Tuesday

Oct. 6, 1998

The Egg

by Clarence Day

TUESDAY 10/6

Today's Reading: "The Egg" by Clarence Day from The Norton Book of Light Verse (1986).

It's the anniversary of the first talking feature film, THE JAZZ SINGER, in 1927 in New York.

It's the anniversary of PEN, the international writer's group, founded in London in 1921, PEN standing for "Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors, and Novelists."

It's Carole Lombard's birthday, born in 1908, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as Jane Alice Peters.

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer CAROLINE GORDON.

It's the anniversary of Charlotte Bronte's novel, JANE EYRE, published in London in 1847, the story of Jane, the governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester. She and Rochester fall in love, but on their wedding morning it comes out that he's already married and keeps his mad wife in the attic of his mansion. The book was an instant best-seller in Britain, though some criticized what they called the story's immorality. In the preface to the second edition, Bronte wrote: "Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. These deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: appearance should not be mistaken for truth."

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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