The sky is grey this morning, and I slipped through that dim territory between dark and dawn with nothing out of the ordinary interrupting my trip home. I stayed late, reading a book about a man whose half-formed dreams turned to ashes in his hands with no fire to light their passage. It was a wonderful book, and it made me feel wretched, all the same. Thom will likely never read this book because it was written within the last 100 years or so, more's the pity. He would really like this one, and even the writing style is fairly Victorian.

I have found that I enjoy these stories of quiet, calm men who find themselves in unusual circumstances. They always run afoul of rascals, socialites, and mercenary women, none of whom sway them in quite the ways they would like. I probably identify with them too strongly - I am not Mr. Franklin of the story linked above, nor am I Shane or any of the protagonists of L.E. Modessitt's wonderful science fiction. I understand them, though. I am not as hot-blooded as the far more interesting people that I meet in my life, and I share that quizzical outsider's understanding that, yes, I am the odd one in a world that seems to be so melodramatic and fast. I could never be content as a farmer, or in the quiet solitude of an english country estate. It is in this quiet, calm continuing that I truly understand my father. That to be a man is not bravado or bluster, but to simply carry on. That's what you do, you see? There is nothing more (or less) profound about it, but in that silence volumes grow.

If I could write a song about it, I would, but I fear that I am not so great a songwriter as that. Buckminster Fuller had the right of it, I say again. I didn't have the spirit to buy myself breakfast this morning, but I think in the balance that's a good thing - money well spent on the next day.