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draw it back into...

weena

Senior Member
français (de France)
Hello!

I was comparing two translations of an essay by Stevenson, "Talk and Talkers". They interpret a sentence in a different way, and I can't figure out which one is correct...
The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather [...] is far more tractable in language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the people generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often excitingly presented in literature. Talk is a creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip [...].
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According to you, to what "it" is refering? My guess is the weather, but could it be "all living talk" ? << Text deleted - this is the English only forum >>

Thank you very much!
Last edited:
It's difficult, but I incline to think 'it' refers to 'all living talk', as understood by the second of your green ellipses which will have been inserted by the moderators once they notice this thread, replacing the forbidden quotations. And why do I think this? The sentence is hard to understand - and the grammar of 'it' is perfectly indifferent between the two possibilities - but I understand 'the common focus of humanity' as things that are of close interest to humanity, as the weather always is. If the weather was being drawn back in the talk, it would suggest people talked of abstract, distant weather, then as they continued talking about weather they came closer and closer to the kinds of weather immediately around them. This I don't think people do.

Rather, after Stevenson has talked about the weather, he shifts to a more general view: all living talk tends to draw back (from remote or abstract topics) into things of common interest (such as the weather). Thus, the tendency draws talk back: 'it' = 'talk'.
Thank you for your answer. I think you're right. Moreover, the "but" and what follows (gossip) let me think that Stevenson wants to talk of something else.
Previous to this Stevenson is talking about descriptions of scenery which,though they are dealt with exhaustively in literature, take up only a small part of our conversation. The converse is true of the weather. So I interpret the passage in question to mean " the conversation of real people (not in literature) is always concerned chiefly with other human beings, and though they may briefly discuss the scenery (and more often the weather, which is an aspect of the scenery), they will always return to their favourite topic of what other people are up to (the common focus of humanity).

Yes, "it"= "living talk".
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