One of my favorite passages that Strouse quotes from Alice's diary is when Alice complains about what a horrible disappointment it is to read the letters and diaries of her hero, the writer George Eliot. 'What a lifeless, diseased, self-conscious being she must have been! ... Then to think of those books compact of wisdom, humour and the richest humanity...in short, what horrible disillusion!' It's inevitably easier to look up to a person than to look at them.
from 'What We're Reading: Jean Strouse's Alice James,' by Rivka Golchen,
on The New Yorker's blog
on The New Yorker's blog
I read Jean Strouse's Alice James: a Biography when I was in college, or soon after, and now I want to read it again. I liked the George Eliot I read about; I wonder why Henry's sister didn't?
And speaking of connecting, there's this (and I think, this.) I was honored, and delighted, twice last week!
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