Well, Jazz., you and I have the same depth of feeling about books that have been (are) important to us, though perhaps I relate them a bit less to my country than you do.
The older ones make me aware that I and my generation are
part of the ongoing stream in time that is mankind. Others before me have felt as passionately about things as I do, and more will after I am gone, as well. In 1913, Rupert Brooke wrote to a friend: "Oh my dear there are things to be done! I want to walk a thousand miles, and write a thousand plays, and sing a thousand poems, and drink a thousand pots of beer, and kiss a thousand girls, and--oh, a million things: I daren't enumerate them all, for fear this white paper'ld blush."
Oh! How can anyone get up the nerve to write anything, knowing that they can and will be judged by it for-ever!
But, OH! I am so glad that they have!!!
