Review: "An Eye for an Eye" By Anthony Trollope

This is my fourth Trollope, and while not the best I've read (that distinction goes to The Way We Live Now, so far), it was a good story.  I have found that Trollope is a story-teller, and a very good one at that.  An Eye for an Eye, written in 1879, is actually a tale that is much more characteristic of those written by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy or even George Eliot.  An Eye for an Eye is a tragedy in every sense of the word, and you can see the tragic ending coming like an on-rushing freight train.

Without giving away too much of the plot of this slim little novel (just 201 pages), the gist of the tale revolves around a handsome young Army officer, Fred Neville, whose regiment has been recently billeted in a remote station along the Irish coast.  During the course of his jaunts about the wild Irish countryside, Fred meets a beautiful young Irish Catholic woman, Kate O'Hara.  Concurrent with his Army duties in Ireland, Fred is selected by his elderly uncle, Lord Scroope, to become the heir apparent and inherent the Scroope wealth, lands, and title.  Suffice it to say that his uncle is not particularly interested in Fred bringing a young Irish Catholic woman back to England as the future Lady Scroope.  With the dilemma of both loving the young woman and recognizing the responsibility to his family, Fred takes actions and makes promises to Kate and his uncle that creates an impossible situation that can only end badly for everyone.

In An Eye for an Eye, Trollope definitely puts his reader 'front-and-center' with many of the social issues of the day, including (1) Catholic vs Protestant, (2) Anglo vs Irish, (3) class differences, and, of course, the (4) gender and sexuality issues that dominate the relationship between Fred and Kate.

Like each of the Trollope novels I've read to date, this was an engaging and well-written story that I quite enjoyed.  I guess I really don't know why I don't read Trollope more often.

***

An Eye for an Eye
By Anthony Trollope
Oxford University Press
Softcover, 256 pp.

Review: "Middlemarch--A Study of Provincial Life" By George Eliot

I have just finished reading Middlemarch, and this pretty much completes my reading of George Eliot's major works.  Middlemarch truly is quite the sublime novel from start to finish.  At first blush one has this sense of simply being immersed in a rather quiet and pastoral story, but there's really very much more going on here as one turns the pages.It is a story of rural England during the period of great reforms in politics, religion, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and even transportation.  Mostly though, it is the story of human beings, and what it means to be human.

Eliot gives us a wonderful cast of characters in Middlemarch, and they cut across all class lines from the landed gentry, tradesmen and women, and the simple country rustics that work the land and work in the manor houses.  While perhaps Dickensian in cast, the peoples that populate the novel are not laden with the satire or comedy of a Dickens or Thackeray novel.  No, these are all people that we can relate to even in this modern age.  These are your neighbors, some rich, some poor; these are your physicians; your pastors; your shopkeepers, and so forth.  The people of Middlemarch are your family, friends, and acquaintances and become even more so as the novel moves along.

As much as I truly enjoyed the plots in Eliot's Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner, I'd have to say that Eliot "kicked it up a notch" in Middlemarch.  This is a stately, sedate, sophisticated, and complexly elegant novel.  It really does demand the reader's full dedication and attention as it is read too, much like I found when I read her last novel Daniel Deronda.  Boy, is it worth the extra effort, and one can't help but find oneself savoring the pacing and structure of the novel as Eliot lays out the tale.

Eliot herself compares one of her primary characters, Dorothea Brooke, to St. Theresa de Avila.  She is a genuinely decent human being who very much cares for the welfare of all of those around her, including even the man she marries early in the novel--Edward Casaubon. Interestingly, at least to me, that through the novel there was an almost tidal 'ebb and flow' of how the reader viewed many of the characters.  The one exception was Dorothea, as she always stayed above the fray and maintains her 'saintliness'.  I suppose that some could say that maybe Dorothea's saintliness was laid on a bit thick, but I think the character of Dorothea and her actions are important in helping to bring home the novel's overall message and moral impact.  I think that this was also true in different degrees with some of the other characters, such as Tertius Lydgate, Rev. Farebrother, Caleb Garth, his wife, and their daughter Mary Garth.  Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the novel though is Eliot's ability to make her readers empathize and even sympathize with the characters that are not so likeable, e.g., Bulstrode or Casaubon.

Finally, I have to again say that somehow I really think that George Eliot had to have been some sort of inspiration for, or influence upon, the later works of Thomas Hardy.  I really do see a somewhat similar approach to realism and naturalism in the works of these two important authors.  While Eliot's novels don't showcase the impact of Fate or Chance perhaps as prominently as Hardy, they both inject a big dose of reality in the day-to-day lives of their characters.  Bad things do happen to good and bad people alike, just like Life.  The beauty of Middlemarch is that it depicts the indomitable Human spirit at its finest (and, dare I say, at its worst at times too).  Those who wish to do good can; and for those who don't, well they get caught out.

Great book!  I highly recommend reading this novel.  I have to be honest and fess up that I tried to read this book off and on for 20+ years, and it just never took with me.  I was finally able to sink my teeth (and brain) into it and just let myself become immersed in the peoples and landscape of Middlemarch, and what a profoundly satisfying and enriching experience it has been.  In all reality, I think that I am at a point in my reading and comprehension these days that I was finally ready for what Virginia Woolf described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."  I do look forward to re-reading it again at some point and thinking about the messages and lessons of this rich novel that George Eliot has crafted and left us.

For me, now it is on to a new translation of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (translation by Ms. Julie Rose, 2008).  I'm also reading a new translation of the plays of the 5th century B.C. ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles.  This 2011 translation and adaptation has been done by Robert Bagg and James Scully.  Too much good stuff!

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"The round downy chicks peeping out from under their mother's wing never touched Hetty with any pleasure; that was not the sort of prettiness she cared about, but she did care about the prettiness of the new things she would buy for herself at Treddleston fair with the money they fetched.  And yet she looked so dimpled, so charming, as she stooped down to put the soaked bread under the hencoop, that you must have been a very acute personage indeed to suspect her of that hardness."

My teaser is taken from George Eliot's first novel, Adam Bede, published in 1859, and is well known for its realism, its portrayal of the lives of the country rustics in late-18th century England.  I have been reading the novels of George Eliot all summer, and I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying Adam Bede.  I am reading it with one of my on-line groups on Goodreads.
 
[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "Two on a Tower" By Thomas Hardy

Well, I am sad to say, but I am slowly winding up my summer of reading the literary works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.  I recently finished Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower, one of his more obscure novels. Two on a Tower was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and then published in book-form in 1882, and was categorized by Hardy as a novel of "Romance and Fantasies."   I had the devil of a time finding a copy of this novel, and short of ordering a brand-new copy from an on-line source, I continued to diligently search the shelves of every used bookstore I encountered.  On a recent business trip to Arizona, I finally found a nearly new copy for six dollars!

In my opinion, Hardy has crafted an incredibly fascinating plot for the novel, and at times it reminded me of the plotting of Wilkie Collins.  Also, the novel pivots almost entirely around just two characters, versus the more normal Hardyan plot with a larger number of country rustics intermingled with the protagonists.  In Two on a Tower, much of the plot is solely focused on young Swithin St. Cleeve and the older Lady Constantine.  St. Cleeve is a twenty-year old consumed with becoming a famous professional astronomer, who has been surreptitiously using an old tower on a hill in an isolated portion of Lady Constantine's absent husband's estate.  Lady Viviette Constantine is a beautiful dark-haired woman, nearly ten years older than Swithin, who has been left alone for several years by her husband who is off adventuring on safari in Africa.

Over time the two meet and young St. Cleeve introduces Lady Constantine to the majesty and awe of the night sky above the rural Wessex countryside.  Hardy's portrayal of the stars and planets, through Swithin's descriptions and patient tutelage of Lady Constantine as they huddle on top of the tower with his telescope, is one of the truly unique and particularly beautiful elements of this novel.  It really illustrates Hardy's fascination and reverence for the natural world around him.  Hardy obviously spent a lot of time researching the astronomical portions of his plot, as these sections are extremely well written and factually correct; both the descriptions of the night sky, and techniques that they use to view it, as well as the equipment Swithin constructs in the tower observatory.  Fundamentally then, it seems to me, the novel is a story of the relationship of the human species with the universe in which we reside, and a relationship at its most elemental level--the Love between two humans.

Ah, but it is a plot written by Hardy; therefore this growing love between Swithin and Lady Constantine must of necessity become complicated, doesn't it?  Well, yes it does, and here's where the similarities to Collins crop up.  There are mysterious reports concerning Lady Constantine's missing husband; Lady Constantine's scheming older brother, Louis, shows up; and the pompous Bishop of Melchester, Lord Helmsdale, begins meddling in everyone's affairs.  Oh, it gets good now, real good!  I couldn't put it down at all from about the novel's mid-point on.  I also found myself becoming quite attached to the characters, what few there are; and because there aren't that many, Hardy does a superb job of fleshing them out and bringing them to life on the page.

I want to share just a bit of Hardy's beautiful prose from the novel with you.  This is from a scene, late at night at the height of a violent windstorm that catches Lady Constantine and Swithin atop the old tower attempting to perform some astronomical observations

"Under any other circumstances Lady Constantine might have felt a nameless fear in thus sitting aloft on a lonely column, with a forest groaning under her feet, and paleolithic dead men feeding its roots; but the passionate decision stirred her pulses to an intensity beside which the ordinary tremors of feminine existence asserted themselves in vain.  The apocalyptic effect of the scene surrounding her was, indeed, not inharmonious, and afforded an appropriate background to her intentions.

After what seemed to her an interminable space of time, quick steps in the staircase became audible above the roar of the firs, and in a few instants St. Cleeve again stood by her."

Wow!  Was that not just awesome?  In just a few sentences, Hardy has managed to establish a connection between the raw power of Nature, the hundreds of generations of humans that have occupied this ancient landscape, and the genuine and palpable love that these two beings on the tower share for one another.  Great stuff, and vintage Thomas Hardy!  Find yourself a copy of this wonderful novel, and put it on your shelf and wait for a rainy day with no interruptions.  You'll soon find yourself completely swept away and engrossed in the lives of Swithin St. Cleeve and his love, the beautiful Lady Constantine.  This was a terrific novel, and I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Post Script--I actually found two copies of the novel, and presented one to my elderly father.  He has been a quite serious amateur astronomer most of his life.  He began reading it the day I gave it to him.  I can't wait to hear his reaction when he's finished.

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"Some women's love of being loved is insatiable: and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's licence to receive it.  But you are so straight-forward, Jude, that you can't understand me!"

My teaser was taken from page 256 of my current read-- Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy, Everyman's Library hardcover edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992, pp. 519.

I am a first-time reader of Jude the Obscure, and I can tell you that it is a devastatingly powerful book!  Because of the reviews and criticism that Hardy received upon the release of "Jude" in 1895, he stopped writing fiction completely and spent the remaining thirty-three years of his life concentrating on his poetry.  The cover illustration is a tie-in to the film adaptation Jude (1996) directed by Michael Winterbottom, starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet.

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "Daniel Deronda" By George Eliot

I have just finished a leisurely eight-week group-read of George Eliot's last completed novel, Daniel Deronda, with my 'Anglophiles Anonymous' group on Shelfari.com.  I very much enjoyed the experience of reading and discussing the book, section by section, each week.  I am convinced that I got so much more out of it this way than if I'd read it by myself.  Without the incentive of the group-read, I am also quite sure that this is a novel that I probably would not have even acquired, much less read.

The novel, first published in 1876, is quasi-Tolstoyan in scope and complexity.  It has a whole raft of fairly interesting characters that border on being 'Dickensian.'  While written in her characteristic style of 'social realism,' Eliot uses some quite elegant and sophisticated literary and plot devices too.  For example, she is adept at using flashbacks to bounce characters and events back and forth in time.  She also runs dual storylines through much of the novel, that are quite divergent at the beginning, but close in a relatively satisfying convergence near the end.  Her use of allusion, allegory, and metaphor is deft and appropriate.  Eliot, in writing this novel, is clearly didactic, without being overtly 'preachy' or academic like Tolstoy (e.g., Anna Karenina) or Victor Hugo (Les Miserables).

In some respects, for much of the first half of the novel I found myself more interested in the character and plot-threads associated with Gwendolen Harleth versus that of the eponymous Daniel Deronda.  Gwendolen reminded me, at various times, of Jane Austen's 'Emma' or even Eliot's own 'Dorothea Brooke' (Middlemarch).  With the convergence of Gwendolen's storyline with that of Daniel's, I did find that Daniel's story and character became much more compelling and interesting.

All in all, this is a novel about double-standards, redemption and balance.  Eliot provides a fascinating portrait of the situation and lives of English and European Jews during the Victorian period, and particularly the nascent proto-Zionist movement and her interpretation of the Kaballistic philosophy.  Eliot balances this portrait with a similar examination of the ways and social mores of the well-established English upper class.  Eliot pulls off this balancing act superbly through having the novel's primary male protagonist, Daniel Deronda, having a foot in the both worlds.  I was also completely taken with the intelligent young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth.  From her introduction, early on in the novel, I eagerly looked forward to each of her appearances.  The Meyrick family, especially Mrs. "Little Mother" Meyrick and her vivacious daughters, are splendidly wonderful characters as well.  The novel also contains some characters that you simply love to hate, and others that you hate to love.  Ambiguity and shades of gray abound.

In conclusion, I enjoyed reading George Eliot's last novel, Daniel Deronda, very much.  I can say, however, that it did not affect me in the same visceral and emotional sort of way that her earlier books have; specifically, The Mill on the Floss, or Silas Marner.  I could also tell that writing Daniel Deronda and telling this story was somehow quite important to George Eliot, and for that reason alone I am glad that I read it.  While perhaps not as monumental as her Middlemarch masterpiece, this is a big and meaty novel and well worth reading.  Four out of five stars for me.

***

[My review is based upon the 2003 Penguin Classics soft-cover edition of Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot, 850 pages.  The photograph that I have included in the review is that of the actress Romola Garai in the character of 'Gwendolen Harleth' in the superb 2002 BBC film adaptation of Daniel Deronda.]

Review: "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" By Thomas Hardy

I have almost finished reading much of the major fiction of Thomas Hardy this summer.  I just completed a re-reading of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  As I recall, the last time I read this novel was in the mid-1970s while I was in the U.S. Coast Guard.  All I can say is that this has to have been one of the most intense novels that I believe that I've ever read.  Reading this book rivals the literary and emotional experiences I have had with Hardy's The Return of the Native, Charlotte Bronte's Villette, Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, and Tolstoy's masterpiece, Anna Karenina.  In my opinion, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of the monumental literary achievements of the entire Victorian Era.  A stunning novel!

A tragedy in six parts, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is set in Hardy's fictional Wessex in southwestern England.  The novel follows the beautiful Tess Durbeyfield from the age of about sixteen until she is about twenty or twenty-one.  The story's plot revolves around Tess and the two men that feature prominently in her life; the first is Alec Stoke-d'Urberville; and the second, Angel Clare, is the youngest son of a country parson.  Like in all of Hardy's novels, names are everything.  For example, it turns out that even Tess's name, 'Durbeyfield,' is simply a corruption, over time, of the name of her noble d'Urberville ancestors who now reside in their stone vaults in the church-yard in Kingsbere.

With all the recent reviews of Hardy’s novels that I have written this summer I am sure that I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but Hardy’s descriptions of the pastoral lives of the Wessex simple folk are ever so beautiful and enchanting.  With his descriptions I always feel like I am right there experiencing the moment with the characters of the novel.  Even in the scenes loaded with human drama and pathos there is always the touchstone to the natural environment.  Hardy’s literary signature seems to be his ability to relate, and even bind together, the natural environment with the environment of real human emotion.

This is a novel of double-standards and sacrifice and the young and noble Tess is the unfortunate recipient of the negative consequences associated with the actions and feelings of both Alec and Angel.  Tess becomes, if you will, the Magdalen continually seeking redemption from those who probably can't, or won't grant it.  Based upon Hardy's own view of the Victorian society, it was highly unlikely that the Magdalen could be absolved or redeemed, and I believe that that realization must have affected him profoundly.  In reading this novel, I have come to believe that Hardy loved Tess more than any other woman that he "invented" and wrote about; you can almost feel his love for this "pure woman" emanating from each page.  Hardy wrote in one of his notebooks in 1895 that “Love lives on propinquity, but dies of contact.”  For me, this relatively short sentence completely illuminates the common thread and theme that links every one of Hardy’s novels and much of his poetry.

Symbolism, visual imagery, and allusion are all deftly used by Hardy as this 'folk tale' is recounted; and at times it does feel like a nightmarish and horrifying folk tale told around the fire on a dark and stormy night.  There are numerous references to Milton's Paradise Lost, the Book of Genesis, and several of the Pauline letters of The New Testament.  This is a harsh and unforgiving world that Tess finds herself in, with 'Punishment' the watchword and little in the way of 'Hope' or 'Happiness' looming on her horizon.  Mixed with the religious, there are also numerous examples of pagan symbolism and rituals; all of which contribute to the colored pigments that Hardy has applied to the canvas of Tess's life as the sacrificial victim of her society.

Having now read most of Hardy's novels, and a good number of his short stories, I can make the observation that Hardy likes to include a 'witch' in his tales.  There are good witches and bad witches, but they are all here in Hardy’s Wessex, including: 'Bathsheba Everdene' (Far From the Madding Crowd); 'Eustacia Vye' (The Return of the Native); 'Lucetta Le Sueur' or ‘Elizabeth Jane’ (The Mayor of Casterbridge); 'Felice Charmond' (The Woodlanders); 'Tess'; and, finally, 'Sue Bridehead' and ‘Arabella Donn’ (Jude the Obscure).  Think about it for a momentl; but each of these women absolutely bewitches and intoxicates one or more of the male characters in each of the novels; generally with tragic and disastrous results.  And Tess is no different.  Both Alec and Angel are completely besotted with Tess, and almost continually blame her for being a 'temptress'; the 'Eve' to their 'Adam.' 

I have to say that both, Alec and Angel, infuriated me to no end throughout much of the novel.  While Tess, with her simple ways and innocence, makes bad decisions (with Fate's kind help, I might add), these two men are the basest, most cowardly and hypocritical, and end up becoming two of the most despicable male protagonists in fiction, in my opinion.  Each of these men, at numerous times, could well have done the right thing and brought Tess salvation and full redemption, as well as given her the love and affection that she so desired and deserved.

Finally, even when Angel Clare comes to his senses and realizes what Tess is, and what she means to him, it is Tess, herself, that says, near the end, "It is too late...Too late, too late!" 

For Tess it truly is too late!

***

Now it is on to Jude the Obscure.

[My review was based upon the Everyman's Library hardcover edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, published in 1991 by Alfred A.Knopf.  The black and white photograph accompanying this review was taken by me on Christmas Eve in 2006 in a cornfield near my daughter's home in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Somehow, this image reminds me of the fields and tree-lined borders of Hardy's Wessex countryside.  'Click' on the image for a larger view.  Enjoy!]

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"The mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they walked along together to the spot where the cows lay, often made him think of the Resurrection hour.  He little thought that the Magdalen might be at his side."

My teaser was taken from page 154 of my current read-- Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, Everyman's Library hardcover edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, pp. 464.

I haven't read this book in years, and I am truly enjoying my re-read of this amazing novel!  Reading "Tess" is kind of like standing on a hill and watching two trains speeding toward one another at breakneck speed on the same track; you just know that something very bad is going to happen!  One of Hardy's best!

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "Silas Marner" By George Eliot

If you are looking for a fast and thoroughly delightful and entertaining summer read, I would like to recommend George Eliot's slim novel, Silas Marner -- The Weaver of Raveloe.  I kept this next to my bedside, and read a few chapters each night; but it could just as easily be read in a few hours by a dedicated reader.

Eliot finished the novel in about six months and it was first published in April 1861.  She wrote the novel during the time period that she was researching and writing her much larger work Romola.  Interestingly, I would wager that over the years that more people have read and enjoyed Silas Marner than have read Romola, a much more complex and complicated novel that demands so much of the reader.

This little novel reads a lot like a fairy tale, or folk tale, where the eponymous linen weaver Silas Marner is falsely accused of a crime, and has to leave his home, his betrothed, Sarah, and all of his friends.  Silas leaves Lantern Yard and moves far away to the village of Raveloe and lives quietly by himself in a small house in the forest weaving fine linen cloths for sale.  He becomes well known for the quality of his weaves, and somewhat for his homeopathic abilities as a healer.  Rather than becoming a member of the community, Silas becomes reclusive and is largely shunned by his neighbors.  He lives frugally and hoards the money he earns through the sale of woven linens.  Eventually he has a literal 'pot-of-gold' that he counts and fondles, and then returns his treasure to its hiding place beneath the bricks of his floor beneath his loom.

Something happens though, and without giving away any plot details, Silas essentially 'trades' his 'pot-of-gold' for a small golden-haired young girl.  From this point on, the novel is the story of Silas and his beautiful little 'daughter,' that he names, Hephzibah, or 'Eppie.'  It is a story of genuine and gloriously happy love between the little girl and her 'Dad-dad.'  It is his love for, and his bond with, Eppie that begins Silas's redemption and reintegration with the folks of Raveloe.  Because of Silas's obvious love and devotion to little Eppie as she grows up, Silas eventually comes to be admired and even respected by the villagers.

Sixteen years later, and Eppie is now a young woman and feeling the first stirrings of romantic love and womanhood.  Also, lurking in the background is the full story about the disappearance of Silas's bag of gold coins, and the parentage of Eppie herself.  All is made clear in the end, and happily so, I might add.  I have to confess that this novel, at times, brought tears to my eyes; mostly tears of happiness though.  It really is a very lovely  and heart-felt story.  It may start out as being a little rough on poor Silas, but it really does show that if a person can faithfully hew to their principles and maintain a sound moral character that good things will happen in the long run.

This novel reminded me, in some respects, to one of Thomas Hardy's earlier novels, Under the Greenwood Tree, another refreshingly honest and forthright look at life in the English countryside in the mid-19th century.  I believe that I have made this observation before, but I have to think that Hardy read Eliot's works, and that the Realism of her fiction had to have influenced the later Naturalism of his.  I have very much enjoyed reading the great works of these two authors this summer.

A Summer of Hummingbirds

This is the start of our second summer with two giant hummingbird feeders hanging on the slatted roof over the patio. Each feeder holds a quart of sugar water, and the little whirling dervishes go through both in about 48 hours! At times there can be a dozen, or more, of these flying jewels, whirring about and queuing up at each feeder. I have had several species come to the feeders, but typically the two species most prominently represented are Anna's (Calypte anna) and Allen's (Selasphorus sasin). We have lots of hanging flowers and pots of flowers scattered about the patio, and I think this helps draw the little fellows in too. I think they are truly one of my favorite little birds.

Speaking of hummingbirds -- I found a book yesterday in the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble (my favorite new book bookstore) that I am quite excited to read. For $5.98, I purchased a copy of A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, & Martin Johnson Heade, by Christopher Benfey. Dr. Benfey is a professor of English at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. I am sure that most of you have heard of everyone in the title of the book but Martin Johnson Heade. Mr. Heade (1819-1904) was a painter of hummingbirds! 'Google' his name and treat yourself to some of the most exquisite paintings of plants and hummingbirds. He was also an artist of the "Hudson River School" (mid-19th century) with the likes of Thomas Moran, Thomas Cole, and Albert Bierstadt. I have posted one of Mr. Heade's beautiful paintings below, and you can 'click' on it to see it larger.

Finally, to conclude our little homage to our tiny energetic feathered friends, the hummingbirds; how about two poems from the 'Belle of Amherst' herself, Emily Dickinson --

Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel--
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As 'twere a traveling Mill--

He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose--
Partakes without alighting
And praises as he goes,

Till every spice is tasted--
And then his Fairy Gig
Reels in remoter atmospheres--
And I rejoin my Dog,

And He and I, perplex us
If positive, 'twere we--
Or bore the Garden in the Brain
This Curiosity--

But He, the best Logician,
Refers my clumsy eye--
To just vibrating Blossoms!
An Exquisite Reply!

(No. 500, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Little, Brown and Co., 1960)

A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel--
A Resonance of Emerald--
A Rush of Cochineal--
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head--
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride--

(No. 1463, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Little, Brown and Co., 1960)