eventualities, unfortunate and imaginary

headlines
==============

| |   84 Percent of Puerto Rico Still Doesn't Have Power
(The New York Times)

| |   Trump challenges Rex Tillerson to IQ test
(BBC News)

| |   Texas Tech police officer fatally shot, freshman student in custody
(CNN)


| |   Catalan government suspends declaration of independence
(the Guardian-UK)

| |   Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie Among Harvey Weinstein Accusers
(NBC News)

| |   Americans are more terrified of student debt than North Korea's Kim Jong Un
(CNBC)

| |   Amazon wants to deliver items to your car trunk and the inside of your home
(CNBC)


| |   29 states have legal pot.  Jeff Sessions wants to stamp it out, and he's closer than you think
(Los Angeles Times)


| |   Black Man Beaten During Charlottesville Rally Charged With Felony
(the New York Times)

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a Reader Comment
Chris
Ann Arbor, Michigan
^^ What is political advertising in the end?

It's wealthy people paying other wealthy people to convince working people to blame other working people.

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--------- [excerpt] -------- When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind.  She could then see more and judge better.  From Harriet's happening not to be at Hartfield, and her father's being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter of an hour of the lady's conversation to herself, and could composedly attend to her; 

and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very superior, 

but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar; 

that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living; 

that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.


...She, it might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of her own set.  The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.

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"Oof - dah!"  LOL, don't tick off Jane Austen.  Or "Emma" - !

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----------- [excerpt 2] -------- Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner, "Poor Miss Taylor! -- I wish she were here again.  What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"

     "I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot.  Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife; -- and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?"


     "A house of her own! -- But where is the advantage of a house of her own?  This is three times as large. -- And you have never any odd humours, my dear."

     "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us! -- We shall be always meeting!  We must begin; we must go and pay wedding visit very soon."

     "My dear, how am I to get so far?  Randalls is such a distance.  I could not walk half so far."


     "No, papa, nobody thought of your walking.  We must go in the carriage, to be sure."

     "The carriage!  But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way; -- and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?"


    "They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa.  

You know we have settled all that already.  

We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night.  And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there.  I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else...."

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Mr. Woodhouse "kills."  (Or -- "rocks"?)

He fusses about "poor Isabella" -- "poor Miss Taylor" -- the "poor horses"....  and none of these people, or equines, is "poor" -- they're all well taken care of!

   As you read the novel, it gets so that you can predict -- oh! -- some small project or event or change or movement is thought of, Mr. Woodhouse is going to start fussing, and imagining possible hazards and unfortunate eventualities.  (He seems to believe in a personal code of advice:  Whatever It Is, Don't Do It. ...)

    He is consistently and almost overwhelmingly concerned with "drafts" -- that people will get chilled in a "draft" of cool breeze and catch cold and die.  He is such a fussbudget, it is amusing, & yet -- for that time -- the early 1800s -- modern readers do need to consider:  with no antibiotics, people could die from a cold, or the flu....  So, though funny/irritating -- this character is not completely crazy.

The author writes that Mr. Woodhouse had been a valetudinarian all his life...  I had to look that up.

valetudinarian:

1.  an invalid
2.  a person who is excessively concerned about his or her poor health or ailments

Dictionary.com
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