Careful Words

understood (adj.)

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 289.

We understood

Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought

That one might almost say her body thought.

Dr John Donne (1573-1631): Funeral Elegies. On the Death of Mistress Drury.

  Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816): The Critic. Act i. Sc. 2.