How would _kinsprit_ do? We rather like
the look of it; it has a droll, benign, elvish appearance as we put it
down. A couplet occurs to us--
_They pledged their bond with joyful oath--
A kinsprit passion knit them both._
That shows you it could be used as an adjective as well. Come, now, if
we all pull together very likely we can get Messrs. Merriam to put it
in the next edition of Webster:
=Kinsprit=, _n_ and _a_. (orig. obscure: perh. contracted from
kin[dred] sprit[e])--A fellow-enthusiast, one impassioned with
the same zeal or hobby or enthusiasm.
The reason why we know that Y. 1926 is a kinsprit is in the following
notice in the _Personal_ column of the London _Times_:
LOST in Taxi last week, SMALL PORTFOLIO containing colour
diagrams and newspaper print of Lamb’s portrait of Lytton
Strachey. Finder rewarded. Y. 1926, The _Times_, E. C. 4.
Well, well, we say to ourself: then there is one other person in the
world who felt just as we did about that gloriously entertaining
portrait of Mr. Strachey, and who carried it about with him just
as we did ours, clipped from the _Manchester Guardian_. But we are
luckier than poor Y. 1926, because in an access of enthusiasm we wrote
to Mr. Henry Lamb, the artist, and begged from him a photo-print of
the picture, which is in front of us now. We think that Mr. Alfred
Harcourt, Mr. Strachey’s publisher, should implore the loan of the
canvas for a few months, and have it exhibited in a Fifth Avenue window
where we could all have a good look at it.
We are consumed with curiosity to know more about Y. 1926--where he
was going in that taxi, and what the colour diagrams were (they sound
interesting) and what are his general comments on life?
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