Episode 17: "The Celestial Omnibus" by E. M. Forster

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Cindy, Thomas and Angelina cover Act 2 of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Angelina is excited to share her research on the connection between the work of Oscar Wilde and P. G. Wodehouse. Cindy brings up Booth Tarkington’s Penrod books as another example of witty, humorous literature. Thomas points out the importance of cultural lens for appreciating humor in art. They also talk about all the puns that Wilde gives his characters in this play. Angelina discusses the reformed rake motif in Victorian literature and how Wilde plays with this theme. Thomas gives a little background on the mentions of lending libraries and the three-volume novel. Cindy talks about the parallels between the Victorians’ high view of earnestness and our modern valuation of transparency. Angelina contrasts Oscar Wilde and his contemporary Thomas Hardy in the way that Wilde handles heavy topics with a light touch. They all agree that Wilde has an almost Shakespearean plot in complexity and manages to pull it all together at the end. Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: About the lack of religious education: of course you must be grieved, but remember how much religious education has exactly the opposite effect to that which was intended, how many hard atheists come from pious homes. May we not hope, with God’s mercy, that a similarly opposite effect may be produced in her case? Parents are not Providence: their bad intentions may be frustrated as their good ones. C. S. Lewis It is faintly amusing when one reads about society lapsing back into paganism. I, for one, would think it rather a picturesque incident if the Prime Minister were to sacrifice an ox in the temple of Venus. C. S. Lewis Hell is a state of mind – ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind – is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains. C. S. Lewis Ye Meaner Beauties by Sir Henry Wotton Ye meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light; Ye common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise? Ye curious chanters of the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature’s lays, Thinking your voices understood By your weak accents; what’s your praise When Philomel her voice shall raise? Ye violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year, As if the spring were all your own; What are you when the rose is blown? So, when my mistress shall be seen In form and beauty of her mind, By virtue first, then choice, a queen, Tell me, if she were not design’d Th’ eclipse and glory of her kind? Book List: (Amazon affiliate links are used in this content.) Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewi Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens Pamela by Samuel Richardson Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Tom Jones by Henry Fielding The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Psmith, Journalist by P. G. Wodehouse An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

14 Apr 20201h 24min

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts dive into Act 1 of Oscar Wilde’s satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas share their commonplace quotes, which leads into a conversation on education before they begin talking about the play. Thomas talks about the name of the play as well as the name “Ernest” in context of this time period. Angelina highlights her excitement of noticing the connection between Wilde’s humor and P. G. Wodehouse. Angelina talks about the changing roles of social classes in the late Victorian age and how that comes into this story. Our hosts go through this first act and discuss the social conventions at which Wilde is poking fun. Commonplace Quotes: We find that the mind is better fed by digesting a page than by devouring a volume. Thomas Macaulay Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Oscar Wilde The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one. John Ruskin Kew Gardens by D. M. Black (in memory of Ian Armstrong Black, d. 1971) Distinguished scientist, to whom I greatly defer (old man, moreover, whom I dearly love), I walk today in Kew Gardens, in sunlight the colour of honey which flows from the cold autumnal blue of the heavens to light these tans and golds, these ripe corn and leather and sunset colours of the East Asian liriodendrons, of the beeches and maples and plum-trees and the stubborn green banks of the holly hedges – and you walk always beside me, you with your knowledge of names and your clairvoyant gaze, in what for me is sheer panorama seeing the net or web of connectedness. But today it is I who speak (and you are long dead, but it is to you I say it): ‘The leaves are green in summer because of chlorophyll and the flowers are bright to lure the pollinators, and without remainder (so you have often told me) these marvellous things that shock the heart the head can account for. But I want to sing an excess that is not so simply explainable, to say that the beauty of the autumn is a redundant beauty, that the sky had no need to be this particular shade of blue, nor the maple to die in flames of this particular yellow, nor the heart to respond with an ecstasy that does not beget children. I want to say that I do not believe your science although I believe every word of it, and intend to understand it; that although I rate that unwavering gaze higher than almost everything, there is another sense, a hearing, to which I more deeply attend. Thus I withstand and contradict you, I, your child, who have inherited from you the passion that causes me to oppose you.’ Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. The Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Macaulay The Modern Painters, Vol. 3 by John Ruskin Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis “A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated” by Oscar Wilde Hard Times by Charles Dickens The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton The Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

7 Apr 20201h 27min

On today's episode of The Literary Life, our hosts, Cindy Rollins, Thomas Banks and Angelina Stanford introduce us to Oscar Wilde and our next literary selection, his satirical play The Importance of Being Earnest. They begin with a discussion on the purpose of art and literature in depicting truth without preaching it at us, making so many connections along the way. Thomas gives us a biographical sketch of Oscar Wilde, both his life and work. Angelina expands on the emphasis on respectability in Victorian society. Cindy talks about her first experience with reading Oscar Wilde and the accessibility of his plays. Commonplace Quotes: For your face I have exchanged all faces. Philip Larkin Just as conscience, or the moral sense, recognizes duty; just as the intellect deals with the truth; so is it the part of taste alone to form us of BEAUTY. And Poesy is the handmaiden but of Taste. Yet we would not be misunderstood. This handmaiden is not forbidden to moralize–in her own fashion. She is not forbidden to depict–but to reason and preach, of virtue. As, of this latter, conscience recognizes the obligation, so intellect teaches the expediency, while taste contents herself with displaying the beauty waging war with vice merely on the ground of its inconsistency with fitness, harmony, proportion–in a word with beauty. Edgar Allan Poe The diversity of Ruskin’s concerns was not simply the product of a restlessly questioning mind. He was convinced of the vital connections between things, as they bind and blend themselves together. The Intellectual separations that characterize the modern professionalization of knowledge seemed to him corrosive, a denial of what unites different levels of human experience—spiritual and aesthetic, political and scientific, historical and contemporary. His argument is always that knowledge connects. He wants readers to these connections, as clearly and comprehensively, as they can. This is an exercise in humility, since it confirms the imperfections and limitations of our vision, and the mystery of what lies beyond it. But the attempt to see clearly enables us to celebrate what is large than our own lives. His capacity for admiration makes him the most magnanimous of critics. It can also make him the angriest, the he witnesses the betrayal of human history and human potential. Ruskin’s intention is always to teach us to use our eyes, and these  remains the best reason or reading his work. He will show you how to look at the world afresh. Dinah Birch E Tenebris (Out of the Shadows) by Oscar Wilde Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land, Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie If I this night before God’s throne should stand. ‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’ Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night, The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, The wounded hands, the weary human face. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen Taylor The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Esther Waters by George Moore Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

31 Mars 20201h 18min

In light of the recent changes to all our lives, The Literary Life crew is breaking from the previously announced schedule to discuss the importance of stories in times of crisis. But first, we want you to know about a special gift from Cindy Rollins. You can download a PDF copy of her Handbook of Morning Time for free by visiting her shop here. You can also purchase the replays of the Re-Enchanting the World online conference at HouseofHumaneLetters.com. Angelina talks about the impulse of humanity to turn to stories during time of upheaval and plague. Cindy points out the need we have for an ordered universe, and that this is one of the things good books provide. Together with Thomas, they discuss how important it is to find stories that reassure us that there is order and redemption to come. They also give some recommendations for personal reading as well as family read-alouds for these challenging times. Finally, our hosts give us an update with how they are doing with their own 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge lists. If you would like more bonus content, especially our new monthly live chats called “All Fellows Eve”, become a Patreon supporter of The Literary Life! Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: An important part of a child’s education is storytelling, since good stories excite the imagination and strengthen the bond between parent and child. St. John Chrysostom It is in the essential nature of fashion to blind us to its meaning and the causes from which it springs. Edwin Muir Unless the writer has gone utterly out of his mind, his aim is still communication, and communications suggests talking inside community. Flannery O’Connor Sonnet 6 by William Shakespeare Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And guilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, And simple truth miscall’d simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill: Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. Book List: Amazon affiliate links are used in this content. The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlock Glyer Tolkien: Man and Myth by Joseph Pierce The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tokien Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis The Kingfisher book of Tales from Russia by James Mayhew Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen Taylor Treasures of the Snow by Patricia St. John The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vera Hodgson Cider for Rosie by Laurie Lee Plainsong by Kent Haruf Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

24 Mars 20201h 17min

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and our discussion of the Art of Writing! If you missed last week’s discussion, you can go back and catch up here. We start off today with Angelina Stanford asking Karen Glass about the principles of good writing. Karen talks a bit about William Zinsser and his ideas about writing and education. Our hosts give some practical encouragement to the average homeschool parent listening to this conversation. Cindy highlights the value of waiting to teach specific skills until students are old enough to process them. Angelina, Cindy and Karen talk about narration in the Charlotte Mason education, its benefits and its challenges. They emphasize the importance of guiding children to think well instead of just learning mechanical skills devoid of context. Angelina brings up the sensitive topic of assessing and grading writing. Karen leaves us with a challenge to narrate this podcast discussion in writing in order to apply what you've learned!  Loving In Truth by Sir Philip Sydney Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,— I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain, Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain. But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay: Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows, And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: “Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.” Book List: Writing to Learn by William Zinsser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

17 Mars 20201h 5min

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas sit down with Karen Glass for a conversation centering on the topic of writing. They discuss the problem of trying to teach writing in a formulaic way. They also talk about the challenge of helping students learn to think well in order to write well. Karen highlights narration as a tool to teach thinking well in the form of oral composition. Cindy digs into the idea of imitation as an integral part of the learning process. Angelina and Karen both emphasize the importance of addressing skill and form on an individual basis, depending on what your student needs to improve. Tune in again next week for Part 2 of this great conversation! Listen to The Literary Life: Commonplace Quotes: To write or even speak English is not a science, but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up. George Orwell Rhetoric, or the art of writing, is not governed by arbitrary laws. Its rules are not statutes passed long ago by some assembly of critical scholars; they are merely common-sense principles derived from the observed practices of persons who have succeeded in writing well,–that is, from the method of good authors. Hence, when we study composition, we investigate these methods, in order to apply them in our own writing. from “Manual of Composition and Rhetoric” When a child is reading, he should not be teased with questions as to the meaning of what he has read, the signification of this word or that; what is annoying to older people is equally annoying to children. Charlotte Mason Follow Your Saint by Thomas Campion Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet; Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet. There, wrapp’d in cloud of sorrow, pity move, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er return again. All that I sung still to her praise did tend, Still she was first; still she my songs did end; Yet she my love and music both doth fly, The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy. Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight: It shall suffice that they were breath’d and died for her delight. Book List: Amazon Affiliate links are used in this content. Manual of Composition and Rhetoric edited by Gardiner, Kittredge and Arnold Home Education by Charlotte Mason Know and Tell by Karen Glass On Writing Well by William Zinsser Writing to Learn by William Zinsser Range by David Epstein Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

10 Mars 20201h 16min

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, Angelina and Cindy interview Karen Glass. Karen is part of the Advisory of AmblesideOnline. She has four children, ages 13 to 27, who have been homeschooled using Charlotte Mason’s methods from beginning to end. She has been studying and writing about Charlotte Mason and Classical Education for over twenty years, and has written Consider This to share the most important things she has discovered about the connection between them. We are giving away a copy of her newest book, In Vital Harmony, to 2 lucky listeners who share about this podcast episode on Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #invitalharmony. After sharing their commonplace quotes, our hosts dive into this conversation with Karen about how she became a lover of books. She talks about her voracious reading as a child and teen. Karen also recounts how her mediocre education did not discourage her reading life but just gave her more time and reason to read. This leads into a meaty discussion among Karen, Cindy and Angelina about self-education, homeschooling and lifelong learning. Commonplace Quotes: Let us consider an apple. If we approach it synthetically, we take it as we find it–in its state of wholeness and completeness–and we eat it. Once eaten, it is digested, absorbed, and becomes a part of us. If we approach it analytically, we take it apart–not in a natural way, which is merely a smaller portion (here is half an apple!), but rather, here is the fiber, here are the vitamins, here is a bit of water, and some sugar. Suppose we ingest each bit–a spoonful of fiber, a vitamin pill, a swallow of sugar-and-water. On paper, we have consumed the same thing in both cases–equal portions of nutrition–but there is a very, very large difference. Only one of those meals tasted good and created an appetite for more. Karen Glass However difficult it may be to characterize correctly the medieval class system, it is even more difficult to grasp medieval thinking, which was broadly metaphorical and analogical, rather than merely logical and rational. Thomas Cahill Remember that the uttermost penalty was reserved for him who could say to his brother “Thou fool!” because contempt was the most un-godlike quality which man could display. Beware above all things lest a little knowledge only reinforce conceit and lead you into a false world where self is enthroned, far away from the true world which is illuminated by the love of God, manifested in the Person of the Incarnate Word. Mandell Creighton A Poison Tree by William Blake I was angry with my friend;  I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe:  I told it not, my wrath did grow.  And I waterd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears:  And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.  And it grew both day and night.  Till it bore an apple bright.  And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine.  And into my garden stole,  When the night had veild the pole;  In the morning glad I see;  My foe outstretched beneath the tree. Book List: Amazon Affiliate links are used in this content. Consider This by Karen Glass Mind to Mind by Karen Glass Know and Tell by Karen Glass In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill Thoughts on Education by Mandell Creighton Bedtime for Frances by Russel Hoban Petunia by Roger Duvoisin Dorrie’s Magic by Patricia Coombs Watership Down by Richard Adams The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkein The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss Lovey by Mary MacCracken A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz The Philosophy of Christian School Education Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Thomas Lynley Mysteries by Elizabeth George Jan Karon’s Mitford Series Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

3 Mars 20201h 49min

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, we wrap up our discussion of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale with a look at Act 5. Our hosts, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks also announce our next book to read together, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Angelina notes that Act 5 is all about reconciliation and redemption. Thomas points out that Shakespeare had a challenge here in how to bring this play to a close with all those relationships resolved. Cindy brings up Paulina’s character and the significance of her name. Our hosts discuss the truth that though in an ultimate sense all will be made right, this play reminds us that in this life, there are some things that are not fully redeemed. They also talk about how Shakespeare plays with both the audience’s expectations and with the form in this act. Leontes’ imagination is also in need of redemption, and we see that happen here at the end of the play. Thomas makes the connection between the myth of Pygmalion, Euripedes’ Alcestis and A Winter’s Tale. The theme of resurrection is so prevalent in this final act, particularly in the case of Hermoine, but also in other characters and plot points. The winter is over, and spring has come to Sicily. The old order is not restored. A new order has been brought into being. Upcoming Events: We are excited to announce a new online conference coming on March 13-14, 2020. Our theme will be Re-enchanting the World: The Legacy of the Inklings. Our keynote speaker is Inklings scholar, Joseph Pearce. Go to Angelina and Thomas’ new website HouseofHumaneLetters.com for all the info and to register. Commonplace Quotes: An ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation of pity; for nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears; and Shakespeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim, without knowing it. William Hazlitt A work of art is a world unto itself, but all works of art belong to one world. Harold Goddard In all narration there is only one way to be clever, and that is to be exact. Robert Louis Stevenson Hermione in the House of Paulina by C. S. Lewis How soft it rains, how nourishingly soft and green Has grown the dark humility of this low house Where sunrise never enters, where I have not seen The moon by night nor heard the footfall of a mouse, Nor looked on any face but yours Nor changed my posture in my place of rest For fifteen years–oh how this quiet cures My pain and sucks the burning from my breast. It sucked out all the poison of my will and drew All hot rebellion from me, all desire to break The silence you commanded me. . . . Nothing to do, Nothing to fear or wish for, not a choice to make, Only to be; to hear no more Cock-crowing duty calling me to rise, But slowly thus to ripen laid in store In this dim nursery near your watching eyes. Pardon, great spirit, whose tall shape like a golden tower Stands over me or seems upon slow wings to move, Coloring with life my paleness, with returning power, By sober ministrations of severest love; Pardon, that when you brought me here, Still drowned in bitter passion, drugged with life, I did not know . . . pardon, I thought you were Paulina, old Antigonus’ young wife. Book List: Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays by William Hazlitt Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh Poems by C. S. Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

25 Feb 20201h 46min