This sentence about Queen Elizabeth I caught my eye as I flicked through the book, as well it might, for there's something inordinately glittering about the language of the 16th century and language, glittering or otherwise, is something that has eluded me these past couple of weeks. If I didn't know better, I'd say I've had bloggers block - an oddly exhausting state of mind and fearsome loss of faculty.
I seemed to be doing well with my research into the Lost Generation then, one morning, I did not want to communicate - I'd had enough and was worn out. The subject matter was fascinating to me and continues to be but there I was, here I am, squatting back on my mental haunches with back to the wall, awaiting the day when I resume the, for me, important task of bringing these men to mind.
Thus, in my self-reproachful state, I ordered two books that were delivered today: two books, one, a veritable tome, so heavy it needs to be read from a lectern and the other lambently brilliant as befits is subject. To say I'm thrilled is an understatement.
Neither, alas, can be read whilst one is soaking in a bubble bath, nor should they be placed by the sink to be read in snatches between strokes of a razor - the usual fate of the New Yorker which has a daily migration schedule from nightstand to vanity and back again to whichever side of the bed is not, perchance, reading a trashy detective/vampire/inner-landscape-twaddle/Japanese fashion magazine/whatever. But, I digress. They are books that will afford me so much pleasure and I hope time to assimilate and tick over in such a way that my blogger's block may gently be breached.
The Chappel Queen Elizabeth praised was that of King's College, Cambridge or, more formally, The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge - one of the glories of English Perpendicular Architecture.
Photo of chapel from http://www.cambridge2000.com/index.html
Book images from Amazon.com
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