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Boxcar Children

Apr17

Gertrude Chandler Warner, author of The Boxcar Children was born on this day in 1890. It turns out she was a first grade teacher who never actually finished high school herself (although she did study with a tutor–homeschooled?). The bio I read said she taught 40 first graders in the morning and another 40 in the afternoon. And today’s teachers think they have a hard job! She wrote her mystery stories for her first graders who were just learning to read. (Today they’re recommended for third graders–another example of how American education has declined.) At any rate, I can remember still how intriguing the thought was of living in an old abandoned boxcar with only other children and using one’s ingenuity to earn enough to get food and other necessities. It was all so very romantic and adventurous. I must have read the books when I was six or seven, and I know I wanted to be one of the Boxcar children.

The Boxcar Children books by Gertrude Chandler Warner can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Daphne du Maurier, 1907-1989

Apr13

Today (Whoops, not today, but rather May 13) is the birthday of Daphne du Maurier , author of Rebecca, of course, but also of several other novels and of the short story, “The Birds” which inspired another Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Who could improve on these lines for the beginning of a novel or a movie?
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.”
Du Maurier also wrote this about authors: Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.
And see how obedient I am? Only those of my readers who know me have ever seen or heard me. I am a blog crying in the wilderness, “Read me and be enlightened!”

William Morris and FlyLady

Mar24

William Morris (born March 24, 1834) was a prominent and vocal socialist in his day, and I suspect FlyLady of psychobabble tendencies, but they have something in common.
FlyLady says, “If you don’t use it and it doesn’t make you smile, fling it!”
Morris said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” Same sentiment, good advice even from a socialist.
Morris was multi-faceted–interested in textile designs, stained glass, poetry, crafts, furniture design, and home decoration in general.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Mar7

I read yesterday that it was the birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and I was idly wondering this morning why she called her book of love sonnets Sonnets from the Portuguese. As far as I knew she had nothing to do with Portugal nor are the sonnets translations from the Portuguese language as far as I know. So I just found out: “the ‘Portugese’ being her husband’s petname for dark-haired Elizabeth, but it could refer to the series of sonnets of the 16th-century Portuguese poet Luiz de Cames.” What a sweet nickname!

How’s this for a “homeschooled prodigy”?(from Victorian Web)
“Elizabeth, an accomplished child, had read a number of Shakespearian plays, parts of Pope’s Homeric translations, passages from Paradise Lost, and the histories of England, Greece, and Rome before the age of ten. She was self-taught in almost every respect. During her teen years she read the principal Greek and Latin authors and Dante’s Inferno–all texts in the original languages. Her voracious appetite for knowledge compelled her to learn enough Hebrew to read the Old Testament from beginning to end. Her enjoyment of the works and subject matter of Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft was later expressed by her concern for human rights in her own letters and poems. By the age of twelve she had written an “epic” poem consisting of four books of rhyming couplets. Barrett later referred to her first literary attempt as, “Pope’s Homer done over again, or rather undone.”

More EBB trivia:
The Barretts had 12 children, and Mr. Barrett forbade all those who grew to adulthood to marry. Elizabeth had to elope to marry Robert Browning.
Elizabeth began taking opium for pain relief at age 15, and she remained addicted to it for the rest of her life.
Robert and Elizabeth Browning lived in Italy for most of their marriage–which was apparently very happy and mutually beneficial. They had one child, a son.
The ‘epic poem” she wrote at age 12 was called The Battle of Marathon–a battle we just finished reading about in our homeschool with my nine year old and my six year old. I don’t see any signs of epic poetry spilling forth from either of them yet.
Romantically, Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Italy “in her husband’s arms.”

International Codification of Eccentricity

Feb15

Today is the birthday of Jeremy Bentham, rich, eccentric, English philosopher and founder of the philosophical ideas called utilitarianism. He was fond of the phrase “the greatest good fro the greatest number,” postulating that all human choices were based on self-interestand so all morality should be formulated to yield the greatest pleasure and the least pain to the most people possible. In answer to this philosophy, Christianity says that it’s not all about maximizing happiness and minimizing pain; rather, it’s about glorifying God as his creation and about joy– a very different thing from superficial happiness. God is not in the business of applying some mathematical formula to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. He relates to people as individuals to recreate in each of his children the life of His Son. Sometimes this sanctification involves suffering. I would rather suffer here momentarily in order to attain eternal joy than have all the happiness this life has to offer. Peter Singer, the infamous professor of bioethics at Princeton University, believes in what he calls “preference utilitarianism.” This philosophy leads him to write that “in my view the secret killing of a normal happy infant by parents unwilling to be burdened with its upbringing would be no greater a moral wrong than that done by parents who abstain from conceiving a child for the same reasons.. Since he goes on to say that he doesn’t really believe that abortion is wrong since a fetus can have no “preference” for or against life, he is really saying that abortion and infanticide are morally equivalent and that neither is wrong. I can agree that the two acts are morally equivalent, but the idea that either is morally justifiable is in direct contradiction to all the Bible and the moral tradition teach.
However, getting back to Mr. Bentham, he was a rather interesting character. According to what I read,

“Bentham was the quintessential English eccentric. He was particularly fond of inventing new words with tangled Greek and Latin roots rather than just using their humble English equivalents. Some of his lexical constructions have caught on, e.g. “international”, “maximize” and “codification”. Others, like “post-prandial vibrations” (after-dinner walks) remained confined to Mr. Jeremy’s circle. ”

Bentham also left instructions that his body was to be enbalmed after his death and placed on display in a glass case in the hallway of University College London, a college he founded. His body is still there today and is wheeled in to preside over meetings of the college’s administrators.

Born February 7th

Feb8

Yesterday was a red letter day for authors’ birthdays, and I must go back and pay homage to at least some of them. We begin with Henry Clifford Darby (1909-1992), a Welsh geographer of whom I had never heard. However, it turns out that he was the general editor of The Domesday Geography of England–in SEVEN volumes. I can’t imagine how anyone could write or edit seven volumes about the geography of such a puny little island, but since our subject was knighted in 1988, I suppose he did a good job of noting every rock and rill on the whole island. Happy Birthday to Sir Darby!

Much more significantly, Charles Dickens was also born on February 7, 1812. I found this Charles Dickens page–lots of information and lots of links. My favorite Dickens novel is probably David Copperfield( “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”) , but I’m also rather fond of A Tale of Two Cities (” It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”). Oliver Twist ( “Oliver Twist has asked for more!”) is a great story, and I will always remember reading Great Expectations (” I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.”) aloud as a family when my oldest were only ten or twelve years old. Poor deluded Pip! I must admit I haven’t read any other Dickens novels, only A Christmas Carol, but I think I’l add one to my reading list. A yearly dose of Dickens couldn’t hurt anyone and might very well do me a lot of good.

Sir Thomas More was also born on February 7, 1478. I must admit to having mixed feelings about Sir More. If I listen to Josephine Tey, I will conclude that More was an abominable liar of a historian, but the movie A Man for all Seasons presents him in a much more positive light, and he was canonized. Maybe I should read Utopia and form my own opinion.

More was beheaded by Henry VIII because he refused to sign the oath that approved of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his break with Rome. His last words on the scaffold were: “The King’s good servant, but God’s first.”

February 7 also gave us Sinclair Lewis in 1885. I remember reading Babbitt in high school. According to the Sinclair Lewis Society website, Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. According to some other material I read, he was also a first-class pain in the neck who managed to alienate all his friends, divorced two wives in order to be with younger women, eventually had to pay secretaries to play chess with him in his last days and died of the effects of advanced alcoholism. His books attacked and made fun of small town residents, Midwestern businessmen, and crooked hypocritical preachers, amnong others. I did find this quote from Babbitt, and I’m afraid that it does describe the reason some people go to church: “The content of his theology was that there was a supreme being who had tried to make us perfect, but presumably had failed; that if one was a Good Man he would go to a place called Heaven … Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one’s business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse; and that the pastor’s sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which ‘did a fellow good — kept him in touch with higher things.'” Ch. 16-III, p. 170.

Last but not least, February 7 is also the birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957). I love the Little House books, especially to read aloud to little girls. I think we might try reading all of them next year.

Ann Taylor

Jan30

Today is also the birthday of Ann Taylor (b. 1782) who along with her sister Jane published several books of poems for children. Among the poems she and sister Jane wrote was the well-known Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I found an online copy of a book of the sisters’ poems entitled Little Ann. I liked this poem best. Most of the poems are about little children who misbehave and what will happen to such naughty little boys and girls–refreshingly politically incorrect in this day and age when we’re supposed to pretend that they’re behaving even when they’re not.

The Chatterbox by Ann Taylor

FROM morning till night it was Lucy’s delight
To chatter and talk without stopping:
There was not a day but she rattled away,
Like water for ever a-dropping.

No matter at all if the subjects were small,
Or not worth the trouble of saying,
‘Twas equal to her, she would talking prefer
To working, or reading, or playing.

You’ll think now, perhaps, that there would have been gaps,
If she had not been wonderfully clever:
That her sense was so great, and so witty her pate,
It would be forthcoming for ever;

But that’s quite absurd, for have you not heard
That much tongue and few brains are connected?
That they are supposed to think least who talk most,
And their wisdom is always suspected?

While Lucy was young, had she bridled her tongue,
With a little good sense and exertion,
Who knows, but she might now have been our delight,
Instead of our jest and aversion?

The illustrations, by Kate Greenaway, are delightful.

Tuchman and Alexander

Jan30

Today is the birthday of both Barbara Tuchman and Lloyd Alexander. I am very fond of Tuchman’s book, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, a history of France during the high Middle Ages. However, I must enjoy reading about the Middle Ages more than I like reading about WW I because I have yet to finish The Guns of August. Lloyd Alexander is one of my favorite fantasy authors (after CS Lewis and Tolkien, of course).

We’ve been having a Green Acres marathon around here for the past few days. We borrowed a DVD of a dozen or so episodes, and my children have enjoyed the silliness immensely.

Quotation for the day: “Getting used to new wallpaper is like trying to push a purple straw hat through a keyhole.” –Mr Haney
Oliver comments to Lisa: “Don’t even try to understand.”

Sabine

Jan28

Very interesting. I see in my book that today is the birthday of Sabine Baring-Gould.
I ask myself, “Who is this Englishwoman? Some writer of romantic novels, perhaps?”

No, indeed, Sabine is a man. He was a Victorian archaelogist, clergyman, architect, artist, teacher, novelist, historian, theologian, and collector of English folk songs. He learned six languages between the ages of three and sixteen. Then, he attended Cambridge University. He also wrote the hymn, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” According to an article I read, “tales of his eccentricity abound.” He became interested in a mill girl named Grace whom he took out of the mills, educated at his own expense, and then married. It is said that their romance was the basis for the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Sabine and Grace were married for some forty plus years and had fifteen children, of whom fourteen lived to adulthood. Not a bad percentage.

I almost believe the following story told about him:
“Although Sabine Baring-Gould had 15 children it appears he had little understanding of them. Apparently at a children’s party one evening he called to a young child, “And whose little girl are you?”
The child burst into tears and said “I’m yours, Daddy”.

This could happen with fifteen children. This could happen with eight children.

Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe

Jan20

Today is the birthday of the man who wrote my favorite poem. Note that he’s not necessarily my favorite poet, but he did write Annabel Lee, my favorite poem. I’m not sure why it’s my favorite poem; I just like the sadness and the romanticism and sound of the words.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;–
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love–
I and my Annabel Lee–
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:–
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we–
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:–

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea–
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

From Pooh to Poe–what DOES this say about my tastes in literature?