"Life's a pretty precious and wonderful thing.  You can't sit down and let it lap around you. . . you have to plunge into it;  you have to dive through it!  And you can't save it, you can't store it up; you can't horde it in a vault.  You've got to taste it;  you've got to use it.  The more you use the more you have. . . that's the miracle of it!"

~ Kyle Samuel Crichton (1896 - 1960) Author The Marx Brothers

Happy Canada Day

 [Photo:  Black Creek, Port Dover ON lbw]

Smile for Today ~

"You must excuse the 'bright thread of laughter' that we have woven into the experiences herein, knowing that if one were stranded on a South Sea Island without a sense of humor it would be tragic.  And surely we can, loving the people no less, still chuckle at the delightfully funny situations in which we find ourselves in relation to them." ~ Lillian Dickson (The Mustard Seed founder) Chuckles Behind the Door, Edited by Marilyn Dickson Tank.

"A sense of humor may have more integrity in dealing with all the nonsense of life than the customary solemnity that passes as an exhibition of Christian faith." ~ Dana Prom Smith, The Debonaire Disciple.

The Neat L'l Bookshop is pleased to have Dr. Alan Bishop reading and discussing Vera Brittain* at the Third-Thursday, literary group on July 17.  Everyone welcome.

"Kingsley's idea that 'men must work and women must weep', however untrue it ought to be, seems in one sense fairly correct at present."  In a letter to Roland Leighton, 17th April, 1915.

Perhaps ~ To R.A.L. Died of wounds in France, December 1915.

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 pain,
Although bereft of you
[. . .]
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.
[. . .]

Please join us on Thursday, July 17 at 1:00 p.m. in the Neat L'l Bookshop.

* (1893 - 1970) The Vera Brittain Collection is in McMaster University Library, Hamilton, Ontario.