perusing commonplace books

THE Empress of the Sea Necklace

I used to keep a Commonplace Book - well I still do, but it's badly neglected. My grandmother kept one, but her books & diaries disappeared when she died - no doubt Grandfather had a hand in this. Volumes containing the printed word were spared & now belong to me, but anything handwritten wouldn't have registered as important to him and as he was keen, as indeed are so many men, on bonfires ( & the quest for a perfect lawn) I would put my money on the flames.

I differ - I would have traded in the print for the handwritten.

Whilst I was rummaging in my study trying to find 'Moments of Truth: Twelve Twentieth-century Women Writers' by Lorna Sage ( I've got my nose in Djuna Barnes 'Nightwood' - I like to do battle with it every now & then) I found my copy of 'A Gentleman's Commonplace Book' by John G. Murray. You'll probably be relieved to hear that I'm not going to bore you with tales of the much missed publishing house of John Murray and its connections with Katherine Mansfield, Byron et al, but as part of my '100 things to know about me', I'm going to quote some of my favourite quotations from this delightful volume.

1. 'Life is what happens while you are making other plans.' John Lennon

2. 'The advantage of being married to an archaeologist is that the older you get, the more interested he becomes.' Agatha Christie

3. 'If you have nothing good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.' Alice Roosevelt Longworth

4. 'Please don't talk while I'm interrupting.' Todd Rockefeller

5. 'A house unkempt cannot be as distressing as a life unlived.' Rose Macaulay

6. 'Facts are not born free and equal.' C.V.Wedgewood

7. 'Some callers can stay longer in an hour than others in a week.' Anon.

8. 'If you do not expect the unexpected you will never find it.' Heraclitus

9. 'He has not learnt the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.' Emerson

10. 'You must come again when you have less time.' Walter Sickert to Denton Welch

11.' There is less to him than meets the eye.' Tallulah Bankhead

12. 'The wider our experience the deeper our tolerance.' Anon

13. 'News is what governments don't want the public to know.' Donald Telford

14. 'One has to resign oneself to being a nuisance if one wants anything done.' Freya Stark (tell me about it)

15. 'We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we really need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.' Charles Kingsley.

Why of why, am I always so entertained by the impolite ones? I guess it must stem from my hatred of interruptions. I invariably become irritable & impatient. I wish my mind was fleet enough for wit - God was handing out slug brains on the day I was created.