TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2022
“Let us take to heart the clear and unmistakable summons in the Gospel not to be led astray. Let us not listen to prophets of doom. Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions. Let us not follow the false “messiahs” who, in the name of profit, proclaim recipes useful only for increasing the wealth of a few, while condemning the poor to the margins of society. Instead, let us bear witness. Let us light candles of hope in the midst of darkness. Amid dramatic situations, let us seize opportunities to bear witness to the Gospel of joy and to build a fraternal world, or at least a bit more fraternal. Let us commit ourselves courageously to justice, the rule of law and peace, and stand always at the side of the weakest. Let us not step back to protect ourselves from history, but strive to give this moment of history, which we are experiencing, a different face.”
Pope Francis
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
It’s the birthday of novelist George Eliot (books by this author), born Mary Anne Evans in Warwickshire, England (1819).
Mary Anne’s appearance was another factor in her lack of self-confidence. Not many pictures exist of her; the one most relied upon in biographies depicts her with delicate features and sandy waves. Its popularity derives from the same reason that there are so few representations of Eliot: She was in fact notoriously unattractive, having inherited her father’s bulbous nose and prominent chin, with dark, straight hair her mother had often criticized. Henry James wrote that Eliot was “magnificently ugly, deliciously hideous,” but claimed that “in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the mind.”
after the death of Thackeray and Dickens, a popular literary magazine proclaimed Mary Anne Evans/ Marian Lewes/ George Eliot “the greatest living writer of English fiction … probably … the greatest woman who ever won literary fame, and one of the very few writers of our day to whom the name ‘great’ could be conceded with any plausibility.”
She said: “I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.”
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 