this
(Source: all-things-bright-and-beyootiful, via shiveringfens)
Recent library sale purchases. (…So of course I’m re reading Northanger Abbey)
I know. I know. Mr. Collins, you are creepiest of creepers. But oh so entertaining.
This made me laugh aloud in my cubicle, so of course it must be reposted.
(via livingjaneausten)
(Source: Flickr / theaciddreamspaceship, via coffeeandlavender)
Dog earing book pages and then not remembering why you did….maybe I should very lightly underline in pencil? Book problems….
A Light Exists in Spring by Emily Dickinson
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period-
When March is scarcely hereA Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels
I have been reading biographies this month, which slows down my reading but I am fascinated by other people’s lives. The first I read was a study of the Mitford Sisters. I mostly enjoyed it — the writing style was fairly bland, and I got mental whiplash from trying to keep track of which sister was where and what she was doing. The author stated that she wanted to focus on the relationships between the sisters, but, with so many I think that is a very hard task, and I don’t think the author pulled it off very well. At some point though I would like to read specifically on Decca and Unity. While I love love love Nancy’s fiction writing, she honestly doesn’t seem that interesting in real life. I don’t know, maybe it was just this biography. (The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family).
The biography of Jane Austen is much more enjoyable. For whatever reason I find anything connected to Jane Austen — her novels, adaptations, biographies — immensely soothing. I don’t know. Tomalin is a decent writer, though she inserts herself much too often into the text (i.e. ‘I hope Jane did this’ etc). Thanks to this biography I have become fascinated with Jane’s first cousin Eliza, the daughter of her father’s sister. I treated myself to a copy of her letters, and am looking forward to reading them. I have another biography of Jane to read, but I think I might switch over to a novel.
I had to take a personal day today from work and it is snowing outside and I am tucked in bed with some tea and the last hundred pages of Tomalin’s biography. Sometimes, life can be okay.
Baldwin’s Book Barn (by Urban Sea Star)
10 minutes from my house. What a lovely surprise to see on my dash. :)
(via thegirlandherbooks)
Jane Eyre, XIII
” “Come to the fire,” said the master, when the tray was taken away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adèle was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnières. We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adèle wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot.
“You have been resident in my house three months?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you came from—?”
“From Lowood school, in —-shire.”
“Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?”
“Eight years.”
“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?”
“I have none.”
“Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?”
“No.”
“I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?”
“For whom, sir?”
“For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?”
I shook my head. “The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago,” said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. “And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more.”
Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed wondering what sort of talk this was.”
I adore this entire exchange. The best thing about this book is the conversations. Thank goodness for audiobooks — this chapter and the next got me through a bad Monday.
<3
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
— Maya Angelou (via kari-shma)
(via books-afterdark)
