Crying: I can do that

[Byrnes Weir]

At 08:43 AM 1/12/97 -0600, Diana York Blaine wrote:
>Last semester while grading final papers I read one (by a drill sergeant
>in the army BTW) which contained a passage from _Little Women_ which he
>described as always making him cry.  Never having read _Little Women_
>as a child (I made a good boy but was quite a failure at being a little
>girl--thought Barbie was a creep, for example), I found myself doubting
>sincerely that I was about to be moved in any way.  But voila!--it just
>killed me.  One of the sisters is dying and she says to the other
>something to the effect of "all we take with us in the end is love--and
>that's so comforting."  I just split wide open and bawled.  Later when we
>spoke about it he and I agreed that the lonely death of the spider in
>_Charlotte's Web_ is something we haven't even been able to think about
>again since first reading it as tots.  So brutal!  I haven't even seen
>Babe out of fear that it's similarly devastating. I'll also admit choking
>up  every time I read Wordsworth's Immortality Ode, but even those people
>I'm closest to think this makes me quite the sap. I've stopped
>assigning it because I often cry in class while we're reading it. Ditto
>Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish," though I was glad to note a number of
>weepers last term during this one.  Oh, and the movie "Truly, Madly, 
>Deeply"--rent it and bring the hankies!   Diana
>
>
>I am in Toronto & am going soon to see a musical they have made


                        called Jane Eyre


                                                All the best of the
New Year


                                                        cbw/97