(no subject)

New Thing(s) I Learned:

Mark Twain's autobiography has never been close to being published in it's entirety. He left rather eccentric margin notes on what is rather a huge manuscript, directing, for example, that some of it not be published for 100 years and other parts not for 500. The content of the three published editions depends greatly on the viewpoint of the editor as to which parts they thought should be included.

While my car was being smogged I wandered over to Anglin's Second Hand. I found H.G. Wells' Outline of History for 3 bucks, and for another dollar I picked up Middlemarch by George Eliot. Mostly just because George Eliot was a cross dresser back when the implications of cross dressing were more interesting, or so I thought. My brother tells me I have her confused with someone 2 generations later, but the matter is still open. I'm still working my way through the earnest academical commentary of Middlemarch. And one of the analyses of the main character got me thinking. I've been feeling kind of alone sometimes. The implication of the critic is that when you are younger you are fairly self-centered, perhaps we feel more close to people because they are furniture in our little universe. When you get older and begin to see people as being in worlds of their own, they don't seem as close any more. If this is the case, perhaps when you have the love of a child, you can get a bit of that back because you become furniture in their universe. Perhaps even a whole suite.