Most autumnal poems are dark and depressing - beautiful and evocative and great if you're in a bad mood anyway and just want to wallow in it for a while - but today, I am happy and I hope you are, too.  So, here is a happy fall poem.  Enjoy!

To Autumn  by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

Here is the Top Ten Must-Reads list which John and I compiled.  We took into consideration not what we do read, but what we as 21st century Americans should read.  These were chosen for their immediate impact on culture and their enduring effects on Western and world civilization. 

1.  The Bible

2.  City of God  by Augustine

3.  The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer

4.  Inferno by Dante

5.  Paradise Lost by John Milton

6.  Anything by Shakespeare

7.  Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stow

8.  Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

9.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

10. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

So, which of these would you remove for Harry Potter? 

"Exit, pursued by a bear."

This phrase may or may not be known to you, but I know it, and have always wondered from whence it came.  It is mildly amusing all by itself, but I felt sure from the start that it had to be from somewhere.  It had to mean something. 

And tonight, the mystery is solved.  While trying to make up a lesson plan for tomorrow (at 11:30 the night before), I was looking through The Young Person's Guide to Shakespeare and came upon a small box of text in the chapter on performing Shakespeare.  I will quote it for you so that you may make the same discovery I did.

"Shakespeare's plays include very few stage directions.  the most famous direction comes from The Winter's Tale...  Antigonus lays Perdita on the shore and then leaves, never to be seen again.  The stage direction for Antigonus reads, 'Exit, pursued by a bear.'"  (p.44)

Shakespeare never ceases to amaze and mystify.  Why, when he included so few stage directions, would he include this direction?  Why not simply say "Exit?"  Perhaps most importantly, why a bear?  These are questions we may never be able to answer, but they are part of what makes Shakespeare and his plays endlessly fascinating. 

The phrase makes me chuckle, even now.  Then again, at 11:45 p.m., just about anything with mildly amusing overtones could make me chuckle.  And that's my cue to exit, pursued by a bear.

1. The Bible

2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkein

4. Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling

5. The Stand by Stephen King

6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

8. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

9. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

10. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger

According to some list on the internet, these are the ten books we all "must" read before we die.  I find that I am shockingly under-read, not nearly as literate as I once considered myself to be.  I have only read two of these books - The Bible and "Gone with the Wind" - although I admit I've never read the Bible cover to cover.  (There, now.  Are you shocked?)  I have seen the movie and a stage production of "To Kill a Mockingbird" so I'll count that one, too.  I've seen the "Lord of the Rings" movies, but I won't spark that decades-old furor by claiming that I therefore can check the books off my to-read list. 

Somehow, I can't find it in my conscience to be too ashamed of not reading some of the list as I find it hard to believe that anyone really came up with this particular bunch.  I can accept most of the choices - even Gone with the Wind.  Maybe.  I cannot, however, believe that in ten years Harry Potter or The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons will be anywhere near a list such as this.  Not that those are not good entertainment, even good literature.  I am told by reliable sources that they are.  But I feel no compulsion to spend time and effort reading these.  Some will undoubtedly claim that I know not whereof I speak - one has to read Harry Potter to appreciate the marvel that is Harry Potter - but I am prepared to stand my ground.  Can we truly look at the entirety of literary history and say that those particular books are among the ones necessary for a complete life?

The list apparently was compiled from some 2,000+ American adults who were asked to name their favorite books.  How anyone made the jump from what we do read to what we ought to read, I do not know.  Those two rarely coincide.  

Here is the list in its entirety, if you care. 

#1 - The Holy Bible
The most popular and best-selling book of all time is The Holy Bible. No book has had more influence on the world. Its pages tell the story of the creation, fall, and redemption of mankind. Relive the story of creation and the fall of man in Genesis. Cross the wilderness with Moses in Exodus. Welcome the coming of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. The Holy Bible contains epic stories of history, heroism, and hope.

#2 - Gone With the Wind
Published in 1936, Gone With The Wind sold 50,000 copies on its first day, and two million after a year. Even though it is 1,037 pages long, readers all over the world snatched up the book. In 1937 it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Mitchell prided herself on the historical accuracy of her work. Gone With The Wind is a sweeping account of how the Civil War tore apart an entire way of life, and Scarlett O'Hara is one of the most enduring characters in American fiction.

#3 - The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is regarded by many to be the most important and influential work of fantasy of the 20th century. It generated the fantasy novel industry practically single-handedly, inspiring a multitude of novels concerning elves and dwarves on quests to conquer ultimate evil despite overwhelming odds. Although intended to be published as a single volume, its division into a trilogy created the iconic format for epic fantasy literature.

#4 - Harry Potter series
Follow Harry Potter from his first days at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, through his many adventures with Hermione and Ron, to his confrontations with rival Draco Malfoy and the dreaded Professor Snape. From a dangerous descent into the Chamber of Secrets to the Triwizard Tournament to the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, each adventure is more riveting and exhilarating than its predecessor.

#5 - The Stand
In 1978, Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. It depicts his apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil. It is a gripping work with the scope and moral complexity of a true epic. Those reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.

#6 - The Da Vinci Code
The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Robert Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. The Da Vinci Code heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller...utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.

#7 - To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird is about the crisis of human behavior and conscience arising from the racism and prejudice that exist in the small Southern town during the Depression. Scout Finch tells the story of her father's defense of Tom Robinson, a young black man who is being tried for the rape of a white woman. Harper Lee's only novel, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, is a much-beloved tale of growing up, as well as an exploration of heroism confronted with bigotry.

#8 - Angels and Demons
When a canister of anti-matter is stolen from a Swiss research facility, Robert Langdon is called in to investigate. In Angels and Demons, a Harvard professor, Langdon is an expert on the ancient, quasi-scientific, and widely feared organization know as the Illuminati, who may or may not be wrapped up in the mystery.

#9 - Atlas Shrugged
Rand's 1200-page novel Atlas Shrugged is a hymn of praise to the concept of rugged individualism, personified in John Galt. This polemic for Rands philosophy of "rational self-interest" has been a steady seller since it was published in 1957.

#10 - The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger's famous and enduring chronicle of Holden Caulfield's journey from innocence to experience is the quintessential coming-of-age novel. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye was a bestseller and became an immediate cult favorite, but it has also, over the years, been subject to criticism and even censorship because of its liberal use of profanity, its frank conversations about sex, and its generally irreverent view of the adult world.

Note: This list is based on the results of a Harris Poll that asked 2,413 U.S. adults to name their favorite books.

...to the Facebook generation.

http://www.much-ado.net/austenbook/

(I put this in the "literature" category, but must admit to a mental question mark there.)

Well, I just assumed we were speaking of books.  We were, weren't we? 

John just finished Home by Marilynne Robinson, so it has now been added to my bedside stand.  It has joined a good number of other books there which I have begun and then haven't had the time, energy, or interest to continue. 

A Walk with Jane Austen remains - the bookmark moves slowly, but it moves, and, though I have not yet finished it, I can recommend it heartily.  Anne's Perfect Husband remains, barely.  I put it down so often and leave it so long in between and the characters are so unmemorable that I have to spend a good five minutes catching up when I do pick it up. 

There are many other selections on my bedside table, from the Bible and Women's MInistry in the Local Church to The Spy Wore Silk.   I recently picked up The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte and have found it delightful.  Anne's style of writing is lighter than either of her sisters, though she does favor the long, convoluted sentences of the Victorians.  Unfortunately, those sentences take some sort of extended attention span which I no longer have by the time I get to the point in my day where I can sit down and read quietly.  That is, however, the ideal time to pick up Anne's Perfect Husband.

For school, I recently read Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit and fell in love with her writing style.  Tuck is her most famous work, especially now that it has been turned into a (yucky, terrible, never-want-to-watch-it-again) movie, but I plan to look for more of her work. 

Charles Dickens is a different story.  I find his work tedious, pompous, boring, confusing, tedious, insulting to women, and, did I say tedious?  My husband, my dad and I are all proud members of the "I Hate Charles Dickens" club.  Nothing personal, you understand.  It's just that his writing stinks. 

I have found one exception to this, though: A Christmas Carol.  Personally, I think it's because he didn't take a two sentence plot and turn it into an interminable novel as in Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, etc. ; he had to edit himself.  And to good effect.  I'm working with the fifth graders on reading ACC and found myself enjoying the book as I read ahead.  Amazing, really.  And it must be good as I fully expected to dislike the little thing.

So, speaking of books...what have you been reading lately?

Thursday night, John and I went to the Hennepin County Library to hear author Marilynne Robinson speak.

The building itself is a gigantic glass structure, and when it is lit from the inside - as it was that night -, it outshines the rest of the tawdry flourescent lights of the rest of Minneapolis.  It is a new building, about two years old, and, apparently, a matter of some pride to residents of that side of the Twin Cities.  We, of course, live on the St. Paul side, so we wouldn't know.  *sniff*  We prefer buildings with historical significance, but I digress.

John came to know about Marilynne Robinson a year or so ago and learned that she is a Christian and, even more unusually, she is a Calvinist.  In 2004, she published her second novel, Gilead, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.  It is the story, told in letters written to his son, of a Congregational minister, John Ames.  The story is set in the fictional town of Gilead, Iowa, in the mid-1950s.  Robinson's third novel, Home, is a separate but related story of Ames' best friend, another minister, and his two grown children, Jack and Glory.  John (Shaw) read Gilead and really enjoyed it, so when we learned that Robinson was coming to the Twin Cities, we thought it would be good to try and hear her speak. 

So, Thursday night (after FINALLY finding a babysitter!), John and I arrived at the library, trying to blend in with the highly literary, middle class hippie crowd. 

When Robinson came on stage, she looked just like an author should look.  She wore a black turtleneck, a red beaded necklace, and a gray/black/white silk scarf.  She had black and silver hair, cut in a long bob, which she sometimes tucked behind her ear.  She wore little half glasses which she lowered to her nose or pushed up into her hair as needed. 

For half an hour, she read aloud a portion of Home, her voice quiet but expressive.  I was immediately captivated by the way she writes, with simple grace and poetry. 

After the reading, she answered questions for half an hour.  This time was not nearly long enough as I could have listened to her explanations of influences, etc. for a lot longer.  But, then it was time for her to sign books.  We stood in line for another half hour and, when we finally made it to her, I said, "We just had to come and meet someone who is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a Calvinist."  She replied, "Well, I may be the only one with that distinction, just considering how old the Pulitzer is." 

So, that was our brush with greatness this week.  Read her books and tell us what you think of them. 

A few years ago, I read "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith, and just last week I got the movie from the library to watch.  It is a coming of age story about a girl, Cassandra, living in England in the time between the world wars.  Her family is full of quirky characters: a father who wrote a bestseller and has not been able to write a single word since, an artistic stepmother who likes to run naked in the rain, a beautiful older sister who is desperate to escape the poverty into which they have sunk, a servant who is not really a servant but is in love with Cassandra, and a brainy younger brother who seems to be the only sane member of the family other than the protagonist.  They live in a run-down old castle and, year after year, hope that the father will somehow manage to publish another bestseller.  Just when life seems most desolate, the castle acquires a new landlord, a young American and his younger brother.  Simon and Neil come, and life changes for everyone. 

You may think that you know the ending, but this story defies conventional expectations.  When I read the novel, I confess that I was dissatisfied with the ending, but I think that was only because it did not follow the time-tested plot elements of a "romance" and when that happened, I didn' t know what to think.  Now, I realize that it is a "romance" in the classic sense of the word and is a much better book for its defiance of convention.  I had to think beyond the usual boundaries, and that is why I can recommend it to you now. 

The movie was very good and I can recommend it as heartily as the novel.  There is a brief scene of the streaker step-mother, Topaz, so it is not for children, but if you can get past that, you'll enjoy the rest. 

If you have read the novel or watched the movie, tell me what you think.  If you have not, read and/or watch and tell me what you think!   

Last week, I wrote this short story for a small-scale contest.  The prompt was to write a story from the point of view of some listed inanimate object.  I thought the problems of a picnic table or a wheelchair in a nursing home were too obvious and I couldn't think of enough euphemisms to keep them from being stomach-churning.  A wedding bouquet and apple fallen from the tree have been done to death.  There were other options, but, for some reason, the compact appealed to me.  So, my story is written from the perspective of a compact with unusual ideas of what is beautiful. 

It is not for children, but neither is it offensive (I think), so please read and then tell me what you think.  Even if you have some criticism to offer.  I can handle it.  I think. 

Some of you know that I like to write.  I enjoy my blog very much, but I also write fiction, and always have several stories going at the same time.  You may wonder why you don't see my name up on the NY Times Bestseller list, and it is a valid question (although I don't think you've really been reading closely here if you truly think that).  The truth is, I've never tried for publication.  In fact, I've only ever completed one of my "stories" and that is undergoing an extensive overhaul, so couldn't rightly be said to be completed, after all.  I don't know if having four kids and a life is what is keeping me from finishing things and submitting them for publication, or a very real fear of mediocrity.  One of my deepest fears is that I'll have one of my precious stories accepted for publication, but it will come out with a cover featuring a scantily-clad woman clasped in the embrace/strangle-hold of a scantily-clad Fabio.  I'm not dissing the romance genre, really, I'm not.  It's just that while I'm writing, I'm hearing echoes of Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, House of Mirth, My Antonia, and the like.  Not The Ravishing Earl, Midnight Secrets, and Help Me, I'm Falling In Love with a Man Who Seems So Dangerous but Is Strangely Gentle and Attractive.  Well, I made up that last one.  Okay, I made up them all, but don't tell me they're far-fetched.  Anyway, I'm afraid that the reality of what I've written won't match up with my lofty expectations.  And, equally frightening, but in a different way, is the fear of complete rejection. 

This quote seemed to sum up my feelings about my own writing quite nicely. 

Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber, so I don't intend to try any more.
Louisa May Alcott
(1832-1888)

Don't worry.  If I ever do finish any of my stories and submit them and get them accepted for publication, you'll all be the first to know.  Unless the cover has Fabio on it.  In which case the author's name will be entirely false, like Cordelia Montescue or Lucretia Lovelace, and you will never know it's me. 

One of my current pursuits is directing William's class play: The Taming of the Shrew.  The script is, of course, a shortened and lightened version of Shakespeare's play, but it does attempt to preserve some of the language and poetic style.  The story is fun with lots of yelling and mock-fist-fighting, and even a food fight.  Stuff that fourth and fifth graders can really get into.  What I love about this endeavor is that Shakespeare is accessible.  These kids will never be intimidated by Shakespeare, neither his language nor his plots, nor even his sometimes formidable reputation as a ruiner of high school English class grades.  For these kids, Shakespeare is "one of the guys." 

The play, as some of you may know, is a bit of a problem for our feminist society, as Kate meekly kneels to her husband at the end of the play and seems to be reduced to a lifetime of doormat status.  When we first read through the last scene as a class, I asked them what was happening, and they looked a bit confused, slightly dubious, and some looked downright offended.  We talked about it for a bit and I finally came out with Dr. Paton's (and therefore my) thoughts on the ending.  Kate and Petruchio have come to an understanding, an agreement, they have become truly what they outwardly were early in the play: a married couple, one.  Rather than fighting against one another, they have come together and closed ranks against the rest of the world.  So, when Kate makes her infamous speech at the end, it is because she knows that she and Petruchio will have a laugh over the miserable wretches who married seemingly sweet women who then turn out to be the real shrews.  Kate and Petruchio end up with a happy marriage, each having earned the respect of the other.  Kate can be humble before others because she knows that she has the love and respect of the only one who matters: her husband.  The men who pursued the beautiful, innocent Bianca find that once the prize is won, she is not what they thought.  She is as spoiled and shrewish as Kate was.  So, rather than The Taming of the Shrew being about Renaissance male oppression, it is about a love of true respect between a strong man and an equally strong woman.  

If you have any objections to the argument above, please direct them to Dr. Paton.  She'll set you straight!

Tonight, I came across this blog post by yet another author making an honest dime from Jane's celebrity, and found it fascinating.  The author, Emma Campbell Webster, is well-spoken and points out ways in which Jane usually subverts her happy endings with dashes of cynicism and harsh reality.  Webster is also a thoroughly modern woman, which I am not, and I appreciate her point of view.  Her main premise is that Jane's happy endings are really, perhaps, the end of happiness, and certainly the end of anything worth writing about.  Jane may not have intended that, but she clearly ends her stories with marriage or engagement, and rarely with more than quiet affection between the happy couple.  Webster connects this attitude to the modern woman's commitment phobia.  And, not being a commitment-phobe, I don't know; she may be right.  There seems to be a reluctance among women as much as among men to "settle down."  It is seen as the end of the adventure, the end of anything worth writing about.  And, I suppose, in some ways she's right.  In order to have a story, one must have conflict, and while even happy marriages have conflict, they are rarely worth writing about to the world at large.  Plot line: middle-aged balding man discovers that his overweight, slightly wrinkled wife has forgotten to clean the lint trap for weeks and conflict rages; will he leave her? will he catch her in a crushing embrace and forgive her folly because he just can't help himself when she uses that color of hair dye?  Somehow, I don't see publishers or the public queuing up for such a thing.  But, as a married woman, I'm not willing to give in to the idea that marriage is the end.  I suppose that it is really a different definition of adventure.  A happy, healthy, steady marriage is not full of mountain climbing in the Himalayas, or around-the-world-tours, or high-speed car chases, but rather it offers more subtle adventure, the adventure of building something harmonious and nurturing and even monumental in its own way.  Making a safe place to launch the next generation on its own adventures. 

If you have time and inclination, please read the post (it's not very long) and tell me what you think.

This picture is perhaps better suited to Halloween than Valentine's Day, but it made me laugh.  And cringe.  The look on his face!  Icky. 

On a more romantical note, my dear Valentine (dV) got me a book for V-Day, "A Walk with Jane Austen" by Lori Smith.  It is recommended by Karen Joy Fowler, author of "The Jane Austen Book Club."  I will try to keep an open mind, though, and not hold KJF's good opinion against Miss Smith.  ("The Jane Austen Book Club" gave me the same kind of vibes as the picture above.)  "A Walk with Jane Austen" leads readers through the physical and emotional landscapes which Jane knew, or so the back of the book claims.  The front of the book shows the back of a woman's head with a very un-Regency type of hairstyle.  I'm not certain what all of that has to say as to what I should expect from this volume, but I am most happy to give it a try.  We'll see how successful Miss Smith is in her pursuit of Jane.  Poor dV, he knows how hard it is to please me when it comes to all those who are riding dear Jane's tailcoats, but he keeps trying.  And I love him for it. 

Last night, I was reading an essay by Ursula Le Guin about the art of writing and was much taken with what she had to say about writing and other such complicated arts. 

"The 'secret' [of complex arts] is skill.  If you haven't learned how to do something, the people who have may seem to be magicians, possessors of mysterious secrets...in any complex art, such as house-keeping, piano-playing, clothes-making, or story-writing, there are so many techniques, skills, choices of method, so many variables, so many 'secrets,' some teachable and some not, that you can learn them only by methodical, repeated, long-continued practice - in other words, by work...Certanly the work of learning any art is hard enough that it is unwise...to spend much time and energy on an art you don't have a decided talent for.  Some of the secretiveness of many artists about their techniques, recipes, etc., may be taken as a warning to the unskilled..." (emphasis mine)

Did you catch that?  House-keeping is a complex art best left to those who are qualified by an innate, even God-given, ability to do it.  That's certainly what I heard.  And, I readily confess that I am not one of those creatures gifted with the house-keeping secret.  It's genetic, see, and it can't be helped.  Now, some of you might point to the part where Ms. Le Guin writes something about "methodical, repeated, long-continued practice - in other words, by work."  But does there not come a time, after many years of repeated failure in the practice of any art, when one must concede defeat, give it up, throw in the dustrag?  If I insisted, year after year, on squandering time and money in pursuing a career in mechanical engineering, for instance, or in professional poker, I would have more than one well-meaning relative or friend, not to mention husband, tell me that it was time to cease and desist.  However, when I offer to quit squandering time and money on things like dusting and vacuuming and keeping closets well-ordered, I am handed a mop and told in no uncertain terms that this is not rocket science and I really should just get to work.  Well, excuse me, but my talents lie in other directions.  I tried this housewife career and it's a bad fit.  What are the current statistics on how many times people change careers these days?  I'm not much of a numbers person, either, but it's a bunch, I know that.  So, I think it's about time I was allowed out of the housewife bit and allowed to pursue something else, like painting my nails or reading trashy romance novels.  I have a decided talent for those things.  Well, the second one anyway.  Painting nails not so much.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to give up my husband or children, not at all.  I'll even keep cooking.  It's just the dish-washing and laundry-folding and floor mopping and toilet scrubbing and vacuuming and dusting and wiping and swishing and washing that's wearing thin. 

I've thought this over, though, and, frankly, I don't see a viable alternative.  Pastors' salaries don't really allow for house staff, and my novel-reading career has not yet proven to be lucrative, so I'll keep pluggin' away.  But I'm telling you, house-keeping is a very complicated art and it should not be attempted by those who were born without the cleaning, scraping, wiping, organizing gene.  Like me.   

Tonight, I was reading some other blogs (do you realize how big blogging is now?) and on one particular blog, I noticed a box in the sidebar with an impressive looking brain in it.  The caption claimed that that blog's reading level was "Genius."  There was also a link to have your own blog analyzed.  So, thinking that such a label would look grand on my sidebar, I followed the link and placed my own humble offering, the url of my blog, in their hands.  And what is the verdict handed down from these judges of genius?  My blog is at an elementary reading level.  Well, really. 

I'm not sure what the criteria is for rating the level, but, in an attempt to ameliorate the level of erudition, I am premeditating the inclusion of more ponderous unpronounceables, and if you presently find it prodigiously pompous, I will be penitent and plead your pardon, but I, who once passionately pursued the path of higher education in the English parlance, cannot persist in presenting such a paltry panoply!  Can you percieve my plight?  For your pity, I can only pipe, "Gramercy!"

Last week, my dad sent me this book (along with an amusing personal note written in the style of the book itself).  This is the sort of book which epitomizes British humor and I am enjoying it tremendously.  It is not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as Wodehouse, but it is definitely a chuckler.  After years of reading side-by-side, John is used to my chuckling over books now; he just ignores me and reads his "Institutes" or "Harry Potter," depending on what state of desperation his sermon is in at the moment.  Either way, he never chuckles.

From the first chapter:  It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed -- then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world.

For some time -- I am now forty-seven -- I had been feeling this with increasing urgency. And when not only my wife and her four sisters, but the vicar of my parish, the Reverend Simeon Whey, approached me with the same suggestion, I felt that delay would amount to sin. That sin, by many persons, is now lightly regarded, I am, of course, only too well aware. That its very existence is denied by others is a fact equally familiar to me. But I am not one of them. On every ground I am an unflinching opponent of sin. I have continually rebuked it in others. I have strictly refrained from it in myself. And for that reason alone I have deemed it incumbent upon me to issue this volume.

My sister, Katie, and I went to see Becoming Jane today and it was really lovely.  She had already seen it, but was more than willing to see it again.  I, too, am now more than willing to see it again.

Of course, the whole story is mere speculation - there is no more than circumstantial evidence that Miss Austen was even acquainted with Mr. Tom Lefroy - a fairy tale derived from real people - but it was a lovely story with bits from her novels woven in among the fairy tale bits.  James McAvoy was very good, a convincing inspiration for Mr. Darcy.  Anne Hathaway was perhaps too pretty to be Jane, but was also good.  

I recommend this movie - with the caveat that one must not suppose it to contain much of the true story, but rather more of the story we'd like to believe.    

"Two Weeks in August"
Ruth Holley Heatherly
Atlantic Monthly, 1957

Little drops of water, Little grains of sand
Make the summer cottage more than I can stand.
Little swarming insects, Little holes in screens,
Little ice deliv'ry, Many cans of beans.
Little children shrieking, Little sleep for me.
Is it merely August, Or Eternity?

From _Magazine Madrigals_
A. Oscar Haugland
Copr. 1964, Schmitt, Hall & McCreary

Somehow, this poem struck a chord with me.  Thanks for sending it, Dad! 

Great literature is born of great adversity, is it not?  I turned this past week's great adversity into...well...I'm not sure you'd call it great literature exactly, but...here goes.

Hell's is not a dry heat.  It is a heat stoked to unbearable intensity by 150% humidity.  Hell's heat is like Florida in August, or like Mississippi eleven months of the year.  With that for comparison, it would seem foolish to put Wisconsin on the list for such devilish weather, but if we allow for a little relativity (and isn't that what we do these days?), it felt equally hot at camp this last week.  And, let me tell you, hell hath no fury like a woman with four kids in a filthy cabin/hovel in high heat and intense humidity.  I try not to be a complainer (with mixed success, as John will tell you) but that much unremitting heat and humidity and chaos resulted in lowering my inhibitions to a dangerous degree.  Within hours of arriving at camp, I became a weepy, snappish fishwife.  Everything was damp: clothes in the suitcases, towels folded innocently on the bed, even the paper on which I originally wrote this wilted like a used dish cloth.  When we finally dropped into bed that first ngiht, limp with exhaustion, the sheets clung to us in  damp desperation, like soggy beggars bearing us down, stripping us of our dignity.  We lay in an oozing fog of sweat, and something woodsy, mold perhaps.  It stormed in the night, making us thankful for a solid roof over our heads.  I'm certain our cabin-mates - four Daddy-long-legs, two small brown spiders, and a large, black ant - appreciated it too; the small, black bundles in the spider webs were beyond caring.    John and I listened to the thunder and pounding rain in hope, a hope that by morning, the air would sparkle and we could fill our lungs without fear of drowning.  It was, alas, a vain hope.  We woke to fierce sunshine, warming and expanding the particles of water which were nearly visible in the leaden air. 

Okay, melodramatic, perhaps.  But it's true that I was rotten at dealing with the elements!  Monday and Tuesday were the worst.  Wednesday cooled off a little.  Thursday was bearable, although by evening, the humidity was back up to the swimming point.  I admit it - I am spoiled by the comfort and convenience of air conditioning.  Praise the Lord for His mercies to modern man.