We're using greetings in our e-mails? I admit to finding it charming, almost as if it was the traditional method of such things - I almost said the traditional method of getting to know someone, but I refrained, as I cannot be sure you would term this correspondence we have struck up to be that, or to simply an extension of your work and mine.
On the subject of date-getting literature, I'm positive that your knowledge of the world 'quotidian' alone would have shocked most of my graduating class into accepting any outing you might suggest. Woe and betide if you didn't have a collection of other such words at your disposal on the evening in question, however.
I am glad to hear you're home, as that must mean you have improved. Or am I being foolishly optimistic? I hope not. Hope is the thing with feathers, after all. These people you mention, are they there to care for you? If so, I must come down on their side in this fight. You can consider this a wholly selfish demand, if you'd like; there might be some truth in that.
Ah, Anne does not deserve to have Frederick pine. In fact, she deserves to lose him completely, and I think we'd both agree that in reality, she would. Were Persuasion a real tale of the modern world, Frederick would find another, more loving partner, one not so easily swayed. And Anne would end an elderly spinster copy editor. But as it is not reality, Anne ends up with a man who pines for her eternally; a man who waits for her. He is in sharp contrast to Benwick, who does not pine for Fanny eternally.
I shall quote my favorite line from Anne: "The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone."
I do not believe it, but it does sound beautiful on the page, does it not? Do you believe the quote, Daniel?
Ah, but that was not very idealistic, was it? I was younger when I wrote the notes at the back of the novel, and not quite as jaded as I am in my old age. I shall remedy this immediately, lest you return my e-mails unread in the future. Though your choice of poem speaks to something of the same, does it not? I will speak to that in a moment; I get ahead of myself.
Anne does not deserve Frederick. Logic tells me this quite surely. But do I wish to believe that a love could be so strong that is traverses time and braves oceans and stomps on all adversities. Oh, yes. I do. Have I seen it happen? I have not. But it does not mean I'll stop hoping for it, and it does not mean I'll stop thinking it exists.
You realize I must demand your opinion on romance, given the above paragraph? Consider this a request. Or shall I consider your poem your final word on the matter? The Yeats is lovely. It's amazing that a poem so unexceptional in all its individual parts should create such an exceptional whole. As for the meaning behind the eight simple lines - young love is about passion and no thought, while age and experience turn love into something more vital and pulsing in friendship. Do you think sexual attraction is a detriment to true love? Do you think love is that thing that happens once sexual attraction is no longer at the forefront?
I think Anne would have wanted both - the friendship and the attraction and mad frenzied love combined. Or perhaps that is me; I can never tell.
I am going to be terribly bold and request a book in return. Anything of your choosing, and it can be sent to the Publishing House. I am feeling daring.
Claire
P.S. You still owe me a paragraph, but I shall go easy on you, since you are convalescing.
P.S.S. I'm afraid my nosiness has been getting me quite a bit of trouble lately. Someone recently told me that not everyone feels comfortable having questions asked of them. That the better thing to do was to try to find things out without asking. I always assumed it was better to be honest. I respectfully request your opinion on the matter.
P.S.S.S. Harris proposed to Jane Austen in her youth, and she turned him down. Rumor was that he was not smart enough for her, and I wonder if she regretted it all her days. Persuasion was written just before her death, and I see it almost as a lament. Should he have changed his name to Daniel, do you think?