"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."
By way of things-that-are-going-on, I'm trying to get an early start on my final paper for history (I'm trying to avoid all the tiresome politics and economy which I was forced to think about for the last paper. This time I am writing on Religion. Booyah.) I'm also dissecting passages of Greek in preparation for the final exam... and trying to find time to get all the Calculus principles that have been rushing at me of late ingrained in my brain. A somewhat futile attempt to stay with the winter retreat planning is always in the mix...somewhere...
The weather is gorgeous. There's something so satisfying about crawling into bed when the house is just a wee bit chilly...and it's such fun to shiver, even when one is not very cold. Makes one feel desperate and happy at the same time. As the venerable Jane Austen said, "They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for cold weather early in life." ...Well, she might have said "nature" instead of "cold weather." But she would have said the latter had she thought of it. Surely she would not have disagreed.
Moving on from that strange topic...
Books. He Knew He Was Right, by Anthony Trollope (the name makes me crack up every time I catch sight of the book cover); Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell; The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. I raided the forth floor of the U library a few weeks ago. Progress has not been immense, but it's still such fun to have them around.
I also borrowed some of Wilde's fairytales, but they were moralistic and not quite what one expects to see from Wilde. Some of them had bits of humor thrown here and there--the intellectual who tries his hand at romance and in the end goes back to his dusty tomes made Ruth and I feel quite satisfied--but the general attitude of "O little children! be good!" overwhelmed most of the humorous phraseology that Wilde can't escape even in morals. Hans Christian Anderson would have found his own writings apathetic in the face of these. Elsie Dinsmore would seem a heathen. I could go on.
Well, I'm off to vanquish the dragon of aorism and storm the castle of elision.
I know, I could just say "study Greek." But that would be dull.
