Meg Pilcher > Recent Status Updates

Struggling so hard through this one because for the first time I'm seriously doubting Stephen's moral fiber!

then Satan first knew pain,
And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him, but th' ethereal substance closed
Not long divisible, and from the gadh
A stream of nectarous humour issuing flowed

The war of the angles is getting very Iliad, but St. Michael striking down Satan will never get old

This book is everything I've always wanted in an architecture 101 book, it's 90% simplified watercolor drawings of the 10% concise architectural terms and descriptions. Perfect for sightseeing and I imagine a wonderful jumping off point for teaching my kids!

I've never been homeschooled but I'm honored to be undergoing this rite of passage

Consider the beautiful virtue of simplicity of which a pious author wrote:"It gives the soul the repose of the abyss" that is, rest in God, the unfathomable Abyss, prelude and echo of the eternal sabbath" of which St. Paul spoke when he said
"We then who have believed shall enter into this rest."
The glorified have this repose of the abyss because they contemplate God in the simplicity of His essence. "They know Him"

"Reader, I married him."

Let's gooooooooo—how this book was written in 1847 is beyond me

There He had stood for a moment and looked at them. It was the last time in this mortal flesh that He
would have them around Him; He knew it though they did not. His hour was come; the hour of the enemy, foreseen from the beginning, was come at last. He must go; it was best for them that He should go. He must pass out of this world to the Father and for that He could not but be glad;

"One idea only still throbbed life-like within me—a remembrance of God; it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered; but no energy was found to express them:—'Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.'"

How are there still more than 100 pages left?! What is this novel?!

"I had not intended to love him: the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me."

🔥🔥🔥

They conversed of things I had never heard of;of nations and times past;of countries far away: of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at:they spoke of books:how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! But my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her and bade her read and construe a page of Virgil

Of three that in Mount Ida naked strobe,
Stood to entertain her guest from Heav'n; no veile
Shee needed, Vertue-proof, no thought infirme
Altered her cheek. On whom the Angel 'Haile'
Bestowed, the holy salitation us'd
Long after to blest Marie, second Eve.

Love that second eve allusion, also just really enjoying Milton's peek into unfallen femininity

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."

"Once, when I fell down and cut my knee, she gave me an apple for nothing. I've always remembered her for it. You know you always remember people who are kind to you."

Update: it took over 200 pages for something good to happen to David Copperfield—and she is the finest most hilarious aunt character I’ve read in Brit lit, rivaling even a Wodehouse Aunt!

Oh poor little David! I am loving reading this book and also listening to Gildart Jackson’s narration of it. It’s the perfect long narrative to hear read-aloud but has enough characters that some of the names can jumble without reading the text

Did you know the author of Curious George wrote probably the best book on amateur astronomy? Neither did I until now! IT’S SO GOOD.

Great detective fiction and I’m forever grateful to this book for introducing me to the narration of Gildart Jackson!

This book is equal parts history of feminism and Christian critique of the culture but I’m finding that I enjoy it most for Favale’s descriptions of philosophical “isms” like nominalism and dualistic instrumentalism.

Self-helpy, but it’s making for a great inspirational audiobook as we travel for the holidays and cook a million dishes

Book 7! Sarah Ruden is a genius! Reading this poem in iambic pentameter is 1. Crazy, I could barely have told you what that was before starting this and 2. Beautiful, the pace is unbeatable and her footnotes make some of the more esoteric names and places totally accessible

I think I can I think I can I think I can

A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese. I once knew an educated lady, banded Phi Beta Kappa, who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.

Halfway there…losing steam, so many characters with so much exaggerated drama. And yet we await the ultimate revenge plot…one cog at a time.

“Trees grow more branches on their southern side, as this is the brightest. As they get taller they inevitably shed lots of branches on their southern side too. This leaves a series of “eyes” looking at us from the south side of the tree”

These “eyes” are the whorls and circles you see on a tree trunk! Gooley even draws an illustration in the book, Sand County style

Serialized fiction is such a ride - I feel like I’m reading a soap opera and that’s kinda the point

Buckle up gang we’re in for a long ride - but with a protagonist named Dantes I don’t know what else I would have expected