For a couple of years now, I have been re-reading Mansfield Park (one of my favourite novels) on my birthday. I am fond of this book for many reasons, one being that it emphasises the importance of making space in our lives for quietness, thoughtfulness, and real gratitude. 🌼 A walk in the woods with […]
If you have been reading these Lesson posts for some time, you may remember how much I like Emily Bronte’s poetry. She was a poet I discovered only in the last few years, and I wonder how I could have been reading literature for so long and yet not have read her poetry before! I
📗 “I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!” “That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first—” “Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!” – Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871) … Have you ever read
Lesson #223: Avoiding confusion in your writing: 3 Punctuation Tips Read More »
💮 Spring is such a beautiful season! A few evenings ago, as I was walking in the garden, I saw the sunlight touching these blueberry flowers and had to stop to appreciate the beauty of the moment. I took a photograph of them of course, but nothing compares with the experience of seeing flowers like
Lesson #221: How and When To Use Paragraph Breaks in Writing Read More »
📘 I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella’s sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to
📘 No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate little
‘Annabel Lee’ (1849) 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. .. I was a child and she was a
Lesson #219: ‘Annabel Lee’: Edgar Allan Poe’s Melodious and Melodramatic Poem Read More »
Since yesterday (April 21st) was the 205th anniversary of Charlotte Bronte’s birth, I thought it would be nice to have a look at some of the personal letters that she wrote during her lifetime. 📚 Most people remember her for her classic Jane Eyre (1847) or even Villette (1853), both of which considered what life
Lesson #218: Learning From A Letter – Charlotte Bronte’s words to her Aunt Read More »
📗 “I am very glad to hear it indeed, and now I shall never be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought before, young men despised novels amazingly.” “It is amazingly; it may well suggest amazement if they do— for they read nearly as many as women. I myself have read hundreds and
📗 Thorpe told her it would be in vain to go after the Tilneys; they were turning the corner into Brock Street, when he had overtaken them, and were at home by this time. “Then I will go after them,” said Catherine; “wherever they are I will go after them. It does not signify talking.
📗 Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless
Lesson #216: Seven Nouns with Identical Singular and Plural Forms in ‘Adam Bede’ Read More »
📙 ‘I hope I shall always behave so as to be respected by every one; and that nobody would do me more hurt than I am sure I would do them.’ – Samuel Richardson, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) In Part 2 of our Lesson, we continue to differentiate the differences between similar-looking words like