Reading Elia ...

Yesterday, I at last started reading The Essays of Elia - 

I sat in my chair like a gentle curate, placing more birch logs upon the fire  - 

My books murmured in their shelves around me - 

I read the first five essays, delighting in their curious foot notes, their lazy tipsy sentences, their quirky humanity - 

I especially enjoyed reading the fourth essay, Two Races of Men - 

Here Lamb laments the cruelty of borrowers of books - those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes - 

I thought of the shelves I'd plundered, the biographical dictionary freed from its bondage in a school cupboard, the foxed Penguin Dostoviesky hidden in a jacket pocket - 

Lamb would forgive me, I thought - I'd uncork a bottle of strong liquor - we'd see in the New Year together - 

23.30

Friday 6 November 2015

The Old School House 

East Stoke

Dorset