Last Child in the Woods Summary

I finished Last Child in the Woods, and, to keep notes, started a summary -- one or two sentences to sum up each chapter. And these are the sentences.

1 Most adults have fond memories of being outside climbing trees but today, kids don't go outside much anymore. Why?

2 Kids used to build forts and tree houses but today's kids don't even have grandparents who live in rural farms where they can play and see where food comes from.

3 Parks and open places are no longer places for kids to free-play--too much liability if kids fall out of a tree, and too many flowers they might trample.

4 Vacant lots left untouched can be wild natural areas. Nature relaxes us and can help with mental health.

5 Spending two weeks in the desert helped at-risk inner city teens. Most people today only experience nature as store theme-displays or in sensationalized nature documentaries.

6 Howard Gardner added a 'nature smarts' category to his theory of multiple intelligences. But it can only be developed by being in nature. Building forts teaches lots of other skills, including use of all the senses.

7 Lots of creative people--writers, musicians, etc.--list nature as an early inspiring influence in their creative life.

8 Being outside in greenery seems to calm and ground kids with ADD. Perhaps nature is as necessary for kids' growth as food and air.

9 Organized sports and busy lives can squeeze out time for free play outside. We think of free play as a luxury, but it's necessary for physical and mental health.

10 Emphasis in the news of crime makes parents afraid to let their kids play outside, but the risk is exaggerated, especially considering how much we sacrifice by letting fear confine our kids indoors.

11 Even families who do get out miss the beauty as they tear up the landscape in their ATV's. College science majors no longer know basic life forms in nature because they didn't learn that as children.

12 If kids view nature as far removed and all about abstract global warming and rainforests, how will they ever be passionate about protecting the environment? They need to love the nature near their homes first by playing in it.

13 Adults need to take kids out and share their own awe at nature. As an antidote to too much falsely stimulating entertainment, take them hiking or camping or even just for a walk. Watch bugs, grow vegetables.

14 Teach kids to be alert under your watchful eye to keep them safer in general; nature is great for teaching alertness.

15 Saving stranded turtles, keeping nature notebooks, gathering plants for food or medicine, even hunting and fishing can create a connection with nature.

16 Finland: 'The core of learning is not in the information . . . being predigested from the outside, but in the interaction between a child and the environment.'

Ho hum; I got bored with the book and started speed-skimming. So, I have nothing to say about chapters 17 and 18. I cracked down on myself the day before the book was due back at the library to make myself finish.

19 Nature and animals can coexist with people through innovative plans in urban areas: cities can plan wild, overgrown patches of land or rough, green 'pocket parks' and encourage wildlife to live there by planting native plants they like. ('Pocket parks.' I love the term. I like how it sounds when I say it out loud: 'pocket parks.' And the concept sounds good, too!)

20 Imagine an idyllic world where kids grow up in a natural green environment and a world where buffalo roam once more on the prairie. Can we do it? Yes we can! (MBTI: I sense some INFP here...)

21 For Christians, caring for the environment isn't earth-worship; it's good stewardship.

The End

Poetic Knowledge

I've started reading Poetic Knowledge by James S. Taylor (no, not that James Taylor!) with Katie - she's already posted on chapter 1; meanwhile, I still haven't gotten through the introduction. This isn't any reflection on the book; I just can't get my mind into gear lately. I've been focused on computer issues - I upgraded to a new computer with Linux Ubuntu installed, and installed Xubuntu (Ubuntu Lite) on the old one to make it run faster and prepared that one for dh. And I've been spending a lot of time figuring out what MBTI types everyone is since I read fellow INTJ Merry K's blog post about the INTJ type. So, I've just been too preoccupied to focus my mind on any serious reading. Even my Parents' Review proofreading project has suffered.

After numerous attempts, I've decided to abandon hope about ever finishing the introduction and just jump into chapter 1.

A few weeks ago, when I first got the book and was all excited about reading it and sharing it, I tried to explain to a friend what I thought was meant by the term Poetic Knowledge. I knew it wasn't knowledge about poetry, but I figured it was a sense of the big picture, including all the big questions everyone wonders about - why are we here, what is happiness, what meaning is there to life, etc. I thought it might be tied in with philosophy.

Here's the definition Mr. Taylor gives in chapter 1:

"First of all, poetic knowledge is not necessarily a knowledge of poetry but rather a poetic (a sensory-emotional) experience of reality. . . What must be at the beginning of this understanding is the phenomenon of poetic experience. Poetic experience indicates an encounter with reality that is nonanalytical, something that is perceived as beautiful, awful (awefull), spontaneous, mysterious. It is true that poetic experience has that same surprise of metaphor found in poetry, but also found in common experience, when the mind, through the senses and emotions, sees in delight, or even in terror, the significance of what is really there."

I think I might have been on the right track, but I'll know more when I read farther. And, when I'm clearer about what Poetic Knowledge is, I'll see if I can put it into words I understand.

Hold On To Your Kids: A Book Every Adult Should Read

Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Mate, M.D.

I started reading this book because a number of moms on a parenting forum I frequent were reading it, and then I started reading it to dh because it was so good, and now I think this is a book that every parent should read in order to understand the forces creating a generation gap and undermining parental attempts to guide their own children. I'm only blogging each "part" rather than each chapter. This first part actually includes three chapters.

Part I - The Phenomenon of Peer Orientation

It's common for kids to be absorbed in instant messaging, email, hanging out with friends. Meanwhile they keep their parents at a distance, or are even hostile to their parents. Parents feel less confident, less respected, and often resort to harsher discipline in a desperate attempt to bring their children back. Yet children continue to reject their parents' values or have respect for parents or accept guidance from them. Is this a normal part of the maturing process? Hormones? Individuating? The author says no, it's not normal (although it's so routine that we no longer are even alarmed by it) or healthy.

What's happened is that society has changed, and the context for parenting - the context of an attachment relationship - is missing. Parents don't earn respect because they do everything by the right method. They have their children's respect because of who they are to their children - because they're the parents (at least, that's how it's supposed to be, and how it was for hundreds of years). That attachment starts in infancy and develops so that the child isn't even aware of it, but it provides context for parental respect throughout the child's development. The problem is that our culture no longer values or supports that attachment. In fact, it tries to undermine it. In place of parental attachment, children orient to their peers, but peers can't provide the love, acceptance, stability and guidance that experienced adults can.

Orientation is a person's need to find their bearings - we get cues about how to dress, what to say, what to value, our own identity, on whatever we're oriented to. With animals, the young orient to the mother, and she teaches the young how to survive. If ducklings orient to the wrong thing, they may not learn what they need to know. If humans orient to peers instead of to parents, they may not learn what they need to know, either. Humans weren't designed to have other children as the dominant influence in their lives, and to take their cues from other young in the species.

But society, largely motivated by money, has created a youth culture that encourages kids to orient to peers rather than adults, and trends in our society (also motivated by money, as in moving for jobs, and moms needing to work) have resulted in peer orientation in place of parental attachment. The momentum is so strong that even dedicated parents are having a hard time holding onto their kids. Peer dependency fuels aggression, bullying, drug use, depression, even suicide and murder because kids aren't mature enough to guide themselves, much less each other. Dr. James Coleman warned about what he saw coming back in the 1960's, but nobody took him seriously - and now we're living in the midst of it.

People can't have competing attachments: Jesus said we can't serve two masters, and no love relationship can survive if one person has an outside lover. One must be rejected, and become an object of scorn and hatred. When children have an attachment to peers whose values differ from parents, they're placed in a position of having to choose one and reject - hate and mock - the other. They reject their parents and become the opposite of everything their parents are, not to be individuals, but to conform to 'another master' - their peer group.

Parents unwittingly set their children up to form alternate attachments when they force their protesting infant to go to a care-giver without establishing an attachment with the care-giver first. Daycares where infants and toddlers outnumber caregivers forces children to attach to each other, and public schools where children are segregated by age guarantee it. Even our churches exacerbate peer orientation by dividing members into age-appropriate ministries rather than encouraging family togetherness (even church "family activities" usually have adults gathered in one area, and children elsewhere, either playing games or watching videos).

Appropriate parent/adult attachment doesn't have to eliminate schools. In Provence, France, they still have proper parent/child relationships even though the children go to public schools. But lunchtimes are spent at home, and the teachers reinforce the parent bond and support adult attachment; children are never thrown together to fend for themselves and create their own support network exclusive of adults. The whole community encourages bonding among families.

Next section: How Peer Orientation Undermines Parenting

The Romance of the Forest

I've been reading Emma with my friend Ginger, and at one point, Harriet asks Robert Martin if he rememberes to read a book she recommended called Romance of the Forest. I looked it up; it's a real book, written by Anne Radcliffe, who also wrote the Mysteries of Udolpho, which features so prominently in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

Yesterday, I found The Romance of the Forest at my local used bookstore, so I picked it up and I'm in the third chapter.

This is going to be a brief progressive summary.

A man named Pierre de la Motte is fleeing Paris to avoid his debtors who want to throw him into prison. He leaves in a coach with his wife and a man and lady servant. The night is stormy and they get lost, so they stop at the first place they find off the beaten track and La Motte knocks on the door to ask for directions. The guy at the door pressures him to stay and spend the night because of the storm, but once La Motte is inside, he's whisked away to a room and locked in. Then a beautiful young woman in distress is thrown in with him, and he's told that he will be set free if he takes the girl away with him. So he does. She joins him in the carriage and now there are five - La Motte, his wife, two servants and the girl, whose name is Adeline. She won't talk about what happened to cause her to be thrown out, but her distress is so great that she gets a fever and the group is delayed for a few days while her life hangs in the balance. Adeline is so grateful to these strangers for taking her in that she becomes like a daughter to them. (I keep getting her name wrong and calling her Annette - it's Adeline, and Annette is the woman servant.)

Finally, they start out again, get lost in the wooded wilderness, and find an old ruined abbey. It's creepy in the darkness and none of them really wants to stay there, but they have no other choice, so they sleep there. In the morning light, the place doesn't look so bad - it even has more recent additions with glass in the windows. La Motte decides to live there awhile in hiding. The servant collects wood, buys provisions, acts as guide and tests dangerous places - it's surprising how capable and willing he is to do all the dirty work, while the rich refugees meditate on their misery and wretchedness.

On one of his trips to town for provisions and furniture(!), the servant hears about the old abbey. It belongs to a nobleman who used it as a resting place for his hunting trips. At one time, he supposedly kept someone prisoner there. La Motte knows this could be true because he discovered a trap door leading to a staircase.

The book has very little dialog - and when it has it, the people talk in stilted King James English, even though the book is in very plain language. And, considering the desperate circumstances, these people still take time to reflect and philosophize: when La Motte is poking around the abbey for the first time to see if it's fit for his group to sleep in, he stops and ponders his own mortality and wonders whose ashes might be lying right under his feet - and did they ever stop to reflect on who might be wondering about them in future generations while they yet lived? It's kind of odd when his wife and the girl are waiting for him in the carriage and darkness is coming on fast, and the time for quick decisions and action is so urgent.

The mystery will be in finding out who Adeline is and why she was thrown onto complete strangers. What did she do to instigate such treatment? And who was kept prisoner at this abbey?

Adeline was raised by nuns after her mother died. Her father doesn't want her and plans for her to become a nun and stay hidden in an abbey all her life. Adeline resists so he takes her out of the nunnery, but then locks her in a bedroom. He goes away on a trip and leaves her imprisonment in charge of some thugs who work for him or something. They are the ones who thrust her on the La Motte's.

La Motte's wife sees that, although they're safely hidden in a quite comfortable fortress, her husband is depressed and often goes for solitary, mysterious walks. She comes to the conclusion that he's in love with the beautiful Adeline, and her jealousy ruins the friendship they had.

Then they find out that soldiers are asking questions about them -- they've been discovered! They find a secret passage under a trapdoor and hide there for days until the soldiers leave. Pierre de La Motte knows that there's a skeleton in a chest down there, but he doesn't tell anyone else. Adeline is sent out to see if the soldiers are gone - and finds the La Motte's son looking for them! He stays for a few days and falls in love with the beautiful Adeline, but she only thinks of him as a loving brother.

_________________

In addition to La Motte's son, there a Marquis who finds them, apparently an old aquaintance of La Motte's, and some other soldiers. One of the soldiers (Theodore) likes Adeline and she likes him. He warns her that she's in danger - "meet me here tomorrow night and I'll tell you more." But then the next day he's sent away on soldier duty by the Marquis, so Adeline has no idea what kind of danger she's in. She has weird dreams about a man dying in an underground room, very much like the room she's staying in at the old abbey.

The Marquis takes a fancy to Adeline, but she doesn't like him. However, since their safety depends on not annoying this Marquis, Adeline has to be civil and pretend that his advances don't repulse her. Apparently her father has found out where she is, and the Marquis could turn them all in.

In her gloomy room, Adeline discovers an old letter and over a few nights, she reads it. It's the account of some person who was once abducted and kept imprisoned in the very room she's in, and he writes that every day he fears will be his last and he'll be killed. Adeline sees and hears things that make her wonder if the spirit of that person is still around, or if her imagination has been spooked.

La Motte's servant tells her that La Motte has traded her to the Marquis for his own safety - her father hasn't really found out her where-abouts, that was just a lie to scare her into marrying the Marquis, although Adeline happens to know that the Marquis is already married. She is betrayed and carried off to the Marquis's estate, but escapes out of a window and runs into - Theodore! He left his military post to save her from the wicked Marquis. He whisks her to a carriage hidden in the woods and they escape from the Marquis's estate.

But, when they stop at an inn, they're found by the Marquis (who also happens to be Theodore's commanding officer) and there's a duel. Theodore is wounded, and he wounds the Marquis. If Theodore recovers, he'll be tried by his commanding officer for going AWOL, and for wounding his commanding officer, and the Marquis will of course use the opportunity to get revenge on Theodore for ruining his plans of trapping Adeline. By this time, Adeline and Theodore are in love, but marriage would mean more painful revenge from the Marquis, so Adeline plans to wait for Theodore in a convent until he gets out of the brig. But the Marquis's men drag her away and drive off with her in a carriage at the Marquis's orders, and Theodore is carted off for his military trial while the Marquis recovers at the inn from his wounds.

Adeline is surprised when she's taken back to the Abbey! In exchange for protection from his creditors, La Motte has agreed to keep Adeline imprisoned until the Marquis comes for her. But when the Marquis is well enough to travel and returns, he wants La Motte to kill her! He's mad because she doesn't like him. If he can't have her, then no one can, and this will be great revenge on Theodore. But La Motte's conscience hasn't gone so far that he can make himself do that. So he lets Adeline go with his servant, Peter. They'll go to Peter's village, and La Motte will pretend that Adeline escaped without his knowledge.

SPOILERS FOLLOW (I've tried made the text invisible; you'll have to highlight to read the rest.)

Adeline and the servant Peter make their escape to Peter's village, and everyone is kind and fusses over Adeline. Adeline, in response, gets feverish and sick and hovers near death, but is nursed back to health by the kind-hearted La Luc family. The father is ill and goes away for his health. Adeline and his daughter Clara come with him, since they could use some health and fresh air, too. Adeline is spotted and recognized by - the La Motte's son! He is able to tell Adeline what has happened with Theodore. Theodore is in prison and due to be executed. The La Motte son was on his way to the La Luc's to let Theodore's family know of his impending death - yes, Theodore is La Luc's son! Meanwhile, the Marquis is visiting the King because he has to be there for La Motte's trial - La Motte is in jail, turned in by the Marquis after letting Adeline go. La Motte's son goes there and learns some news. La Motte recognized somebody in the Marquis's company - it was the guy who pushed Adeline on him way back in the beginning of the story! He was under orders to kill the girl by her own father, but pushed her off on the La Mottes to save her life. The father who wanted her dead was - the Marquis! Her mother had been a nun and he esteemed her enough that he didn't want anyone to know she had been pregnant since she was a nun. Since Adeline wouldn't stay hidden in a nunnery all her life, he wanted her dead to keep the mother's secret safe. So - the Marquis is Adeline's father and never realized that the girl he was so desperate to have, and is willing to kill because he can't have her, is really his own daughter!

No, not really. She's not really the Marquis's daughter. She's his niece. The whole thing about the nun was just a lie. Really, Adeline was the infant daughter of the Marquis's brother who was the previous Marquis and owned a nice abbey. So he killed the brother to get the title and the abbey, and hid the infant in a convent. Adeline's mother had died just after Adeline's birth. So the skeleton and the manuscript that Adeline found depicting some poor prisoner's imprisonment and impending death were really her father's!

Needless to say, after the King and the judges find out all this, Adeline is safe, Theodore is set free, and La Motte is even let go, although he is banished from France. The Marquis poisons himself in prison before they can sentence him. Theodore and Adeline marry, the La Luc father is so overjoyed that his health perks up, and Adeline inherits the abbey and all that the marquis had had. She's rich enough to give the La Motte's enough money to live comfortably in their banishment in return for saving her life. And thus, all mysteries are solved, true love is requited, faithfulness is rewarded, and everyone lives happily ever after.



There's a series of posts from an online reading group who read this book - I can't tell, but some of the book might have been transcribed here, too.

Emma Summaries Part Two

Continued from Part One.

ch 29 - Frank Churchill and the Westons plan a dance at an old unused building called the Crown Inn. Emma's father goes along with the plan so long as windows will be kept closed so that none of the dancers gets chilled and sick.

ch 30 - The dance is all set to go, but then Frank Churchill is called away by his aunt. He's out of sorts, and when he says goodbye to Emma, he is about to declare that he is in love with Jane Fiarfax, although Emma thinks he was about to declare his love for herself. Later she visits Jane Fairfax, who is out of sorts, too.

ch 31 - Emma thinks she loves Frank Churchill, but in his absence, decides she does not. She imagines that he and Harriet might make a good couple, since Harriet is so kind and affectionate.

ch 32 - Emma meets Mr. Elton's new wife, Augusta, and doesn't like her. She's vulgar, snobbish, self-centered and constantly prattling about herself or something equally trivial.

ch 33 - Mrs. Elton admires Jane Fairfax and befriends her, which Emma assumes must be a hardship for Jane. Mr. Knightley declares that, although he admires Jane, she is too reserved for him to fall in love with her.

ch 34 - Emma really dislikes Mrs. Elton, but, so as not to appear resentful, she gives a dinner party for her. Mrs. Elton is as unpleasant as ever. When she learns that Jane Fairfax walks to the post office every morning to check her mail, Mrs. Elton pressures Jane to let the Elton's servant deliver it to her to save her from walking in wet weather. But Jane is fiercely determined to check her mail.

ch 35 - Mrs. Elton pressures Jane to let her find her a good job as a governess, even when Jane protests firmly. Mr. Weston has received a letter from Frank Churchill saying he will return soon.

ch 36 - Mr. Weston tells Mrs. Elton that his son, who she hasn't yet met, is coming back. Mrs. Elton keeps bringing the subject to herself, and he doggedly brings it back to Frank. Nobody seems to enjoy talking to her very much.

ch 37 - Frank Churchill and his aunt will be renting a place nine miles away, so everyone is assured of seeing plenty of him. Emma is sure now that she is not in love with him, nor he with her.

ch 38 - The ball. Mrs. Elton annoys everyone. Mr. Elton snubs and apparently humiliates Harriet by refusing to dance with her, even though she has no partner. But Mr. Knightley rescues her by dancing with her himself.

ch 39 - The next morning as Emma is fondly remembering the ball, Harriet is brought in by Frank Churchill. She was accosted by gypsies as she walked with a friend. Emma begins to imagine Harriet and Frank together.

ch 40 - Harriet finally breaks free of her obsession with Mr. Elton by burning little keepsakes of his that she had taken and cherished - and she confides to Emma that she likes someone else who is far superior to her in social status.

ch 41 - Mr. Knightley suspects a secret attachment between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax.

ch 42 - Everyone goes to Mr. Knightley's to pick strawberries. Frank Churchill is absent. Jane Fairfax is pressured by Mrs. Elton to take a job as a governess for a friend of hers, and Jane finally leaves in distress. As she leaves, Frank Churchill shows up very late and in an agitated mood.

ch 43 - Everyone goes to Box Hill the next say to picnic. Frank and Jane exchange disagreeable words, and Emma is unpardonably rude to Miss Bates. She feels her guilt keenly after Mr. Knightly calls her on it.

ch 44 - Emma resolves to be a true friend to Miss Bates. She visits and learns that Jane has accepted the job as governess.

ch 45 - Frank Churchill's aunt has died. Meanwhile Jane Fairfax is distressed to the point of being ill and she won't see anybody. Nobody knows why she is so upset.

ch - 46 - The Westons break the news to Emma that Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax have been secretly engaged. Emma assures them that her own heart isn't broken; she's not in love with Frank Churchill.

ch 47 - Emma breaks the news of Frank Churchill's engagement to Harriet, but Harriet isn't heartbroken. It comes out that Harriet likes Mr. Knightley and Emma is devastated. She realizes that she has always loved Mr. Knightley herself. She thinks back on all her past actions and feels ashamed. It's her own fault that Harriet is vain enough to aspire to Mr. Knightley, and it's her own fault that Mr. Knightley ever met Harriet. She realizes her error in meddling with other people's lives.

ch 48 - Emma hears Mrs. Weston tell of Jane's anguish and shame during her secret engagement, and Emma regrets that she missed the opportunity to know her better. Mrs. Weston is pregnant and will be busy with her baby. Frank and Jane will marry and leave, Mr. Knightley will marry Harriet and have his own home to spend his evenings at - Emma thinks of these things and realizes that her future looks very lonely.

ch 49 - Mr. Knightley confesses his love for Emma, and Emma is happy again.

ch 50 - Emma reads a letter explaining Frank's behaviour. He told his uncle of his engagement to Jane to prevent Jane from leaving to take a job as a governess.

ch 51 - Mr. Knightley will move in with Emma so that her father won't have to do without her. Emma is distressed about Harriet, who is now the lonely outsider, rejected by both Mr. Elton and now Mr. Knightley.

ch 52 - Emma arranges for Harriet to spend two weeks with her (Emma's) sister so that Emma can enjoy her newfound happiness with Mr. Knightley and not upset Harriet. Jane and Emma become real friends.

ch 53 - Emma-s father is slowly reconciled to the idea of Emma marrying Mr. Knightley. Everyone is delighted except the Eltons.

ch 54 - Mr. Knightley has news that Harriet has consented to marry Robert Mr. Martin. Emma sees Jane with Frank Churchill and is glad that Mr. Knightley is so much superior in character to Frank.

ch 55 - Harriet marries Robert Martin. Jane and Frank set their wedding for November. Emma and Mr. Knightley marry. Her father finally accepts it after a rash of turkey thefts in the neighbourhood.

The End

Emma Summaries

I'm going to do what Ginger started with Sense and Sensibility, summarizing each chapter, only, since I like the maxim 'brevity is the soul of wit,' I'm going to boil each chapter down to a really, really short summary. I'll just add to this post until I'm done.

ch 1 - Emma is a bit spoiled. Her beloved governess left to get married to Mr. Weston. Emma decides to find a match for Mr. Elton, who performed the wedding ceremony.

ch 2 - Mr. Weston's son Frank was raised by his mother's family after the mother died. Frank took on the name of his mother's family - Churchill.

ch 3 - Emma's small circle of friends includes Mr. Knightley, the two Bates ladies and Mrs Goddard, who runs a mediocre girls' school. Emma befriends Harriet Smith, an illigitimate girl raised by Mrs. Goddard's school. She's pleasant and pretty but has no pedigree or money. Harriet is friends with the Martins, who are poor farmers.

ch 4 - Harriet admires the Martin's son Robert, and he likes her, too - but Emma has more high-bred hopes for Harriet. She wants to match Harriet with Mr. Elton.

ch 5 - Mr. Knightley thinks Emma will give Harriet false airs, and Harriet will give Emma too much flattery - the friendship won't be good for either of them, and he tells Emma's old governess, the newly married Mrs. Weston.

ch 6 - Mr. Elton thinks Emma should draw a picture of harriet. He likes Emma and hopes to flatter her drawing skill. He frames the resulting picture. Emma persuades Harriet that Mr. Elton must really like her, Harriet.

ch 7 - Mr. Martin sent a letter proposing to Harriet, but Emma pressures Harriet (indirectly) to refuse him. So Harriet writes back to refuse, and she consoles herself by thinking of Mr. Elton.

ch 8 - Mr. Knightley is unhappy when he hears that Harriet refused Mr. Martin's proposal, especially since he had encouraged it with Mr. Martin.

ch 9 - Mr. Elton writes a riddle proclaiming his admiration for a lady. Emma thinks he means Harriet, and she convinces Harriet of it.

ch 10 - Emma takes Harriet on a charity visit. They run into Mr. Elton. Emma manipulates so that Harriet and Mr. Elton can be alone so he can proclaim his love - but he doesn't.

ch 11 - Emma's sister Isabella visits with her husband (Mr. Knightley's brother) and their five children. They'll be staying for ten days. Emma's father thinks ten days is too short a visit.

ch 12 - Emma has to constantly intervene to keep peace between her father and sister, Isabella. They keep coming to disagreements about health.

ch 13 - There's a small Christmas Eve dinner at the Weston's. Harriet gets sick with a cold and sore throat, so she can't go, and Emma is disappointed that the news doesn't distress Mr. Elton.

ch 14 - Mr. Elton makes a pest of himself with Emma. Mr. Weston's son Frank Churchill is planning to visit, but everyone fears that his aunt won't let him leave her to make the visit.

ch 15 - Emma ends up riding home alone in the carriage with Mr. Elton. She is mortified when he proposes to her; he is angry when she refuses.

ch 16 - Emma now realizes she had no right to meddle between Mr. Elton and Harriet. She's also indignant that Elton resented Harriet's affection because he considers her so much beneath him - yet he's just as much beneath Emma, and aspired to marry her for her money. His anger at her refusal betrays his feelings - he never really loved Emma.

ch 17 - Isabella and her family go home. Mr. Elton goes away for a few weeks (to stew, no doubt), and Emma gives Harriet the bad news that Mr. Elton hadn't loved her, but had wanted Emma. Emma is surprised to discover how much Harriet really is in love with the contemptible Mr. Elton.

ch 18 - Frank Churchill writes to the Westons that he will visit, and then has to cancel because his aunt won't let him go. Mr. Knightley thinks he's a weak, selfish person for not standing up to his aunt and doing his duty in spite of her whims. But Emma is ready to excuse and justify him.

ch 19 - Emma and Harriet stop to visit the Bates and learn that Jane Fairfax has sent a letter to say she will be coming to stay for three months while a family she lives with goes to Ireland to visit a recently married daughter (she was Miss Campbell, now she's Mrs. Dixon.)

ch 20 - Jane Fairfax is the granddaughter of Mrs. Bates and niece of Miss Bates. Her mother was the youngest daughter in the Bates family, but her husband was killed in a war and she died of heartbreak soon after. Colonel Campbell, a friend of her father's, raised orphaned Jane along with his own daughter (now Mrs. Dixon). His plan was to educate Jane to be a teacher, since he didn't have the means to support her forever or give her a good dowry.

Jane is beautiful, talented, elegant - but reserved to the point of seeming cold. It frustrates Emma because she can never be sure what Jane really thinks about anything.

ch 21 - Emma learns that Mr. Elton is going to be married - he seems to have gotten over her pretty quick! She wants to break it to Harriet before Harriet finds out from gossip, but Harriet is too ruffled about running into Mr. Martin and his sister to care as much as Emma thinks she should.

ch 22 - Mr. Elton's fiance Augusta is not as pretty as Harriet, but she has 10,000 pounds. Harriet, unfortunately, seems to run into Mr. Elton all the time - and it keeps her unrequited love in her thoughts. Yet she also seems to be thinking of Mr. Martin. Emma arranges for her to visit the Martins - not to revive the courtship, but to keep Harriet's mind off Mr. Elton.

ch 23 - Frank Churchill arrives. Emma finds him pleasing, but possibly insincere in his praise and flattery of everyone and everything. He knew Jane Fairfax when she was a fine young lady living with the Campbells. Now he will visit her while she's living in less privileged circumstances with her poor and talkative Bates relatives.

ch 24 - Emma goes for a walk through town with Frank Churchill and the Westons. Frank is interested in everything and pleased with all he sees, although he says that Jane Fairfax's complexion is pale and he agrees with Emma that Jane is reserved.

ch 25 - Frank goes all the way to London(town?) for the day to get a haircut. The Coles are giving a party. Emma suspects that they won't invite her because her station in life is so much higher than theirs. Emma does get an invitation. Her father will stay home where it's comfortable while Emma goes to the party.

ch 26 - The party at the Cole's. Emma and a privileged few come for dinner before the party. Frank Churchill is there for dinner. He chats with Emma all evening. Everyone is talking about a mysterious piano that was given to Jane Fairfax. Later, more people arrive, including Harriet and Jane Fairfax. Frank spends the evening pretending to like Emma and not Jane. But we know better. We've seen the movie.

ch 27 -Emma begins to hear hints of suspicion that Mr. Knightley likes Jane Fairfax, confirmed when Miss Bates goes on and on about apples. Apparently, when Mr. Knightley heard that Jane liked them, he gave the Bates an extra bushel - and apparently the last of his personal supply.

ch 28 - During a visit at the Bates, Frank Churchill teases Jane Fairfax (Emma thinks he's tormenting her about a secret attraction to Mr. Dixon who married her friend, but we know that it's Frank she likes) and Mr. Knightley, passing by, declines to stop in after hears that Frank Churchill is there.

This is about half the book. I'll do the second half in a brand new post.

Sense and Sensibility

I had some catching up to do, so I listened to four chapters on Librivox.org and then read four chapters this afternoon to bring me up to chapter 34 (is that where you're at, Ginger?)

I've seen the movie with Kate Winslett and Emma Thompson a number of times, and I thought the movie exaggerated the coldheartedness of the oldest brother, John, who had been requested by his dying father to take care of his mother and sisters. But the book goes even further - in his guilt at neglecting them, he's misreading the signs and trying to marry off Elinor to rich Colonel Brandon, and persuading Elinor (and himself) that kind Mrs. Jennings intends to leave them some money when she dies! How he can think that she would do that when she has her own daughters, and when he himself won't give them anything, is beyond me. He's a strange piece of work.

Golden Windows by Laura E. Richards

I'm going to do a running post, a short summary of each chapter of this text, which is online here. Laura E. Richards is probably better known for her poem Eletelephony.

ch 1 The Golden Windows - a farm boy sees a house on a hill with windows made of gold and diamonds. One day his father gives him a day off, so he goes to see this house. When he gets there, he finds that the windows are just regular glass like his own house. But he meets a girl his age who tells him that she, too, has seen a house with windows made of gold and diamonds. She points to a house on a hill, and it's his own house!

Stories of the East From Herodotus by Alfred J. Church

I guess I should be doing narrations of what I'm reading.

I had to re-read this one; I read the first three chapters, but I'd gotten so hopelessly lost somewhere in chapter two that I ended up abandoning my whole reading schedule last week. I re-read cchapters 2 and 3, and then read chapter 4, and did much better this time. So here's what happened in those first 4 chapters.

Croesus is the king of Lydia, and this is during the time when Cyrus the Persian is conquering the world. Croesus has everything he could desire - wealth, power, family, friends, comfort. So he tries to impress Solon. After showing all that he has, he asks him, "Who is the happiest man in the world?" But Solon says that some poor man who was content and died peacefully after a good, long life is the happiest man of all. Croesus is offended that Solon doesn't say that he, Croesus, is the happiest, so he asks him why. Solon says that you can't truly judge a man's happiness until his life is over because a man might be very fortunate for the first part of life, but then have such bad misfortunes later that when his life ends, everyone thinks of his life as unhappy.

In the second chapter, Croesus asks the Greek gods on Olympus whether he'll be successful if he goes to war with Persia. The prophecy says that 'if you war with persia, a great kingdom will fall.' Croesus takes that as a good sign, but he wants confirmation, so he asks how long his kingdom will last, and the prophecy says that his kingdom will last until a mule reigns in his stead. he takes this as a good omen, too - how could a mule rule instead of him? So he attacks Persia, but by chapter three, Lydia has lost to Persia and Croesus has been taken prisoner. Cyrus puts Croesus on a pile of logs and sets fire to it, and Croesus remembers Solon's words. he cries, "Solon, Solon!" and Cyrus wonders why. So he asks him, and Croesus tells him the story of his meeting with Solon and how you can't tell whether a man's life is happy until you've seen the end of it. He tells Cyrus that he was once a rich, powerful, happy king like Cyrus, but he's come to this end. Cyrus has pity on him and sees the truth of Solon's words, so he sets Croesus free and grants him a boon. Croesus says he wants someone to go to Olympus and ask why the gods deceived him with their prophecies.

So Cyrus sends someone to ask, and here's the response: The prophecy about a great kingdom falling meant that Lydia, not Persia, would fall - yet the gods had had mercy on Croesus because Lydia had been fated to fall, and only because of their mercy on Croesus had it lasted as long as it had. And what about the mule? Cyrus was the mule - a mule is a half-breed, half regal horse, half low-bred donkey. Cyrus's father was a prince, but his mother was a poor commoner of no royal blood.