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Welcome to the first episode in our series on Sophocles’ Greek drama Antigone. After sharing a little about their background with this play, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about the overall structure and the conventions of Greek Drama and Greek Tragedy. Thomas also gives an overview of the type of characters to expect in Greek Tragedy, and he highlights the ways in which Sophocles changed Greek Drama. Angelina explains the ideas of unity of time, unity of place, and unity of plot as presented by Aristotle. Thomas also summarizes the myth on which this play is based, talks about Creon’s character, and expands on some of the tensions present in Antigone. Commonplace Quotes: You don’t know what ideas my mind-spirit needs right now; I don’t know what your mind-spirit need; and we don’t know the mind-spirit needs of each child in a classroom. Vital ideas are not sold pre-measured in a bottle. Anne White She had a terror of solitary evenings, all the terror of one who did not care for books, who was soaked in superstition and loved lights and noise. Hugh Walpole When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves. The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. Madeleine L’Engle A Scot to Jeanne D’Arc by Andrew Lang DARK Lily without blame,   Not upon us the shame,   Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true;   They, by the Maiden’s side,   Victorious fought and died;  One stood by thee that fiery torment through,   Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed,   And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last.   Once only didst thou see,  In artist’s imagery,  Thine own face painted, and that precious thing   Was in an Archer’s hand   From the leal Northern land. Book List: Ideas Freely Sown by Anne White The Thirteen Travellers by Hugh Walpole The Sea Tower by Hugh Walpole A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis The Oresteia by Aeschylus The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles Mythology by Edith Hamilton The Poetics by Aristotle Trojan Women by Euripides The Bacchae by Euripides Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week, your Literary Life podcast hosts, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are happy to be joined by Kelly Cumbee to talk about Edmund Spenser. They begin the conversation with Kelly giving a little biographical information on Spenser. Kelly shares how she came to read The Faerie Queene with her own children and for her education, then fell in love with it herself. Angelina talks about Spenser's style of writing and his vision for creating a medieval feel in his work. Kelly gives us a brief synopsis of the general outline of The Faerie Queene and the virtues that are the focus of each book. Some other topics they discuss are the courtly love tradition, the harmony between the court and the country, the journey of the soul pictured in the quest stories, and the levels of reading that may be applied to The Faerie Queene. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. You can find Kelly Cumbee on her blog at Landscape Plotted and Pieced. Commonplace Quotes: That best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love… William Wordsworth That men have been burnt alive willingly is a fact of no little interest to anyone who has ever put his hand in the flame of a candle. G. K. Chesterton The poem is a great palace, but the door into it is so low that you must stoop to go in. No prig can be a Spenserian. It is, of course, much more than a fairy tale, but unless we can enjoy it as a fairy tale first of all, we shall not really care for it. C. S. Lewis I chose books that I wanted to read for my own education and brought the children along with me. This made homeschooling and morning time a feast for my soul as well as theirs. Jamie Marstall Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name by Edmund Spenser One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. “Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise.” “Not so,” (quod I) “let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name: Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.” Book List: The Shepheard’s Calendar by Edmund Spenser St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves by Edmund Spenser and Roy Maynard The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, ed. by A. C. Hamilton The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, Penguin edition Orlando Furioso by Lodovico Ariosto The Aeneid by Virgil The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis The Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis The Last Romantics by Graham Hough A Book of Emblems by Andrea Alciati Stories from The Faerie Queene by Jenny Lang Stories from The Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod Hackett Classics Faerie Queene Collection Amoretti by Edmund Spenser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts wrap up their series on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas open the discussion with some commentary on the wickedness in the heart of every human and the cost of courage to stand against the crowd. They examine Beatty’s character and why he might have wanted to die. Angelina brings up the way in which Montag’s courage convicts Faber of his own cowardice. They also talk about the detrimental effects of pleasure-seeking being the driving goal of people’s existence. Other topics of discussion include the images of death and rebirth, the importance of remembrance, and having humility instead of hubris. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Previous episodes you may want to check out if you are new The Literary Life: An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis (Episodes 20-23) and “Are Women Human” by Dorothy L. Sayers (Episode 9). Commonplace Quotes: There is no such thing as low brows, only low hearts. C. S. Lewis More unsolicited advice: if you really want a well-read, well-educated child, you will stop dropping books or subjects just because he doesn’t think he likes them. Education is the development of taste, not the reinforcement of a child’s lack of it. Brandy Vencel People ask me to predict the future when all I want to do is prevent it. Ray Bradbury from “Four Quartets” by T. S. Elliot The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair     Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-     To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove.     We only live, only suspire     Consumed by either fire or fire. Book List: Selected Literary Essays by C. S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Lord of the Flies by William Golding Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts continue with the second part of their series on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. After sharing their commonplace quotes, Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy dive into the topics at hand, including but not limited to the following: Clarisse’s role as a Beatrice character, the gift of inspiration versus the gift of interpretation in art, living in an age of distraction, the passing down of cultural memory, and leisure as the basis of education. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: Long and delicate maneuverings had bred in him a habit of deceit, and his success had convinced him that in politics, dishonesty was but a venial offense. J. D. Mackie “I would not have you think I was doing nothing then.” He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be doubted whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature than if it had been confined to any single spot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? James Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson Interviewer: How does the story of Fahrenheit 451 stand up in 1994? Ray Bradbury: It works even better because we have political correctness now. Political correctness is the real enemy these days….It’s thought control and freedom of speech control. Ray Bradbury Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Book List: Cavalier and Puritan by J. D. Mackie The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner The Divine Comedy by Dante Leisure: the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper Range by David Epstein Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to another episode of The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks! This week our hosts open a new series on Ray Bradbury’s well-known novel Fahrenheit 451. They talk about the form of the dystopian novel and why it is such a popular form in the modern world. Angelina shares some background on the form, as well as some of the foremost authors and books in this genre. Then they dive into the text, starting with the images of the hearth and the salamander. Looking at the world Bradbury has created, they take note of some of the major ideas and discuss any similarities to our current culture seen in these first several chapters. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right. If they tell you that that is all the story is about, they are very definitely wrong. Neil Gaiman It will be a bad day for England when we have done with Shakspere; for that will imply, along with the loss of him, that we are no longer capable of understanding him. George MacDonald Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school it was during the Depression, and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for ten years. Ray Bradbury from “The Burning of the Leaves” by Laurence Binyon Now is the time for the burning of the leaves. They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke Wandering slowly into a weeping mist. Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves! A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist. The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust; All the spices of June are a bitter reek, All the extravagant riches spent and mean. All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost; Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild Fingers of fire are making corruption clean. Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare, Time for the burning of days ended and done, Idle solace of things that have gone before: Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there; Let them go to the fire, with never a look behind. The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more. Book List: A Dish or Orts by George MacDonald Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman Stardust by Neil Gaiman The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 1984 by George Orwell Animal Farm by George Orwell Brave New World by Aldous Huxley That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis Utopia by Thomas More Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson H. G. Wells “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis Dorothy Sayers Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts continue their discussion of The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. After sharing some commentary on their commonplace quotes for the week, Angelina, Cindy and Thomas talk about the things that stood out to them as they read the second half of The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Some of the ideas they share are the following: the commonality of being ordinary, the responses people have to terminal illness, the one person who gives Ilyich comfort, and the humiliation of death. Angelina highlights the Orthodox metaphors and Christian imagery that are so prevalent in the end of this story. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: The only inconvenience is that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the meantime the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair. Jonathon Swift The humanities do not always make a man humane–that is, liberal, tolerant, gentle, and candid as regards the opinions and status of other men. The fault does not lie in any one of these or in any other of the disciplinary subjects, but in our indolent habit of using each of these as a sort of mechanical contrivance for turning up the soil and sowing the seed. Charlotte Mason I should be cautious of censuring anything that has been applauded by so many suffrages. Samuel Johnson O Child Beside the Waterfall by George Barker O Child beside the Waterfall what songs without a word rise from those waters like the call only a heart has heard- the Joy, the Joy in all things rise whistling like a bird. O Child beside the Waterfall I hear them too, the brief heavenly notes, the harp of dawn, the nightingale on the leaf, all, all dispel the darkness and the silence of our grief. O Child beside the Waterfall I see you standing there with waterdrops and fireflies and hummingbirds in the air, all singing praise of paradise, paradise everywhere. Book List: The Life of Samuel Johnson by Boswell School Education by Charlotte Mason The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks delve into part one of a two-part discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Our hosts kick things off talking about their background with Russian literature, and Thomas gives some biographical information on Tolstoy. They also talk about the concept of the “holy fool.” Some ideas discussed in this episode include the characters’ responses to death, the mask of respectability, and the problem of discontent. Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com. Commonplace Quotes: Arrogance is a weed that ever grows in a dunghill. Owen Feltham To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous; . . . . he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; All things are put to question; he must live Knowing that he grows wiser every day, Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree… Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find The playthings, which her love designed for him, Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, And Sabra in the forest with St George! The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap One precious gain, that he forgets himself. William Wordsworth, from “Prelude” [Fairy stories] never seek to criticize or moralize, to protest or plead or persuade; and if they have an emotional impact on the reader, as the greatest of them to, that is not intrinsic to the stories. They would indeed only weaken that impact in direct proportion as soon as they set out to achieve it. They move by not seeking to move; almost, it seems, by seeking not to move. The fairy-story that succeeds is in fact not a work of fiction at all; . . . It is a transcription of a view of life into terms of highly simplified symbols; and when it succeeds in its literary purpose, it leaves us with a deep indefinable feeling of truth. C. M. Woodhouse, on Animal Farm, The Times Literary Supplement, 1954 Growing Old by Matthew Arnold What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The luster of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung? Yes, this, and more; but not Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be! ’Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, A golden day’s decline. ’Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fullness of the past, The years that are no more. It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain. It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion—none. It is—last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man. Book List: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Resolves: Divine, Political, and Moral by Owen Feltham War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Anton Chekhov Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Papa Panov’s Special Day by Mig Holder The Giagantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy Koshka’s Tales: Stories from Russia by James Mayhew The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley How Much Land Does a Man Need and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On The Literary Life podcast this week, hosts Cindy Rollins and Angelina Stanford interview their friend and veteran homeschool mother of 4, Adrienne Freas. Adrienne is now the Classical Education Advisor for the K-12 Curriculum and Professional Development Project at University of Dallas Classical Education Master’s Degree program at the University of Dallas, and she is active in consulting and advocating for Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy. Adrienne was a featured speaker in the 2019 Back to School Conference, available for replay at morningtimeformoms.com. Adrienne describes her young life and how the fine arts were the highlight of her childhood and her early struggles to learn to read. She shares how high school literature teachers and reading the classics whet her appetite for even more great literature. She talks about the difference it makes to have a teacher who is enthusiastic and believes the students can step up to the challenge. Cindy, Angelina and Adrienne all share their love for Charlotte Mason and her philosophy of giving children a wide and generous curriculum. Commonplace Quotes: Whenever we are called to teach, our proclamation of goodness should be so wrapped in beauty as to console. This should apply to our daily actions as well, and it is an art. Timothy Patitsas Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. Martin Luther Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I was 17 looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge. “Just what I need!” I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag: Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed that his students—including me—had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the “Invocation to Light” in book 9. So I said, “Wait here,” and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3 when I hit a snag: Milton assumed I’d read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the War in Heaven, and since I’d been reared in Judaism I hadn’t. So I said, “Wait here,” and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q, page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays of Shakespeare, and Boswell’s Johnson, but also the Second Book of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and is not in the New Testament, it’s in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed. So what with one thing and another and an average of three “Wait here’s” a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q’s five books of lectures. Helene Hanff After Reading “Antony and Cleopatra” by Robert Louis Stevenson As when the hunt by holt and field Drives on with horn and strife, Hunger of hopeless things pursues Our spirits throughout life. The sea’s roar fills us aching full Of objectless desire – The sea’s roar, and the white moon-shine, And the reddening of the fire. Who talks to me of reason now? It would be more delight To have died in Cleopatra’s arms Than be alive to-night. Book List: The Ethics of Beauty by Timothy Patitsas The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff Macbeth by William Shakespeare Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Emily Dickinson The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass A History of the English-Speaking People by Winston Churchill Paradise Lost by John Milton The Divine Comedy by Dante Algieri The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie Perceval by Chretien de Troyes Til We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan Lenten Lands by Douglas Gresham The Betrothed: I Promesi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni The Consolation of Philosophy by Ancius Beothius Range by David Epstien Gene Stratton Porter Elizabeth Goudge Waverly by Sir Walter Scott Reorienting Rhetoric by John D. O’Banion Unbinding Prometheus by Donald Cowan Heidi by Johanna Spyri The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fischer The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle Augustus Caesar’s World by Genevieve Foster Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens The Once and Future King by T. H. White Men of Iron by Howard Pyle Links Mentioned: AmblesideOnline The Well Read Poem Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by James Banks to discuss the value of reading Don Quixote and how to approach the book. They talk about translations and how to choose a translation of this particular work. James shares how he first read Miguel de Cervantes’ classic work and gives a little contextual background on him as an author. He also argues that Don Quixote is a romance in the tradition of Spenser and is more of a satire of modernity than of chivalry. Other ideas discussed are the comic duo, the Spanish Renaissance literature, the travel novel, and how to dive into reading Don Quixote. It’s not too late to register for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to sign up today! Listen to previous episodes with James Banks by going to The Literary Life podcast Episode 32 and Episode 33. Commonplace Quotes: Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all. attributed to Abraham Lincoln I take it to be part and parcel of the same great process of Internalisation which has turned genius from an attendant daemon into a quality of the mind. Always, century by century, item after item is transferred from the object’s side of the account to the subject’s. And now, in some extreme forms of Behaviourism, the subject himself is discounted as merely subjective; we only think that we think. Having eaten up everything else, he eats himself up too. And where we ‘go from that’ is a dark question. C. S. Lewis Say you’re an idiot. And say you’re a Congressman. But I repeat myself. Mark Twain I don’t like the word “allegorical.” I don’t like the word “symbolic.” The word I really like is “mythic,” and people always think that means “full of lies” when what it really means is full of a truth that cannot be told in any other way but a story. William Golding, BBC interview Clerihew by G. K. Chesterton The people of Spain think Cervantes Equal to half a dozen Dantes: An opinion resented most bitterly By the people of Italy. Book List: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis Lord of the Flies by William Golding Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens The Shadow of Cervantes by Wyndham Lewis Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts chat with Wes Callihan, founder of Schola Tutorials and primary instructor in the Old Western Culture series by Roman Roads Media. Thomas starts off our interview today asking Wes what he remembers about stories and reading as a young person. Wes shares how he came to be a teacher and how his literary life developed as he became an adult. Angelina asks Wes about his approach to challenging literature when he started out reading the great books. He shares the joy of reading aloud, even to yourself, rather than silently whenever possible. Wes also talks about how learning languages enhanced his reading as well. Find the Youtube video of Wes’ personal library here. Don’t forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 for which Wes Callihan will be our keynote speaker. Commonplace Quotes: I have called this work “meadow” on account of the delight, the fragrance and the benefit which it will afford those who come across it, for the virtuous life and the habitual piety do not merely consist of studying divinity, not only of thinking on an elevated plane about things as they are here and now. they must also include the description and writing of the way of life of others. So I have striven to complete this composition to inform your love, oh child, and as I have put together a copious and accurate collection, so I have emulated the most wise bee, gathering up the spiritually beneficial deeds of the fathers. John Moschos The fact that various persons have written angrily to say that the Judas I have depicted seems to them to be a person of the utmost nobility, actuated by extremely worthy motives, confirms my impression that this particular agent of hell is at present doing his master’s work with singular thoroughness and success. His exploits go unrecognized – which is just what the devil likes best. Dorothy Sayers People enter politics or the Civil Service out of a desire to exert power and influence events; this, I maintain, is an illness. It is only when one realizes that great administrators and leaders of men have all been at any rate slightly mad that one has a true understanding of history. Auberon Waugh In essence, Tolkien was trying to recover the vision of Eden, the childhood of the race, when beauty was still connected with truth. Through story–the right kind of story, including traditional legends and fairy-tales–the ability to see all things with a pure heart and in the light of heaven could be evoked. He wanted to prove that poetic knowledge, George MacDonald’s “wise imagination,” could be awoken even in a world apparently closed to its very possibility. Stratford Caldecott On Shakespeare. 1630 by John Milton What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid    Under a stary-pointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,  What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment  Hast built thyself a live-long monument.  For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,    Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart    Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book  Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,    Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,    Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;  And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. Book List: The Spiritual Meadow by John Moschos The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George Papillon by Henri Charriere Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Paul Thoreaux Sailing the Inside Passage by Robb Keystone The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by John Mandeville The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco The Land of Darkness by Ibn Fadlan The Travels of Ibn Battuta by Ibn Battuta Monologium by St. Anselm Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm The Aeneid by Virgil The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Alexander Pope Pacific and Other Stories by Mark Helprin Ray Bradbury The Novels of Charles Williams G. K. Chesterton Alexander Pope Fyodor Dostoyevsky Leo Tolstoy Anton Chekhov Aleksander Solzhenitsyn The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis P. G. Wodehouse Edward Gibbon Philip Schaff Taliessin through Logres, The Region of the Summer Stars by Charles Williams Isaac Asimov Theodore Sturgeon Robert Heinlein Arthur C. Clarke Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks wrap up their discussion of George Eliot’s Silas Marner. In this episode, Angelina reveals her light bulb moment connecting this story with Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale. Thomas talks about the changes in Silas as he has integrated back into the community through his love for Eppie. Cindy points out the characteristics we see in Nancy as a woman who has been through suffering and come out more gracious on the other side. Don’t forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Commonplace Quotes: We are all willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship. E. M. Forster Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keep the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t. Aldous Huxley The worst evil in the world is brought about not by the open and self-confessed vices but by the deadly corruption of the proud virtues. Dorothy Sayers A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating ’round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, To which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfill. Book List: Two Cheers for Democracy by E. M. Forster Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Middlemarch by George Eliot The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot The Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell The Tempest by William Shakespeare To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Welcome to this episode of The Literary Life Podcast, in which our hosts discuss George Eliot's book Silas Marner, chapters 10-15. Thomas kicks off the discussion by highlighting the character of Dolly Winthrop. Angelina talks about Silas Marner opening himself to grace in these chapters. She also points out the way that Eliot uses Godfrey's character to point out our own potential lack of moral courage. Cindy points out the problem of addiction for Molly in causing her to neglect her own baby. Angelina also talks about the Rumpelstiltskin parallels and other fairy tale elements in the book thus far. Don’t forget to head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to find out all about the exciting line-up for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Commonplace Quotes: Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge. Samuel Johnson Philosophy, like medicine, has a great number of drugs, and precious few genuine remedies. Nicolas Chamfort The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of moveables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilization of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty. E. M. Forster On My First Daughter by Ben Johnson Here lies, to each her parents’ Ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet all heaven’s gifts being heaven’s due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months’ end she parted hence With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven’s queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother’s tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train: Where, while that severed doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth; Which cover lightly, gentle earth! Book List: The Year of Our Lord, 1943 by Alan Jacobs The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell Complete Maxims and Thoughts by Nicolas Chamfort Howard’s End by E. M. Forster The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot The History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe Sir Roger de Coverley by Joseph Addison Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Middlemarch by George Eliot The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

On today’s episode of The Literary Life podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks continue their discussion of George Eliot’s Silas Marner, covering chapters 4-9. They talk about the problems facing the Cass family and their tense relationships, examine George Eliot’s treatment of Silas Marner’s victim-hood, reflect on the changing times of the Victorian period, and Thomas breaks out his “Cheers” accent. Don’t forget to check out Angelina and Thomas’ upcoming classes at HouseofHumaneLetters.com and Cindy’s Discipleship for Moms on Patreon. Commonplace Quotes: Perhaps the first thing that he can learn from the artist is that the only way of “mastering” one’s material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. Dorothy Sayers You said that we owe literature almost everything we are and what we have been. If books disappear, history will disappear, and human beings will also disappear. I am sure you are right. Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of transcendence. Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the “real” everyday world to an imaginary world, the world of books. Books are much more. They are way of being more fully human. Susan Sontag Just because a man is going to be hanged tomorrow it does not necessarily follow that he has anything interesting to say about it. Desmond MacCarthy Cradlesong by William Blake Sleep, sleep, beauty bright, Dreaming in the joys of night; Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel Smiles as of the morning steal O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast Where thy little heart doth rest. O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break. Book List: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers Criticism by Desmond MacCarthy Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry The Aeneid by Virgil Emma by Jane Austen   Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks dig into George Eliot’s Silas Marner. Today’s discussion gives us an introduction to George Eliot and covers the first three chapters of the book. Thomas shares a little historical context for the setting of Silas Marner and how that affects the interpretation of this book. Angelina points out the ways in which Eliot uses some fairy tale and otherworldly elements to explore moral ideas. Don’t forget to check out Angelina and Thomas’ upcoming classes at HouseofHumaneLetters.com and Cindy’s Discipleship for Moms on Patreon. Commonplace Quotes: A poem can be like two hands that lift you up and put you down in a new place. You look back with astonishment and find that because you have read a few lines on a printed page or listened for a couple of minutes to a voice speaking, you have arrived at somewhere quite different. Elizabeth Goudge Wheresoe’er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new; Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong… Samuel Johnson These fellow mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are. You can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wits, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people amongst whom your life is passed, that it is needful you should tolerate, pity and love. George Eliot Adlestrop by Edward Thomas Yes. I remember Adlestrop— The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop—only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Book List: Towers in the Mist by Elizabeth Goudge The Dean’s Watch by Elizabeth Goudge Adam Bede by George Eliot The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Middlemarch by George Eliot Romola by George Eliot Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings by George Eliot Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Eliot Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to bring some special guests in to speak to the literary life of the educator Charlotte Mason. Along with Angelina, Thomas and Cindy, we also have Donna-Jean Breckenridge and Karen Glass of the AmblesideOnline Advisory. They start off by sharing some biographical information about who Charlotte Mason was and her background. Karen also talks about how and why Mason developed her practices and philosophy and her educational foundation, the PNEU. Donna-Jean mentions the interesting ephemera belonging to Charlotte Mason housed at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside. Finally, the talk turns to how widely Miss Mason read and how important books were to her throughout her whole life. Join us next week for the beginning episode of our series on George Eliot's Silas Marner, covering chapters 1-3. Before you go, don’t forget that registration is opening soon at The House of Humane Letters for the spring. You can also check out Cindy’s Discipleship Group for Moms on Patreon.com. Commonplace Quotes: Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Lord Byron, from “Manfred” God is a mystery and not a fellow conspirator. J. B. Priestley There seems good reason to believe that the limit to human intelligence arises largely from the limit to human interests. Charlotte Mason He was fortified by illimitable reading, by a present sense of a thousand possibilities that had been brought to pass, of a thousand things so wisely said that wise action was a necessary outcome. Charlotte Mason The thing is to keep your eye upon words and wait to feel their force and beauty, and when words are so fit that no other words can be put in their places, so few that none can be left out without spoiling the sense, and so fresh and musical that they delight you, then you may be sure that you are reading literature, whether in prose or poetry. Charlotte Mason The Village Schoolmaster by Oliver Goldsmith Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day’s disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned; Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew — ‘Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e’en the story ran that he could gauge; In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, e’en though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. Book List: In Vital Harmony by Karen Glass Know and Tell by Karen Glass Consider This by Karen Glass Literature and Western Man by J. B. Priestley Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason The Golden Thread by Norman McLeod Scientific Dialogues by Jeremiah Joyce Jacob Behmen by Alexander Whyte The Cloud of Witness The Hidden Life of the Soul by Jean Nicolas Grou Anne of Geierstein: Maiden of the Mist by Sir Walter Scott The Savior of the World by Charlotte Mason Formation of Character by Charlotte Mason The History of Pendennis by William Thackeray The Egoist by George Meredith Hard Times by Charles Dickens David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Bleak House by Charles Dickens Joan and Peter by H. G. Wells Adam Bede by George Eliot Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy Areopagitica by John Milton Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB  

Today’s book discussion on The Literary Life podcast centers around the book 84, Charing Cross Road. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks share their first experiences reading this book of letters between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel. Cindy talks about her deep identification with Helene the first time she read 84, Charing Cross Road and how much she dreamed of going to England. Angelina and Thomas talk about the characteristics of Helene as a reader and as a person seeking self-education. Come back again next week for a special guest episode look at the literary life of Charlotte Mason! After that, we dig into George Eliot’s Silas Marner. Commonplace Quotes: Our Japanese soldiers who came back from overseas were a pitiful sight. They looked thin, weak, and exhausted. And some of them were invalids, drained of color and borne on stretchers. But among the returning soldiers there was one company of cheerful men. They were always singing, even difficult pieces in several parts and they sang very well. When they disembarked at Yokosuka the people who came to greet them were astonished. Everyone asked if they had received extra rations, since they seemed so happy. These men had had no extra rations, but had practiced choral singing throughout the Burma campaign. Their captain, a young musician fresh from music school, had enthusiastically taught his soldiers how to sing. It was singing that kept up their morale through boredom or hardship and that bound them together in friendship and discipline during the long war years. Without it, they would never have come home in remarkable high spirits. Michio Takeyama  Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth. Jeremy Taylor Secondhand booksellers are the most friendly and most eccentric of all the characters I have known. If I had not been a writer, theirs would have been the profession I would most happily have chosen. Graham Greene Reading in Wartime by Edwin Muir Boswell by my bed, Tolstoy on my table; Thought the world has bled For four and a half years, And wives’ and mothers’ tears Collected would be able To water a little field Untouched by anger and blood, A penitential yield Somewhere in the world; Though in each latitude Armies like forest fall, The iniquitous and the good Head over heels hurled, And confusion over all: Boswell’s turbulent friend And his deafening verbal strife, Ivan Ilych’s death Tell me more about life, The meaning and the end Of our familiar breath, Both being personal, Than all the carnage can, Retrieve the shape of man, Lost and anonymous, Tell me wherever I look That not one soul can die Of this or any clan Who is not one of us And has a personal tie Perhaps to someone now Searching an ancient book, Folk-tale or country song In many and many a tongue, To find the original face, The individual soul, The eye, the lip, the brow For ever gone from their place, And gather an image whole. Book List: 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff The Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama  Holy Living by Jeremy Taylor The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff The Narnian by Alan Jacobs The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell P. G. Wodehouse A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen The Dubliners by James Joyce The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals by Lord Byron Selected Letters by Jane Austen Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks discuss the importance of reading old books. They begin the conversation by addressing head on the idea that old books are irrelevant. They touch on the fact that when we use the phrase “old books” we mean not just any piece of literature from the past, but those which have stood the test of time. Don’t forget to check out our brand new podcast, which has its very own feed, The Well Read Poem. The House of Humane Letters spring classes are opening for registration, so head over there to check out what is coming up! Commonplace Quotes: So, when his Folly opens The unnecessary hells, A Servant when He Reigneth Throws the blame on some one else. Rudyard Kipling I am informed by philologists that the “rise to power” of these two words, “problem” and “solution” as the dominating terms of public debate, is an affair of the last two centuries, and especially of the nineteenth, having synchronised, so they say, with a parallel “rise to power” of the word “happiness”—for reasons which doubtless exist and would be interesting to discover. Like “happiness”, our two terms “problem” and “solution” are not to be found in the Bible—a point which gives to that wonderful literature a singular charm and cogency. . . . On the whole, the influence of these words is malign, and becomes increasingly so. They have deluded poor men with Messianic expectations . . . which are fatal to steadfast persistence in good workmanship and to well-doing in general. . . . Let the valiant citizen never be ashamed to confess that he has no “solution of the social problem” to offer to his fellow-men. Let him offer them rather the service of his skill, his vigilance, his fortitude and his probity. For the matter in question is not, primarily, a “problem”, nor the answer to it a “solution”. L. P. Jacks, Stevenson Lectures Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age. C. S. Lewis To Walter de la Mare by T. S. Elliot The children who explored the brook and found A desert island with a sandy cove (A hiding place, but very dangerous ground, For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove, And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree – The guardians of some long-lost treasure-trove) Recount their exploits at the nursery tea And when the lamps are lit and curtains drawn Demand some poetry, please. Whose shall it be, At not quite time for bed?… Or when the lawn Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn, The sad intangible who grieve and yearn; When the familiar is suddenly strange Or the well known is what we yet have to learn, And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change; When cats are maddened in the moonlight dance, Dogs cower, flitter bats, and owls range At witches’ sabbath of the maiden aunts; When the nocturnal traveller can arouse No sleeper by his call; or when by chance An empty face peers from an empty house; By whom, and by what means, was this designed? The whispered incantation which allows Free passage to the phantoms of the mind? By you; by those deceptive cadences Wherewith the common measure is refined; By conscious art practised with natural ease; By the delicate, invisible web you wove – The inexplicable mystery of sound. Book List: The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy L. Sayers The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis The Giver by Lois Lowry The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, our hosts explore the popular Agatha Christie mystery novel, Death on the Nile. This discussion will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read or listened to the book yet, stop this episode! But before we get to the book chat, we want to announce that our brand new The Well Read Poem podcast is now live! Also, head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to check out the Winter Webinar Series and Kelly Cumbee’s class on King Lear. Angelina, Cindy and Thomas begin the book discussion with a comparison of the authors known as the “Queens of Crime.” They also talk about the form of detective novels and how Christie in particular plays with the form to keep readers on their toes. Thomas notes the similarities between Death on the Nile with Henry James’ novel The Wings of the Dove. In addition to covering the plot of the story, our hosts walk us through the ways in which Christie writes in order to keep us guessing. If you haven’t heard it before, please go and listen to Episode 3: The Importance of the Detective Novel. Commonplace Quotes: The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them. Saki (pen name of H. H. Munro) Pious worshipers, whether or mortal or immortal artists, do their deities little honor by treating their incarnations as something too sacred for rough handling. They only succeed in betraying a fear lest the structure should prove flimsy or false. Dorothy Sayers “Once I went professionally to an archæological expedition–and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do–clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth–the naked shining truth.” Hercule Poirot, Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie When We First Met by Robert Bridges When first we met, we did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master; Of more than common friendliness When first we met we did not guess. Who could foretell the sore distress, This irretrievable disaster, When first we met? -- We did not guess That Love would prove so hard a master. Book List: Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki (H. H. Munro) The Toys of Peace by Saki The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Agatha Christie Ngaio Marsh Margery Allingham Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers The Wings of the Dove by Henry James Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse Tim Powers Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are excited to delve into the literary life of the mysterious Mr. Banks! But before we get started, we do want to let you know that we have posted the reading schedule for January-March, and you can view it on our Upcoming Events page. Also, Blue Sky Daisies Publishing is running a fun contest for kids involving our new Commonplace Books, so you will want to head over to their website and check that out! Finally, be looking out for The Well Read Poem podcast coming to a podcast app near you on January 18, 2021! Cindy begins the interview asking Thomas about his family background and the influence of his parents on his own reading life. He shares about many of the books he loved in childhood and how that shaped his tastes in literature. He also talks about how he approached school learning as opposed to his personal reading. Angelina asks Thomas to tell about how he fell in love with poetry and how he ended up going to college even though that was not his original goal. He also shares more about his reading as an adult, as well as his habit of commonplacing quotations. Commonplace Quotes: …but I was glad to sing again too; it had been a greater loss that I realized in that particular wintering which saw the waning of my voice. It wasn’t about the vanity of being able to trill out a fine song; it was about the joy of singing for its own sake. Katherine Ma Michael explains to Adam in the last book of Milton’s Paradise Lost, that tyranny exists in human society because every individual in such a society is a tyrant within himself, or at least is if he conforms acceptably to his social surroundings. Northrup Frye The Gods that are wiser than Learning But kinder than Life have made sure No mortal may boast in the morning That even will find him secure.   from “A Rector’s Memory” by Rudyard Kipling Time, Real and Imaginary by Samuel Taylor Coleridge On the wide level of a mountain’s head, (I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstripp’d the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas! is blind! O’er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last. Book List: Wintering by Katherine May The Double Vision by Northrup Frye Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carol Beatrix Potter books Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling Oxford Book of Children’s Verse Praeterita by John Ruskin The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun by J. R. R. Tolkien Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis The Saga of the Volsungs by Anonymous The Adventures of Tintin by Herge Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott Julius Caesar by Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare The Complete Poems of John Keats Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Hardy the Novelist by David Cecil The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Mishima 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

This week on The Literary Life podcast, we are bringing you our year end review of our own reading lives. Angelina kicks off the conversation by asking Thomas and Cindy how they would describe their reading lives this year. They talk about their favorites and highlights in books this year, as well as a few books that fell flat for them in 2020. They share about some authors they had not read before that they enjoyed this year. Finally, they tell us how they did with their own 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge lists. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming reading challenge for next year, the Literary Life 19 Books for 2021 challenge! If you missed it, you will want to go back and listen to the previous episode full of ideas for each challenge category. Also, there is still time to order Literary Life Commonplace Books before the new year and begin recording your plans, progress, and favorite quotations! Commonplace Quotes: Our fathers find their graves in our short memories and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Thomas Browne “But, my, my! We don’t learn easy!” he chuckled mournfully. “Not to learn how to live till we’re about ready to die, it certainly seems to me dang tough!”. . . “But, papa,” she said, to console him, “don’t you think maybe there isn’t such a thing as a ‘finish’, after all! You say perhaps we don’t learn to live till we die, but maybe that’s how it is after we die, too–just learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe through trouble again, even after that.” Booth Tarkington Charlotte Mason says that books are one way that we grow, not for ourselves, but beyond ourselves. Where does she suggest we start? Here’s her list of suitable “Instructors of Conscience”: 1.Poetry, preferably spending time with one poet 2. Shakespeare’s plays 3. Novels, with characters who “become our mentors or our warnings” 4. Ever-delightful essayists 5. History, including ancient history 6. Philosophy, to allow reason to work upon knowledge 7. Theology, including the Bible 8. The things of nature 9. Science, so that “we no longer conduct ourselves in this world of wonders like a gaping rustic at a fair” (p. 101) 10. Art, approached “with the modest intention to pay a debt…” 11. Sociology and Self-Knowledge Our aim is not to become know-it-alls, but rather to gain a sense of the Ought in all this, why we owe it to God and to the world to become people who observe carefully and think clearly, “with gentle, large, and humble thoughts.” And the ultimate result is not graduation, but gratitude, to the One who created “the beauty, glory, and fitness above our heads and about our feet and surrounding us on every side!” Anne White Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. Book List: (Amazon affiliate links) Urn Burial by Thomas Browne Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington Honest, Simple Souls: An Advent Meditation with Charlotte Mason by Anne White Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze Cover Her Face by P. D. James Margery Allingham Ngaio Marsh Towards Zero by Agatha Christie Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie Range by David Epstein The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer Poet’s Corner ed. by John Lithgow The Year of Our Lord 1943 by Alan Jacobs The Narnian by Alan Jacobs Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol The Stricken Deer by Lord David Cecil Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths series The Centre of Hilarity by Michael Mason The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery Tenebrae by Geoffrey Hill The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Circe by Madeline Miller G. R. Stirling Taylor William Morris by Alfred Noyes The Devil Takes a Holiday by Alfred Noyes The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amos Terry Pratchett The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Four Quartets by T. S. Elliot Good Things Out of Nazareth by Flannery O’Connor Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB