#midsummernd2026 Oberon: But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passèd on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. (II.1.165-168)

LYSANDER. The will of man is by his reason swayed ... Reason becomes the marshal to my will And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook Love's stories written in love's richest book. Act II s2 #MidsummerND2026 Unaware that enchantment masquerades as Reason. Uh oh. (2/2)

#MidsummerND2026 Day 6, 7/18- Act II s2 TITANIA. Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence to end of sc. HERMIA. Either death or you I'll find immediately. [Exit] *RSC stage note: snake is actually her stocking! (1/2)

OBERON. ...a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness Act II s1 #MidsummerND2026 #enchantment Where else did we encounter the viola tri-color pansy? #prousttogether ? #Proust (2/2)

Me too- thanks for reading with me! "In a trance of voluptuous anguish, and for the fifth time, Olivia read David Copperfield. Her throat ached. Loudly she sniffed. ... Agony sank to mere discomfort. Relief came. It was over." 72 Invitation to the Waltz (1932) by Rosamond #Lehmann #Woolf adjacent

Let me be just her stand-by, her perching-place; never - never her cage! P3C7 In Chancery #Forsytesaga26 Young Jolyon learns after 2 wives...and knowing himself finally. #Partnership

Grateful for the humor in Shakespeare & Dickens! #Dickens2026_DC (Only a few more chapters remaining in David Copperfield slow-read.)

“After that painful scene the quiet of Nature was wonderfully poignant.” Nature is a balm throughout this short chapter and Galsworthy shows his reverence for it by capitalizing the word. #forsytesaga26

Thou rememb’rest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea maid’s music.” #midsummernd2026

#Dickens2026_DC Day 58, 7/16- Ch. LX. Agnes. "Softened regrets they might be, teaching me what I had failed to learn when my younger life was all before me, but not the less regrets." Day 59, 7/17- Ch. LXI. I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents. Nb. That equal funds go towards the "deserving old."

#Dickens2026_DC Day 56, 7/14- Ch. LVIII. Absence. Day 57, 7/15- Ch. LIX. Return. "Their self-forgetfulness charmed me."

#Dickens2026_DC Day 54, 7/12- Ch. LVI. The New Wound and the Old. "she sat like a stone figure." Day 55, 7/13- Ch. LVII. The Emigrants. "Enough of delay, enough of disappointment, enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new." #Hope through #Emigration

#Dickens2026_DC Day 52, 7/10- Ch. LIV. Mr Micawber's Transactions. "height of earthly bliss" Day 53, 7/11- Ch. LV. Tempest. "As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbling into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town."

#MidsummerND2026 Day 5, 7/17- Act II s1 from 148 OBERON. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grave to end of sc. (1/2)

HELENA Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase #MidsummerND2026 II,1,230-231 William Shakespeare Arden 1979

. . . the spring, the summer, The chiding autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. #midsummerND2026 Act II s1 (111-14)

#MidsummerND2026 Bottom: That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms. I will condole in some measure. To the rest. Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant. (I.2.21-24) I wonder if Sh. wrote this with a real actor in mind.

TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy, And never since the middle summer's spring Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, ... To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. Act II s1 #MidsummerND2026 Sides called in the quarrel. (2/2)

#MidsummerND2026 Day 4, 7/16- Act II s1 Location- a wood near Athens. ROBIN. How now, spirit, whither wander you? to 147 TITANIA. We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exeunt] (1/2)

#NYRBWomen26 My favourite line this week from The Sweet Dove Died: "She herself preferred crème de menthe; she had changed into a green chiffon dress which gave her a feeling for that drink."

She began to long to lean against something cold. A nude female figure in marble by the door looked the very thing. She went & laid her cheek against one thigh. 135 Invitation to a Waltz #Lehmann Olivia being Olivia; Lehmann letting her id escape the stifling English Properness! #Forsytesaga26

Absolutely! For Rose Macaulay, I can highly recommend THE WORLD MY WILDERNESS, which I think is one of @iammilliam.bsky.social's favourites, too! 💛

#MidsummerND2026 Is this the most musically poetic play we've read? Hermia: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. Helena: Oh, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! Hermia: I give him curses, yet he gives me love. Helena: Oh, that my prayers could such affection move! (I.1.198-201)

BOTTOM. I will roar an 'twere any nightingale. ... What beard were I best to play it in? Act I s2 #MidsummerND2026 The thespian fun begins! (2/2)

#MidsummerND2026 Day 3, 7/15- Act I s2 QUINCE. Is all our company here? to end of sc. BOTTOM. Enough. Hold or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt] (1/2)

I should try that- my mind has been wandering often as I try to read Invitation to the Waltz which pales in comparison to Dusty Answer and A Note (I'm reading in chronological order which may be a mistake with this writer.) Thanks for tip! I have LIFEFORMS on cd.

Compelled me to open up the Enard novel that starts with a soldier, exhausted and alone; to smell the grittiness underlying Galsworthy's dreamy description.

Just read a commenter explaining that British children's top three fears in the early eighties were: rabies, quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle. This is TRUE.

These were also a child's fears in New York City at that time! (And we had very little access to these 3 in Manhattan!!!) #NYC #Childhood

A trilogy of sorts. cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thu...

Death and beauty: “Consciousness came once more with a sense of the violet dusk outside, and a rising blood-red crescent moon” #forsytesaga26

HELENA Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. #Midsummernd2026 Act I s1 (234-35)

the cabin will protect you with its childhood, you'll be caressed with its memories. The Deserters (2020) #MathiasEnard Translated (2025) by #CharlotteMandell #Forsytesaga26 #BoerWar

Those things he used to do, though far and faint, were more distinct--walking past the foot of the old steps at Harrow...a smell of earth--the mushroom house! Robin Hill! Burying old Balthasar in the leaves! Dad! Home... P3C4 Over the River In Chancery #Forsytesaga26 #Soldier #Rushofthoughts #Jolly

“This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue.” #midsummernd2026

#MidsummerND2026 Day 2, 7/14- Act I s1 from 130 LYSANDER. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? to end of sc. HELENA. To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit] *All those well-known lines in one scene! "course of true love never did run smooth"

Leonora appears to be the child of idle, conceited people of fancy continental habits and untidy morals, small aristocrats who are as different from Pym’s own solidly upright bourgeois family as a Sèvres porcelain cup from a Denby mug.

They do not rebel or rail against their fates, for these are comedies, after all. What fissures that open between the characters close at the novels' end; if dissonant notes are struck, they resolve on the final page into a consonant chord.

But he smothered the sarcastic saying on his lips. Tenderness to the young was perhaps the most scared article of his belief. P3C3 Richmond Park In Chancery #Forsytesaga26 'I never stop anyone from doing anything,' he said. #YoungJolyon #Holly joins her siblings

„Quelle für die Rahmenhandlung sind Chaucer, Knight's Tales und Plutarch, Grosse Griechen und Römer. Die Amazonenkönigin Hippolyta (Antiope) wurde von Theseus, dem Fürsten von Athen, geraubt und geehelicht, was zum Krieg der Amazonen gegen Athen führte.“ ~Frank Günther Theseus’ abduction of Antiope

#MidsummerND2026 Day 1, 7/13/26- Act I s1 Location. Athens. THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in Another moon. to line 129 EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you. [Exeunt all but Lysander & Hermia]

Thank you. Ready for fairyland!

Been a million years since I read this in high school! Glad to re-read with my mom (finishing up #AsYou2026 (was traveling and away from her book)) & book friends!

Perhaps she was a Madame Vauquer in a previous life? #BalzacTogether

Wood, night, imagination, dream. These are the coordinates of the second form of sight…magical thinking. ... Magical thinking answers a deep human need. It is a way of making sense of things that would otherwise seem painfully arbitrary--things like love and beauty. (2/2)

#MidsummerND2026 begins July 13, 2026- A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's truly essential works…nowhere else is his double vision more apparent than in this play’s movement between city & the wood, day & night, reason & imagination, waking life & dream. RSC intro. (1/2)

Madamee Lamotte put down her cup. Indeed! What tragic things there were! The entire absence of sentiment in her inspired a queer species of contempt in Soames. P3C2 In Chancery #Forsytesaga26 Cold-blooded, both of them.

Yes, and I've always loved cemeteries...especially in New Orleans.

#Hamlet #Shakespeare #Petard

Some things are evergreen. Powerful short chapter. “This was —egad—Democracy! It stank, yelled, was hideous!” “…they’re getting so damned cheeky —all radicals and socialists.” #forsytesaga26