Of (October)

My colleague Susan Southall writes blogs. She adopts the titling convention of ‘On’ before the subject. ‘On Hope’ she announces. ‘On Remission’ she warns. Like its cousin ‘Of’ it hovers, petite and (sometimes) portentous. How did this convention evolve? John Florio translated Montaigne (1603). ‘Of Feare’. ‘Of Steeds, called in French Destriers’. Montaigne uses ‘De’, implying in the process he knows as well as his reader the subject will never be exhausted. To assay is easy, but he keeps writing to understand what he understands, better. What do we know? Of Translation? Of Understanding? Of October? Of Anniversaries? Of Anything?