Don't Chase Boys

 Or so suggests William Dean Howells in this quote taken from his novel of 1882, A Modern Instance. In this scene, a mother and father contemplate their daughter's engagement to a slick journalist.  We might think of their advice as the nineteenth century rendition of the more familiar parental refrain.   Sound advice?  Or perhaps not?  Twenty-first century parenting might sound a bit different...

"He's smart enough, "said Mrs. Gaylord, as before.

"M-yes, most too smart," replied her husband, a little more quickly than before. "He's smart enough even if she wasn't, to see from the start that she was crazy to have him, and that isn't the best way to begin life for a married couple, if  I'm a judge."

"It would killed her if she hadn't got him.  I could see 't was wearin' on her every day, more and more.  She used to fairly jump, every knock she'd hear at the door; and I know sometimes, when she was afraid he wasn't coming, she used to go out, in hopes't she sh'd meet him; I don't suppose she allowed to herself that she did it for that--Marcia's proud."

"M-yes," said the Squire, "she's proud.  And when a proud girl makes a fool of herself about a fellow, it's a matter of life and death with her.  She can't help herself.  She lets go everything."

---William Dean Howells, A Modern Instance  (1882)

Bonbons in Abundance

Today's quote is rich.

     "A few days later, a box arrived for Mrs. Pontellier from New Orleans.  It was from her husband.  It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits patés, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance. 
     "Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a box; she was quite used to receiving them when away from home,  The patés, and fruit were brought to the dining-room; the bonbons were passed around.  And the ladies, selecting with daity and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband in the world."

---Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Boundaries Part VI: Inconceivable

In this final selection for "Boundaries" I offer you the gift of a poem by Donald Hall from his collection, Without, which documents his wife Jane Kenyon's bout with leukemia and eventual death in 1995 at the age of forty-eight. Today's quote is the third section of "Song for Lucy." It features an object--a tourmaline ring--that underscores the boundary between life and death, the material embodiment of their desperate hope.

     Alone together a moment
on the twenty-second anniversary
     of their wedding,
he clasped her as she stood
     at the sink, pressing
into her backside, rubbing his cheek
     against the stubble
of her skull. He gave her a ring
     of pink tourmaline
with nine small diamonds around it.
     She put it on her finger
and immediately named it Please Don't Die.
     They kissed and Jane
whispered, "Timor mortis conturbat me."

--Donald Hall, Without, (1998)