I was challenged this summer to deviate from what is my common want and peruse two books that are quite foreign to my natural ability and taste. Who amongst the human race has not quelled at such a prospect? While most sentient and worthy beings desire, (and rightly so) to rise above their own ignorance and quaking fears, still, it is a daunting task, to forsake their poorer selves and reach for something that would befit a higher being. Such was the lot that was cast me this summer. The two tomes that were to challenge my sorely wanting intellect and taste were these: “The Forsythe Saga” and “Daniel Deronda”. As many persons may shudder to hear the consequences, of my rising to the challenge, I shall here offer advice to the squeamish; that perhaps they may leave off reading all together rather than be subjected to such as may distress them most grievously. I enjoyed reading both books, although it did tax my endurance to gallantly wade through such a multiplicity of words and complex descriptions of every kind as were presented to my sometimes quite bewildered mind. It was as if a poor creature, having been armed with a mere teaspoon and only fitted with such clothes as were on its back, had jolly well been sent into the wild and boggy jungle to fend a way through dense tangles of vines, ferocious animals of the most fierce aspect, and perchance indigenous persons such as may desire this poor creature as a means of sustaining its own hunger! Oh to only have ended up in the pot, after transversing through such fiery trials as should challenge the most undaunted of creatures and become the soup of sustenance for such a being as should delight in such a meal! It is all too dreadful! Oh, if one could only be saved from such a plight, but I suppose one could at least retain some honor by offering their spoon, (which they had carried with them from the first, as you may recall), with such dignity as was possible in such a heart-rending predicament, to the one who would be the beneficiary of their sacrifice. However, I have great felicity in being able to relate that this sorry scene is not one that describes my present state of affairs. In the stead of having to hand over my spoon, (so to speak), to the very one who would be the sad obliteration of my person and my very essence then become lost in the vast void of its hunger, the reverse has become quite true. I have happily indeed; become the one, whose yawning hunger was filled.
