Smile for Today ~

"At present I'm in lodgings, and while they're quite good as far as lodgings go I can't ignore the blasted RADIO which seems a feature of everyone's life these days, and it prevents me from sitting thinking and scribbling in the evenings, yet if I grumbled my complaint would be regarded as eccentric as a complaint against the traffic or the birds or the children outside.  Do you have radios in Japan? or can you sit long silk-colored evenings wrapped in a cocoon of silence sipping sake, or whatever it is, while the hours pass over as lightly as glances?  If so, me for there.  It is on now, subjecting me to its pathological highpitched burble, damn it.  Excuse this outpouring.  Obviously I ought to live out in the moors somewhere."

~ Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985) English novelist, poet, librarian. In a letter to Dennis Enright, April 27, 1955.  Selected Letters of Philip Larkin 1940 - 1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite.

Perhaps *

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain.
Although bereft of You.

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.

Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
To see the passing of the dying year,
And listen to Christmas songs again,
Although You cannot hear.

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.

*Poem written to her fiance Roland Leighton after he was killed.

~Vera Brittain (1893 -1970) British writer. [Vera lost four close friends in WWI, including her only brother and her fiance.  She became a pacifist for the rest of her life.]

Vera Brittain (1893 - 1970) V.A.D. Nurse

Shortly after British writer Vera Brittain's death, her papers were purchased by McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. 

Dr. Alan Bishop joined the English Department at Mac that year, and "having read and admired Testament of Youth, was soon drawn to exploring Brittain's unpublished writings.  Among them was a diary that she had begun as a schoolgirl, and continued as a personal and historical record of the War, until overcome by exhaustion and grief in 1917.  That diary impressed me deeply, not only as a war-record, but also as a moving account of love and loss which, partly owing to Vera Brittain's literary talent and ambition, has qualities of a tragic novel."*

Dr Bishop with the encouragement of Vera's Literary Executor, Paul Berry, decided to edit the diary for publication, using her intended title, Chronicle of Youth.

The Neat Little Bookshop is extremely pleased to invite you to meet Dr. Bishop in the bookshop on THURSDAY, JULY 17 at 1:00 p.m.  Everyone welcome.

~ *Dr. Alan Bishop, Youth and the Great War.

                                        THURSDAY, JULY 17 at 1:00 p.m.

[A canal in Germany was recently named after Vera Brittain. Vera had written a controversial paper in 1943 critizing saturation bombing of Germany. An interview with Vera's daughter, Baroness Shirley Williams can be found on BBC, July 2, 2014,Woman's Hour discussing the honour.]

British Author, Harold Acton,* was asked to perform at a Conservative Garden Fete.  He decided to recite [T. S. Eliot's] The Waste Land from beginning to end.  "His audience's good manners were severely tested, as this dirge for a godless civilization, delivered in Harold Acton's rich, resounding voice, swept irresistible above their heads;  and one or two old ladies, who were alarmed and horrified but thought that the reciter had such a 'nice, kind face,' rather than hurt the young man's feelings by getting up and leaving openly, were obliged to sink to their knees and creep away on all fours."

*(July 5, 1904 - February 27, 1994)


THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman.

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Thought for Today ~

"We strongly support free speech and we believe that all authors and publishers must support the following fundamental freedoms:  freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.  These fundamental freedoms are embodied in the Canadian Charter of Rights."

~ Statement made by Avie Bennett, Chairman of McClelland and Steward Inc., rejecting a demand that a book be withdrawn from publication, Newsletter of the Canadian Centre of International PEN, Dec. 1990.

"...what is important about free speech in a democracy is not only that everyone has a right to express an opinion, however ill-considered, but that fools should have full liberty to speak so that they can be recognized to be fools."

~ Northrop Frye, cultural critic, Entry 774.  Notebook 1997.1. Northrop Frye Newsletter, Summer 1997.

Smile for Today ~

Beauty in the most unexpected places ~ A small green-leaf plant, decorated with artificial berries for commercial sales last Christmas, displays its true colours in July!