Wee Girl is a squealingly adorable tiny witch with pigtail braids. Middle Girl is going as Aeneas. She dug out a Roman soldier costume and then, so everyone would recognize her as Aeneas, spent a month on making the shield from Book 8, with the many many many pictures from Roman history painted meticulously on it in gold ( http://www.wga.hu/art/b/batoni/venus2.jpg). She's especially proud of the Gauls creeping up to the gates and the goose giving warning.

I love Artes Latinae. It has proved it can get a child actually reading Latin literature. But I'm on Round 3 of it and we're back to endless vowel sound practice, and the basic sentences. Manus manum lavat. Hilaris datorem diligit Deus. Elephantus non capit murem. Over and over; it's like the Suzuki method for Latin. I feel like I'm going to scream.

Any man who was alive in the '70s still has to atone for Speedos. Then they can start picking on leggings.

Golden Press once issued a large, gorgeously illustrated book called "Tales of India" that is stories from the Mabharata. I found a battered on the outside but good reading copy via www.bookfinder.com . Here's one: http://www.amazon.com/India-Magical-Adventures-Indian-Princes/dp/B009LDTRB0

Well! I must have been skimming at that point. Stacia, the books listed in Jane's excerpt (the Imitation of Christ, William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons) would have been classics of religious writing familiar to an educated Englishman of the early twentieth century. The Imitation focuses on withdrawal from worldly things and development of an interior devotional life; James (Henry's brother!) proposed scientific inquiry into religious experience; and Newman's sermons emphasize the emptiness of pleasure sought for its own sake and the human need to turn away from consideration of one's own feelings in religion and toward contemplation of Christ--which paradoxically produces right emotions and genuine pleasure. You could see them as being the exemplars of the affective, the contemplative, and the scientific Anglican approaches to the spiritual life, united by their rejection of the vain pursuit of earthly pleasures. Which presumably is what qualifies them as "pornography" in the Controller's world.

Really? How could I have missed that? And I read it not too many years ago.

My girls all loved Uncle Wiggily. Did you know Robert Frost was Garis' neighbor? In his biography of his father, Garis' son writes about a little boy coming by while Frost was visiting, and asking hopefully if he was Uncle Wiggily. He said, "No, I'm Robert Frost, the poet." The little boy was disappointed to the point of tears; really he just wanted to meet Uncle Wiggily.

(((Heather))) Keep us apprised. Eliana, very good news!

Am I being uncharitable? Very possibly; and I don't want to imply that December is in general laying blame for occasional Orthodox historical inconsistency at the feet of the West, or really doing anything but passing along an explanation she's been given. But it was something that I encountered, it seemed, not infrequently; and it seemed unnecessary given the obvious and innocent fact of human variation over much time and geography. In further reparation I want to observe that I wouldn't have been looking into Orthodoxy were it not extremely attractive.

When I was looking into Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the more offputting things I encountered was the tendency to dismiss real or apparent historical deviations from standard Orthodox theology as "contamination from the Catholic West."

This is one of the advantages of sticking to dead authors. Though I once sent an e-mail to a publisher complaining about the lousy editing of their edition of The Bostonians, which was so typo-ridden as to be in places unreadable; only to receive a grumpy response saying they were not responsible for errors in the books they published and that I must contact the author with any complaints. I replied saying that Henry James was not responding to my e-mails, but heard nothing back from them.

Dh has that on his TBR shelf. Hmmmm.

So sorry about your food poisoning! I hope recovery is swift. I am so glad you enjoyed Poynton. I got more out of it on the re-read, and could see clues to the ending earlier in the book (like a subtle one in the first chapter...). No worries, no spoilers from me. :) Still reading The Wings of the Dove. I'm having trouble getting chunks of time to focus, and James requires some concentration sometimes. Nearly done with Newman's Development of Doctrine. This is one of those handful of books that had a profound impact on the course of my life, but I haven't re-read it in toto since my initial reading as a callow youth. My understanding of it is much better now--and Newman's Victorian prose less daunting!--and it seemed timely.

Oooooooooo. You are my new Best Friend. (Don't ask what happened to the previous Best Friends.) I will look for the Skvorecky. There are a lot of Czech Texans. If you're ever driving through West, Texas (which is between here and Dallas and not actually in west Texas), swing by the Czech Stop for the universe's finest kolaches. Dh is mostly writing a book rather than reading these days, but he is willing to put the laptop aside when something more interesting appears on his bedside table.

Eastern Orthodox get to worship paintings?!? I am so signing up. There's some Kandinskis I'd like to start worshipping, and definitely a few Chagalls.

Oh yes--Christopher Marlowe, of course.

But that turned out to be incorrect. :D I spent some of our just-completed annual Flu Week* reading the battered paperback Stoker off Great Girl's shelf, and was surprised by how much faster-moving it was than the Victorian potboiler I remembered. Consulting the title page, I learned it had been abridged. Doesn't count. *Vaccine doesn't seem any more effective this year than last year....

So I learned while Middle Girl was devouring the S & A series that Ransome was not only spying on the Russians, but was quite possibly a double agent (he married Trotsky's private secretary). Besides him and Graham Greene, can anyone think of any other spy authors?

Yeah. That right there is why I don't live in Houston. I nominate Pam as Thread Storyteller.

Pam, second bat story was even better than the first! "Herd of bats." :D "Good Lord, I can't believe there are that many" One-and-a-half million. Look at how adorable! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_free-tailed_bat Back in college, a friend and I were watching them on their impressive nightly sortie to rid the city of mosquitos, and one flew straight into her head, startling them both somewhat. So much for that sonic radar superpower. Now I want to read something bat-related. Maybe Dracula again?

Bat stories? Plural? I only saw the first one! This week I finished--at long, long last--William Langland's Piers Plowman. And a strange book it is, too. Tough reading but well worth it. And The Spoils of Poynton. So back to The Wings of the Dove. And to keep a non-fiction book in the mix, but sticking with the Victorian theme, Cardinal Newman's Development of Doctrine.

Ah bats! I love the trapped bat story. (Hint: window screens.) Here are our local bats, the world's largest urban colony.* Mexican freetails, living under a bridge over the river downtown. A good date night: Hey honey, let's go watch the bats! http://www.petertsaiphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/peter_tsai_austin_photo_portfolio-4.jpg A downtown statue in their honor: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4b/86/54/4b8654fe22e6052ea2e247f2fc2b27ea.jpg *There are ugly rumors that a Certain County to the north now has a larger colony. But they would not be the Right Sort of bats so we will ignore the rumors.

To be fair, while James certainly had a literary obsession with furnishings, I don't know of any reason to think that he held or expressed such sentiments in his actual life. The excerpt related the point of view of a particular character; and not, as you rightly observe, a particularly kind one.

Eliana, what a beautiful little granddaughter! Congratulations, and many hearty welcomes to the world for the sweet creature. Prayers of support for her and you and your family, and for the NICU staff.

Omnibus. This has been posted here before, but: How to tell if you're in a Henry James Novel http://the-toast.net/2015/01/14/tell-henry-james-novel/ 22. You finally get everything you’ve ever wanted—in such a way that exposes the deepest faults in your nature and lays bare a world of treachery, deceit, and cheaply made furnishings.