I was watching BBC World News the other day and saw pictures of poor, inundated Vermont being beamed around the world. I am happy to be able to report that the Last House and our Stowe Weekday Abode escaped unscathed. Really, it's like nothing ever happened - except (and I am not making this up) the State office complex where I work was badly flooded and I and about 1700 other people have been forbidden to go to work. Maybe for months. (You know, I had been working extra hard this summer til Irene soooooo...)
As usual, I have been reading, that is, re-reading Middlemarch. I finished it (again) today. I got to the last lines, which always overpower me. I am sharing them here, though they are out of context and so I am not really being fair to you all or George Eliot but I feel compelled to type them out.
[T]he growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
These lines refer to Dorothea Brooke Ladislaw - the Alpha and Omega character in a book that some wise critic referred to as "spacious." Here too is a link to the valentine that Rebecaa Mead wrote to Middlemarch in the February 14, 2011 issue of the New Yorker. (q.v.)
Also, the picture above is one I took during a walk in the woods on the sunny day after Irene... As I say, all is well in my grassy corner. Thanks to those who have inquired.
