emily-climbs-books library

Emily Climbs

1 The Poet The gods talk in the breath of the wold,
They talk in the shaken pine,
And they fill the reach of the old seashore
With dialogue divine;
And the poet who overhears
One random word they say
Is the fated man of men
Whom the ages must obey.
2 The Fringed Gentian Dean brought me a lovely portfolio from Paris, and I have copied my favourite verse from The Fringed Gentian on the inside of the cover. I will read it over every day and remember my vow to ‘climb the Alpine Path.’ I begin to see that I will have to do a good bit of scrambling, though I once expected, I think, to soar right up to ‘that far-off goal’ on shining wings.
  The Alhambra
 This evening after school Dean and I began to read The Alhambra over again, sitting on the stone bench in the garden. That book always makes me feel as if I had opened a little door and stepped straight into fairyland.
3 Peveril of the Peak Her hand touched–not the stair rail–merciful heavens, what was it?–something HAIRY–Emily’s shriek of horror froze on her lips–padding footsteps passed down the steps beside her; a flash of lightning came and at the bottom of the steps was a huge black dog, which had turned and was looking up at her before he was blotted out in the returning darkness of the soul more spacious than all that had gone before… The only thing she could think of at first was the horrible demon hound of the Manx Castle in Peveril of the Peak.
4 Macbeth
 She swears like a trooper, I’m told. Mrs. Mark Burns was in the doctor’s office one day and heard Ilse in the parlour say distinctly ‘out, damned Spot!’ probably to the dog.”
  Fairyland iii
 Come unto these yellow sands
Curtseyed when we have and kissed,
The wild winds whist,
Foot it featly here and there
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
6 Paradise Lost
 Elizabeth and Laura held long conferences over Emily’s clothes. She must have an outfit that would cast no discredit on the Murrays, but common sense and not fashion was to give the casting vote. Emily herself had no say in the matter. Laura and Elizabeth argued “from noon to dewy eve” one day as to whether Emily might have a taffeta silk blouse–Ilse had three–and decided against it, much to Emily’s disappointment.
  The Cat that Walked by Himself I’m like Kipling’s cat–I walk by my wild lone and wave my wild tail where so it pleases me. That’s why the Murrays look askance at me. They think I should only run with the pack.
  Laura Jean Libbey Don’t try to imitate Kipling. If you MUST imitate, imitate Laura Jean Libbey
  Queen Alexandra
 The pictures were in keeping, especially a chromo of Queen Alexandra, gorgeously bedizened with jewels, hung at such an angle that it seemed the royal lady must certainly fall over on her face. Not even a chromo could make Queen Alexandra ugly or vulgar, but it came piteously near it.
7 Lord Byron on his Deathbed
Queen Alexandra’s dog collar gets on my nerves,’ I said, ‘and Byron’s expression on his death-bed at Missolonghi hinders me from studying.
  David Copperfield
 Last night Aunt Ruth found me reading David Copperfield and crying over Davy’s alienation from his mother, with a black rage against Mr. Murdstone in my heart.
8 2 Kings 8:13
 “Ilse, you–you didn’t really do that?” she faltered. She KNEW Ilse hadn’t–she was SURE of it–but she wanted to hear her say so. To her surprise, a sudden blush swept over Ilse’s face. “Is thy servant a dog?” she said, rather confusedly.
9 The Tempest
:I really think it was that little devil of a May Hilson. She’d do anything and she was in the hall when I was flourishing the crayon. She’d ‘take the suggestion as a cat laps milk.’
10 Mr. Midshipman Easy
 “But this is such a LITTLE one,” pleaded Emily despairingly–and then laughed because it sounded so ridiculously like the nursemaid’s excuse in Midshipman Easy.
  A Captain of the Press Gang
 Emily was one of “the eternal slaves of beauty,” of whom Carman sings, who are yet “masters of the world.”
  Proverbs 24:3-4 “The time will come–the time will come,” said Cousin Jimmy encouragingly. “Wait a while–just wait a while. If we don’t chase things–sometimes the things following us can catch up. ‘Through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding is it established. And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches’–all precious and pleasant riches, Emily. Proverbs twenty-fourth, third and fifth.”
  A Compleat Angler
 This afternoon after school Teddy rowed Ilse and me across the harbour to pick May-flowers in the spruce barrens up the Green River. We got basketfuls, and spent a perfect hour wandering about the barrens with the friendly murmur of the little fir-trees all around us. As somebody said of strawberries so say I of Mayflowers, ‘God might have made a sweeter blossom, but never did.’
  Proverbs 31:23
 “‘Her clothing is silk and purple,’ I murmured, quoting the Bible verse simply because there is something in it that charms me. One couldn’t imagine a finer or simpler description of a gorgeously dressed woman.
  Song of Solomon 2:11
 “‘For lo, the winter is past: the rain is over and gone: the flowers appear on the earth: the time of the singing of birds has come.’
  Ecclesiastes 1:8
 Everything is so lovely–’the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing.’
  Proverbs 3:11 My ‘candle goeth not out by night’ now–at least not until quite late. Aunt Ruth lets me sit up because the terminal examinations are on.
12 Sappho
 She fell asleep in this rapt mood–dreamed that she was Sappho springing from the Leucadian rock–woke to find herself at the bottom of the haystack with Ilse’s startled face peering down at her.
16 The Lay of the Brown Rosary This afternoon, after I finished the pickles, I read several of Mrs. Browning’s poems. We have her in our English work this year, you know. My favourite poem is The Lay of the Brown Rosary–and I am much more in sympathy with Onora than Mrs. Browning was.
  The Children of the Abbey Speaking of books. I read an old one of Aunt Ruth’s the other day–The Children of the Abbey. The heroine fainted in every chapter and cried quarts if any one looked at her. But as for the trials and persecutions she underwent, in spite of her delicate frame, their name was Legion and no fair maiden of these degenerate days could survive half of them–not even the newest of new women. I laughed over the book until I amazed Aunt Ruth, who thought it a very sad volume.
18 Proverbs 15:17 “Better a dinner of herbs where Cousin Jimmy is than roast spare- ribs and Aunt Ruth therewith,” she said.
19 Song of Solomon 4:16
 “‘Awake thou north wind and come thou south. Blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.’
  Lady Giovanna
 “It was a framed copy of the ‘Portrait of Giovanna Degli Albizzi, wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni Ghirlanjo’–a Lady of the Quatro Cento. I brought it to Shrewsbury and have it hanging in my room. I love to look at the Lady Giovanna–that slim, beautiful young thing with her sleek coils of pale gold and her prim little curls and her fine, high-bred profile (DID the painter flatter her?) and her white neck and open, unshadowed brow, with the indefinable air over it all of saintliness and remoteness and fate–for the Lady Giovanna died young.
  Alaric in Italy
 “The things Mr. Carpenter said about Mrs. Hemans were not fit to write in a young lady’s diary. I suppose he is right in the main–yet I DO like some of her poems. Just here and there comes a line or verse that haunts me for days, delightfully. “The march of the hosts as Alaric passed” is one–though I can’t give any REASON for my liking it–one never CAN give reasons for enchantment…
  The Lady of Provence
 The sounds of the sea and the sounds of the night
Were around Clotilde as she knelt to pray
In a chapel where the mighty lay
On the old Provencal shore.
  Martha Finley Mr. Carpenter sneered at my ‘liking for slops’ and told me to go and read the Elsie books!
  Ode to a Nightingale Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas; in faerylands forlorn
  Enedymion
 He ne’er is crowned
With immortality who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.
  The Pilgrim’s Progress
 “Oh, it’s true. We must follow our ‘airy voices,’ follow them through every discouragement and doubt and disbelief till they lead us to our City of Fulfilment, wherever it may be.
20 Parkman
 Emily has those Parkmans yet–somewhat faded and frayed now, but dearer to her than all the other volumes in her library.
23 The Cat that Walked by Himself Chu-Chin wouldn’t hurt the cat–he merely wants to play with her, and the foolish old thing runs. Now, you know, when a cat runs, a dog simply can’t help chasing her. As Kipling tells us, he wouldn’t be a proper dog if he didn’t.
24 Parkman
 You know that story you told me about Parkman–that for years he was unable to write for more than five minutes at a time–that he took three years to write one of his books–six lines per day for three years. I shall always remember that when I get discouraged.