Sharing a loved book with a beloved person is one of the sweetest pleasures I can imagine. That’s why reading Jane Eyre with my husband this past month has sent my cup of joy spilling over the edge. Though I could never forget my first passion for this masterpiece—my initial reading was at fourteen and…
“It is the most friendly vocation in the world,” he announced…“A bookseller is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise…
Or, at least, to have a title that suggests as much? 😉 Here is a very fun site where you can receive one handed to you on a silver platter, completely free of charge, without the undo hassle of either an advantageous match to a good fortune or a bunch of unseemly social scrambling….
I love winter. I love the sense of repose its cold, grey days impart; the delightful pause between the flurry of Christmas and the flurry of spring gardening. January has habitually been my ‘quiet month’, a season of enforced calm that, I find, affects all the rest of my year. There was such a wonderful…
To My Dear and Loving Husband If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold, Or all the riches that…
February 8, 2007 That’s what I was doing yesterday afternoon. Playing nursery-maid to my biddies, on a blanket in the backyard with my tea on a tray. Fortunately my work was of a portable variety, and thus I sat, surrounded with pencils and notebooks and papers that kept rolling over the lawn on the light…
Madeleine L’Engle, reminiscing over her school years and the development of her craft in A Circle of Quiet, wrote: Looking through some old journals, I came across several [poems]. There was one, notable for its arrogance, if nothing else: We lived on 82nd Street, and the Metropolitan Museum was my short cut to…
While I’m certainly no expert on propogation, I thought I’d share my little successes in this most satisfying of garden practices, in the hopes that others might be inspired to take a few cuttings of their own–particularly when they see how simple and fun it can be. My mother-in-law is the master of this art,…
Sowing sweet pea seeds outdoors in January seems like an act of faith. Especially when the sun hasn’t shown its face in days and the whole world is sodden and drear. I was almost laughing at the absurdity of it last week when, bundled in my winter coat and hurrying against the cold of a…
I seriously cannot recall a time in which music was not an essential element of my life. In fact, I have a distinct memory of my own personal first encounter with classical music—Mozart to be exact. My parents had given me a little record player (how much children miss these days! There is something so…
January 20, 2007 The bluebirds are house-hunting this morning. I had to call Philip and tell him, describe the way one female in particular kept poking about the hole of the house on the side of the water oak outside the kitchen window, nosing in and out as if unsure, tilting her head in examination,…
One of the books on my current reading list (I’ve usually got at least three going at any given time, sometimes more!) is E.M. Forster’s classic on writing, Aspects of the Novel. Here’s a passage I simply had to share: Pseudo-scholarship is, on its good side, the homage paid by ignorance to learning…Books have to…
In the film Miss Potter, Beatrix’s character has a conversation with her parents in which her mother makes a rather disagreeable reference to her age. Her reply has been in my heart ever since: “At my age, mother, every day matters.” She was thirty-two. Every day matters too much not to spend it on—or at…
Well, my mother and I spent yesterday afternoon in the Lake District–via the delightful new film, Miss Potter, which chronicles the literary journey of our beloved Beatrix. It was so enchanting–so altogether lovely–that we were walking on air when we came out of the theatre. That hasn’t happened to me in a long, long time!…
And I have my life back! 😉 But wasn’t it fun! This time last year I was wondering if I could get my act together enough to do something as absurd as writing a novel in thirty days–the month before Christmas, no less. But few things I have ever done have been so rewarding. On…
After a gentle nudge from my sister-in-law, I realized it had been three weeks since I’d shown my face around here! 😉 It has been a delightful and busy November, and apart from keeping house and preparing for the holidays, my spare time has been predominately employed in a most ridiculous scheme…Not to mention the…
October 13, 2006 This was a day of doors flung wide; of windows lifted like a toast to autumn gusts and sunlight shimmering through sparkling wavy glass. Of shaking rugs in the open air and polishing old wood till it shone a deep amber. It was a day of housecleaning—the kind that only occurs once…
Of anyone, the great ‘St. Francis of Aberdeen’ ought to know… “…Those you call fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flower fairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick people, as they call you; for, like most children, they like fun better than anything else." "Why do…
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