Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

Hello:

Does "languor" express "tender sentiment" as "languishing" seems to be
doing (at 2)? They seem related to me.

Also, does Waugh talk about "languor" as "dreaminess" (see 3 in
"languor") or as "undefined tender sentiment? (see 2 in "languishing".
He's using "languid" in the last sentence.

Also, how about the change from "this" to "that" in
"all save this"
"that belongs"
both seemingly describing "languor,"
any rhetorical motivation for it?

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lan·guor

1 obsolete : enfeebling disease : SUFFERING

2 : a state of the body or mind caused by exhaustion or disease and
characterized by a languid feeling : LASSITUDE <languor of
convalescence>

3 : listless indolence : DREAMINESS <certain languor in the air hinted
at an early summer -- James Purdy>

4 : DULLNESS, SLUGGISHNESS : lack of vigor : STAGNATION <from languor
she passed to the lightest vivacity -- Elinor Wylie>

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lan·guish·ing

1 a : losing health and strength <could not rouse him from his
languishing state> b : LINGERING <languishing illness>

2 : expressing longing, desire, or tender sentiment <exchanged
languishing glances>

M-W U
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The languor of Youth -- how unique and quintessential it is! How
quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections,
the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth -- all save this
-- come and go with us through life. These things are part of life
itself; but languor -- the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the
mind sequestered and self-regarding -- that belongs to Youth alone and
dies with it. [...] I, at any rate, believed myself very near heaven,
during those languid days at Brideshead.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, p. 710
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Thanks.
Marius Hancu