"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have;  the older she gets, the more interested he is in her."
~ Agatha Christie

"The truth is friendship is every bit as sacred and eternal as marriage."
~ Katherine Mansfield

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion."
~ Simone de Beauvoir

SaturdayAugust 9 The bookshop is closed

"See you back in the bookshop

on Wednesday, Aug. 13."

 

24 March 1948

"The sun streams into my window, and I can just see from my bed the last span of the Pont de Grenelle.  If I get up, the Seine is there, flowing so slow it might be a lake threaded under bridges.  At night, the wide space of water is tinseled with lights and the sky immense above.

Julian* rushed off to Geneva last night, to be at the U.N. Meeting on Free Flow of Information.  No-one went hopefully, because the Russians will boycott it.  He returns tonight in the small hours.  Poor J is being so overworked, he has no private life left--unless he tears it out of the early morning and goes for a walk, looking at birds and fishermen for 10 minutes a day.  Quelle galere!
"...What a dream, to liberate Russia...We are all, they as well as us, so blinded by fear that we don't know anymore where to turn for hope.  Two years ago we had so much more hope..."

~ Juliette Huxley Leaves of the Tulip Tree, Autobiography, Oxford Letters & Memoirs. Oxford University Press, 1987

*Sir Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous Huxley, husband of Juliette. First Director of UNESCO

The person suddenly in front of you, you know; however, you "choke" unable to remember who it is ~

U.S. Film actor, Douglas Fairbanks was driving back to his mansion, saw an Englishman of aristocratic mien and familiar face trudging along the road in the heat.  He stopped to offer him a ride, which the stranger accepted.  Still unable to remember the man's name, Fairbanks invited him in for a drink, and in the course of conversation attempted to elicit some clues as to his visitor's identity.  The Englishman seemed to know many of Fairbanks's friends and was evidently well acquainted with the estate, for he made approving comments on some recent changes.  Eventually Fairbanks managed a whispered aside to his secretary, who had just entered the room. "Who's this Englishman?  I know he's Lord Somebody, but I just can't remember his name.

"That," replied the secretary, "is the English butler you fired last month for getting drunk."

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman General Editor, 1985.

"A wise old owl lived in an oak;

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard:

Why can't we all be like that bird?"

~ Unknown

Those we Love the Best  ~ by Ella Wheeler Wilcox*

One great truth in life I've found,
     While journeying to the West ~
The only folks we really wound
     Are those we love the best.

The man you thoroughly despise
     Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;
Annoyance in your heart will rise
     At things mere strangers do.

But those are only passing ills;
     This rule all lives will prove;
The rankling wound which aches and thrills
Is dealt by hands we love.

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,
     Are oft to strangers shown;
The careless mien, the frowning face,
    Are given to our own.

We flatter those we scarcely know,
     We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
     To those we love the best ....

*American author, poet (1850 - 1919) Her best known work perhaps The Way of the World, lines of which are, "Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone."