The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Those lines begin a William Wordsworth sonnet written in what English Department’s characterize as “The Romantic Age.”
Romance is wonderful. It’s that time in a relationship when faults are unseen. (Later, they may be ignored.) But, if affection is not bolstered by something deeper, the warts start to predominate in one’s memory during the time the lovers are apart.
From Copenhagen we are told by the true believers that climate calamity is at hand despite evidence that everything the matchmaker told us about her when we first were introduced is not true. Lying, cheating, taking bribes. “This couldn’t be the girl you described.”
At Claremont Institute’s Bookstore, Bruce Sanborn, referring to one of Jane Austen’s novel’s plot as a confluence of Shakespeare and Kant writes:
“… in Emma, love suffers the tests of education in order to become reasonable and true. In her character, Emma is like many of us Americans (even at the highest political reaches): she grew up at Hartfield, inexperienced, and educated in refined nonsense “upon new principles and new systems” that bring a person dangerously close to being “screwed out of health and into vanity.” Well intentioned but vain, Emma harms herself and those she stoops to help. The pain of her missteps gradually awakens Emma and helps her bring her feelings into line with reason and virtue. The gentle-farmer-teacher of Donwell, George Knightley (a name that evokes dragons, saints, and knights), also helps. Knightley treats Emma as he does himself, like a human being, able and free to love and reason.”
At another venue, Lisa Schriffen makes an interesting comparison between Barack Obama and Tiger Woods, characterizing both as “brands” that have been packaged and presented in such a way so as to deceive their publics and disguise their lusts for money and power. Those publics are a victim of a version of what used to be called in polite company “putting on airs” but the number of zeros to the left of the decimal point and to the right of the dollar sign should alert us to the ramifications of infatuation whether we’re talking The Green Jacket of Augusta; or more especially The President of the United States.
All of this is to suggest that maybe it’s time to slow down, reappraise, and regroup. After all, it’s Advent: a good time to “bring [our] feelings into line with reason and virtue.”
Oh, and you might want to pick up that dusty Jane Austen novel or — watch the movie with the family.
