An Affinity for Literature

An Affinity for Literature

"Literature – the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life."

                                                                                                           Charlotte Mason

  A “library discard” is on my nightstand. When I first visited the local library with my young children in the 1980s it was at the end of an era. We fingered through cards in the oak file drawers. Our books received a date-due card that was ink stamped and slipped neatly into the envelope where the title card was removed. Such was the handling of my well-worn copy of Jane Eyre printed in that not-too-long-ago-era.

    As night falls earlier in November the whole of my reading takes place in the dark. A little pool of light illuminates the page in a dark room that seems to match the pathos and eeriness of the early chapters of the story - especially when November rain splashes at on the windowpane. I am savoring Charlotte Brontë’s writing, pausing to reread paragraphs that require closer attention and invite deeper thought. Jane Eyre is said to be one of the most highly cherished treasures in English fiction. I can understand why.

    My daughter Sophia has always been a keen reader. (I supplied my children with books as I supplied them bread and butter.)  But recently Sophia admits in hindsight that her impressions of Jane Eyre were blurred because she thinks she was too young when she read it at age fourteen. In raising girls (who did not grow up too fast) I found that even a little more maturity would create - between the reader and the book - an affinity. This was the case with twelve-year-old Yolanda and Little Women. It was one of the few instances that once started she put the book aside. Sometimes it is better to wait. A few years later, at age fourteen, it came: an affinity for the story. An affinity is what enables us to form a close relationship with the writing. Little Women was a friend to Yolanda’s girlhood awakenings and graciously contributed to her blossoming into womanhood. This affinity is what turns a good book into something special.

“We wish for children to grow up to find joy and refreshment in the taste, the flavour of a book . . . a work possessing certain literary qualities able to bring that sensible delight to the reader which belongs to a literary word fitly spoken. It is sad that we are loosing our joy in literary form. We are in such a haste . . . that we have no leisure to linger over the mere putting of a thought. But this is our error, for words are mighty both to delight and inspire.”    
Charlotte Mason, Parents & Children pages 262-263

    When Yolanda picked up Jane Eyre it was at a later age than that of her sister. At seventeen she lingered over it, in the manner she always did when reading books she liked. After she married Daniel, Jane Eyre became one of the books she chose to share with him. He enjoyed her reading aloud from it.

    Absorbed in Jane Eyre I was excited to pick up my needle to stitch a reproduction of a small sampler worked by Charlotte Brontë when she was six-year-old. Originally stitched in red it has suffered light damage. It has faded to pink and can be seen at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth.




    I am quite fond of my calico needle case. It is a gift from a good friend who has historical leanings and who has exquisite skill in sewing. She followed an early American pattern to make it. Such a needle case is referred to as a huswife. It rolls up to a dainty size, doesn’t it? 

     May I share a quote with you from my reading? To answer Miss Eyre’s inquiry as to the character of Mr. Rochester, the housekeeper forewarns her that he is peculiar. In chapter fourteen when the young governess is called into the drawing room to sit before Mr. Rochester’s discerning glare she listens to his judgments and takes courage to respond honestly to his blunt questions. (This scene is attributed to the 1944 film directed by Robert Stevenson.)

    Mr. Rochester admits he has faults (this harmless word begins his speech) but as he goes on to compare his youth to hers he becomes more incriminating. His mode of life has been one that “invites sneers and deserves them.” He tells Miss Eyre, “Like other defaulters I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances.” He adds that he has been “thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one and twenty, and have never recovered the right course since.”  

    The next words of Mr. R. are really what give impetus to this post:  “but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you – wiser – almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure – an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?” 

           

    Do we not home educate to enable our girls (and boys) to possess exactly what Mr. Rochester describes?

    Persevere in your teaching my friend. You have lofty aims therefore the climb on some days may seem steep or wearisome. In due time you will reap blessings. 

    Meanwhile to replenish your soul you might open a page to a little pool of light before you sleep. 

Discussion is invited.