And this song's for you

[sovay]

Me: Congratulations, it's midnight and you're already out of the shower; you're not in the grip of writing or reviewing; you have managed not to start a new book or movie; you should go to bed.

Also me: *immediately falls down a two-hour research K-hole on someone else's behalf*

"The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School," said Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, "the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and now in despondency!"

"Ah!" returned the other, sighing: "yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own."

"And why not?"

"God knows. It was my way, I suppose."

—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Comments

[cmcmck]

Old Shrewsbury school is just up the road from us! :o)

[sovay]

Old Shrewsbury school is just up the road from us!

Hah! Say hello to it for me. (That should confuse it.)

[nineweaving]

What a singularly apposite quote! Do not, I beg you, follow the rest of his life course.

Nine

[sovay]

What a singularly apposite quote!

It was of course not true in the strict sense in high school, when I first read the novel for English class, but it has always stuck with me.

Do not, I beg you, follow the rest of his life course.

I am doing my best. So far I seem to have avoided having (or being) a double.

[ethelmay]

Apropos of nothing in particular, I was reminded of you today when reading one of the Abbey Girls books (a rather bonkers but fun girls' series spanning 1914 to 1957), in which the beautiful half-Italian ward of one of the main characters sings Silvy, the Female Highwayman at a concert (in her rich contralto), and subsequently reprises the song at a Camp Fire Girls meeting the next evening.

[sovay]

the beautiful half-Italian ward of one of the main characters sings Silvy, the Female Highwayman at a concert (in her rich contralto), and subsequently reprises the song at a Camp Fire Girls meeting the next evening.

Thank you!

My mother was a Camp Fire Girl.