Elizabeth > Recent Status Updates

This is the sweetest story. It makes me inclined to sob, which is rather unusual for me.

Ah! Now that Ruby is at Vanessa’s this feels like a fun combo between Ballet Shoes and Theater Shoes.

“If I do not go tonight I shall be found, and then I shall have to go to Bath to play backgammon and be married to a person without sensibility.”

Horrors!

…

Actually, that does sound pretty bad. 🤣

“I said to my husband that I wished to make a record of my life…

‘But Margery, there would be no interest in such a thing. A woman knows little of life,’ he said’” (156-157).

To quote Miss Cornelia: “Isn’t that like a man?” 🤣

Ah Darryl! I just read Alyosha’s vision of heaven. So beautiful! It strikes me that it is Father Zosima’s first post-death miracle. Delicious irony since Alyosha had been so disturbed by the potential that Father Zosima wasn’t a saint. Now there can be no doubt!

“Well, one should forgive pathetic phrases, one must. Pathetic phrases ease the soul, without them men’s grief would be too heavy” (360).

So fascinating that the Catholic has ended up among Protestants and the Protestant among Catholics. The presentation of religion in this novel is even more fascinating than usual because of how close in time to the Reformation and how unwieldy Protestantism still was. This Montauban chapter is quite amusing.

A reference to the Faerie Queene in draft form. Fascinating!

Why didn’t I think to read more Jennifer Robson sooner after loving Coronation Year? This book is so sweet.

“I have become a great watcher of light and dark. Once the golden light of the sun sinks away, the colour is taken out of things, and the world fades one object at a time…In the morning, I watch the world coming into being, leaf by leaf, brick by brick, cloud by cloud, as if every day God says ‘Let there be light’ and creates the world afresh” (111-112).

Rakitin—ugh!!

“That was all he, being only a man, knew about it” (157).

Referring to the swirling-under-the-surface interpersonal relational drama in the town. 😂

End of Vol 1!