The Collected Essays, Journalism & Letters of George Orwell V2: Begun 2009.03.28

George Orwell

The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 2: My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943.

Penguin Books 1970. (No ISBN in my copy.)

Began March 28th, 2009

[YtbF]

I stumbled across this while looking for Spengler in a local used book store called Renaissance Books. This is a book I will be dipping into occasionally, with a finished-reading date far in the future, despite Orwell being one of my favourite authors.

This is a book I will pop into when I want a quick read.

I randomly flipped to 'The Meaning of a Poem.' The poem Orwell writes about is "Felix Randal" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

FELIX RANDAL the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended,

Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome

Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some

Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?

Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended

Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some

Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom

Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.

My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,

Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,

When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,

Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

(p157-8)