The Toy is the Pre-Conceived Idea, the Partial View, the One-Sided Notion.

The Warped and Exploded Notion that Slips between Cup and Lip.

This Toy is the Presumption, the Shot in the Dark. The Toy that is pure Conjecture/Speculation.

Here, to Toy with means to View through Distorting Spectacles.

It is the Strange Deduction requiring the Re-Moval/Siphoning of Reason through a certain kind of Abstraction/Subtraction or Distillation/Extrication.

The Toy is sometimes the Un-Proved Theory, the Preliminary Layout, the Educated Guess, the Tentative Assumption.

Here, to Toy with means to Postulate and Posit and Pre-Suppose.

At other times the toy is the Transitional Object undeveloped, primitive, embryonic, and vestigial.

This Marked Toy is the Abortive Effort.

The Player plays on a toy's Blind Side.

The Player is the Infidel/Unbeliever dashing the Cup from your Lips.

Perhaps the Toy is a Trick of Fortune, a Fool's Paradise? But it is the Player who blights and crushes Hope, who Vexes and Provokes.

The Toy is a Castle-Builder and a Dreamer - the Perfect Puppet. He easily falls prey to the Player, the False Prophet.

Perhaps the Toy is a Victim of Self-Deceit?

Expectation and Desire have gotten the best of him. The Toy Miscalculates. The Toy's Super-Vision leads to Over-Sight.

A Fallacy of Vision born of Infatuation/Fascination.

The Toy sees the Silver Lining of the Cloud - Concealed Hope at the Bottom of Pandora's Box.

Is it merely his Vain Expectation? Blind Faith? Wonderment? Or the Torment of Tantalus?

To Tantalize means to Tease or Torment by Presenting some Good to the View and Exciting Desire, but Continually Frustrating the Expectations by Keeping that Good out of Reach.

"I can't Reach it Anymore..."

Is the Toy/Tease an Anti-Climax?

To Toy with can also mean to Disappoint.

To Dis-Appoint is to Defeat of Expectation or Hope; to Hinder from the Attainment of that which was expected, hoped, or desired.

To Dis-Appoint is Literally to Do Away with what was (or was taken to be) Appointed; hence the Peculiar Pain from Aspirations/Longings thus Thwarted.

Tantalus was a King who was Punished in the Lower World by being placed in the Midst of a Lake whose Waters reached to his chin but Receded whenever he Attempted to Allay his Thirst, while over his head hung branches laden with Choice Fruit which likewise Receded whenever he Stretched out his hand to Grasp them.

Tantalus's Cup, a Philosophical Toy, consists of a cup, within which is the Figure of a Man, and within the Figure a Siphon, the Longer Arm of which passes down through the Bottom of the cup, and allows the Escape of any liquid that may be poured in, when it reaches as high as the bend of the Siphon, which is just below the level of the Mouth of the Figure in the cup!

By Nevada Kerr
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2001.

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