Again, Vanessa Redgrave's voice.
We would give children anything at Christmas, their passing fancies or their heart's desires, their frenzied crazes or the things they yearn for. We want to fill their hands because it fills our hearts. That is the secret of grownups everywhere.
I've just finished Shaun Bythell's second book in his Diary of a Bookseller series, and I loved it so much!
Toward the end, the internet was down because of a storm and he started reading a book.
"This is more like the old days, before the tyranny of the Internet, and it was an enormous pleasure to spend the entire day reading, with a few interruptions."
I have just finished re-reading Some Buried Caesar, book 6 in the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout. After it ended there was, on the Kindle version, a 1969 letter from P.G. Wodehouse to Rex Stout upon reading this book for the second time. The letter is actually a copy of the typewritten one. Be still my reader's heart - to think of two of my most favorite writers actually being friends, and respecting one another's work.
"What a good story Buried Caesar is. I had read it before, of course, but had completely forgotten what happened after the adventure with the bull. I find I can re-read Rex Stout indefinitely, which shows the importance of atmosphere."
Atmosphere is what I recall when I think of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The house, "the old brownstone on West 35th Street", I feel I know as well as my own. When I walk through the door, it is a bit like coming home. And the places visited when Wolfe has to leave, which he abhors doing! I, too, had forgotten all the details in Some Buried Caesar, but the bull in the field was as clear in my mind as could be.
Rex Stout
P.G. Wodehouse
In the wonderful movie Keeping The Faith, Anne Bancroft says:
"Our Lady's Bedstraw, the most poetic herb."
I am wild about this plant. It grows all over Windy Poplars Farm and I keep it all. I'm sure some see it as a weed, but I think it is wonderful. I've read that it was (is?) put in the mattresses of women in labor. I just love that.
This is growing between two terrace steps!
And this among the daylilies.
As spoken by Vanessa Redgrave:
Last evening as I went up to bed, the (full) moonlight was streaming in the windows, and I thought about Emily's line in the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town. I don't seem to have a copy in the house, and couldn't find the whole play online. I did find the quote, but hoped to get more context. I think she was doing her homework, and maybe talking to her boyfriend out the window. But I could be way off.
"My, isn't the moonlight terrible"
This was taken with no flash at 10:24 pm.
I've searched around some, and it seems that both re-read and reread are acceptable now. I have been eliminating the hyphen just because it seems easier. But I find I don't like the look of reread, so I guess I'm going to go with the hyphen from now on.
However you spell it, I am having the best reading time reading books over again. I mostly don't remember the whole story, but I have flashes of recognition sometimes. I kind of got started on this scheme because I didn't want to keep spending money on Kindle books. I am happy to buy a book that I can see; a book I can put on a shelf and look through anytime I want. I just can't do that with a Kindle. I am in high praise of the device because it is how I get to sleep and go back to sleep at night. Years and years ago, I read by lamplight. Then I had audiobooks on tape. Then I tried one of those itty-bitty lights. They were all distracting in terms of sleep, except for the books on tape. I gave those up when they went to CDs or phone. That was too much work for me in my sleepy state. And then the Kindle came along. It was perfection. But I've decided to read what I haven't read yet or re-read the books I have. And what a delightful experience it is. Just now I'm zooming through the Mrs. Pollifax books by Dorothy Gilman.
I wondered if there were quotes about this subject, and I found some great ones.
Robertson Davies: "A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."
In a letter, a woman writes to another:
"Excuse my unburdening myself. My worries travel about my head on their well-worn path, and it is a relief to put them on paper."
Isn't that a perfect description of worrying. I love "well-worn path".
Sister Monica Joan:
“Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with a dream.”
Josephine Nuese, 1901-1974, American gardener and author of The Country Garden, 1970
I wish I'd written down the date I began watching all of Call The Midwife on Netflix. It has been a few weeks now. I've put aside The Great British Baking Show (still known to most as GBBO!) and Gardeners' World. It has been a supreme joy to see the episodes one after another. I have filled many post-it notes with quotes.
This is from episode 8 of series 9, spoken by Vanessa Redgrave at the start of the show.
"When autumn starts to dampen into winter, should we say, 'the nights are getting dark'? Should we thrust our hands into our pockets and anticipate the chill? Or should we say, 'light the fire, draw close, it will not be as cold as you imagine'?"
And at the end of the episode.
"The seasons will always turn, the clouds will gather and the cold will come. We will survive them. We will grow regardless of the weather. We will know wonder where there has been despair. There will be happiness, and we will remember it. There will be friendships which we won't forget. Love is the constant whereby we endure all winters and all storms. It is the climate in which all things can thrive. Welcome the darkness. Embrace it as a canopy from which the stars can hang. For there are always stars when we are where we ought to be, amongst the faces we love best, each with our place, each with our purpose, as fixed and familiar as the constellations. The darkness is beautiful, for how else can we shine."
I've always loved the entire song "April Come She Will", and I thought I'd use the first part as a quote du jour.
This is sure the way it is around here. And in snow country it is the melting snow that swells those streams and rivers.
I just played the Sounds of Silence album the other day. It is just excellent.You may listen to the song here:
https://youtu.be/PYD-DIggB2k
"The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour."
Vita Sackville-West
Today at 3:21 pm Eastern time the sun goes into Libra, beginning the autumn season.
I came across this quote today and thought it perfect for the blowsy, over-stayed-its-welcome cleome! It looks so out of place amongst all the autumnal colors around these days. Unbelievably, we haven't had a frost yet!
"But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness. The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head ... The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on."
- Robert FinchI'm reading yet another old mystery by someone I had never heard of before, The Plumley Inheritance by Christopher Bush. I came upon this quote and thought how apt for the past year.
"The vicar had retired at his usual hour. The day had told on him very much, and at his age it is the mental stress that tells."
I can see the "mental stress" very clearly on my own face.
I've just started watching my DVDs of Goodnight Sweetheart - third time I will have seen it, I think.
A woman in 1940 lights up a cigarette. A man who has time-traveled from the 1990s says it is "very bad for your health."
She says, "Everyone knows they're good for your nerves. And there is no point worrying about a cough carrying you off when a bomb could land on you any second."
