"The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties..."

--in reference to Mary Garth in Middlemarch by George Eliot.


I aspire to be kind. I want especially to be kind to my parents.  So the other day I thought I’d share some pictures with my mother. I got the camera, the computer and found I was missing the cord to hook them to each other. So I went to my drawer of miscellaneous cords and looked in dismay at the tangle.   How quickly my highest ideals—I want to be kind— become mundane reality—here I am, untangling cords.

So I quit— postponed, I told myself—the project.

How much I want to be able to keep my focus on higher things.  For me, these things are kindness, self acceptance, and modesty, even anonymity, in the face of achievement.   I want to stay focused on these things as the mundane, the small, the petty, intrudes. So I loved the idea that Mary had the fire to escort her mind to, what I want to believe, were the higher things that mattered to her. I loved that she had such a reliable renewable source of comfort and inspiration.

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Caroline: replacingmiddlemarch [at] gmail.com