[We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts]

C.S. Lewis' conjecture on why we read:

"The nearest I have yet got to answer is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself. And even when we build disinterested fantasies, they are saturated with, and limited by, our own psychology. To acquiesce in this particularity on the sensuous level—in other words, not to discount perspective—would be lunacy. We should then believe that the railway line really grew narrower as it receded into the distance. But we want to escape the illusions of perspective on higher levels too. We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own."

(which is why i fear for this generation who doesn't read as much...have we stopped demanding windows, stopped desiring to 'imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts?' oh, i pray not!)

Eitherways, this weekend I was re-reading the third in the Melendy quartet by Elisabeth Enright, a phenomonal author. Her books are indescribably well-worded with normal people/children doing basically ordinary things but also capturing all of the things about life that we love but don't notice-- like how you see crazy colors & circles when you rub your eyes a lot, etc.

All wonderful books send this message to my brain which then for some reason shoots the info to my salivary glands that this book is good which in turn causes them to produce this reading-related saliva that's warm & merry-happy & completely unique & only comes when I read something excellent.

It's weird, but so so marvelous. Sharing that online was totally socially unacceptable too, I daresay :P

Also, a daydream I had today was about living in the Library of Congress in a fort made out of books--

Atlases for the roof (caroline thought up that bit of constructive genius:), C.S. Lewis as windowframes, an eclectic mix of Plato, Aristotle, and children's authors like Roald Dahl for the ladder, Flannery O'Connor as the floor (trample;) and much other literary architecture.

One of Jesus' names & manifestations is as the Word of God. God spoke the world into existence & gifted humans with speech. As always, all good things trace back to God.

[Soli Deo Gloria.]