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# Monday
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/40624/
- Published: 2016-07-25T06:17:11.000Z
- Updated: 2016-07-25T06:17:11.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Miscellaneous, #wpChunk

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Miscellaneous-Photo-225x300.jpg "Miscellaneous Photo")

Miscellaneous Rambling

![Ceiling. Trastevere](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Ceiling.-Trastevere-225x300.jpg)

That Kirk quote yesterday got me thinking about George Gissing's *The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft*. It's a beautiful little book, one that tugs at every wannabe nerd who can't be that nerd because the affairs of the world keep him strapped to the table, like a confined Frankenstein. If you're the bookish sort who would like nothing more than to hole up in a simple cottage with a collection of books and a notebook for the rest of your life, get a copy of it.

![Ceiling. Trastevere](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Ceiling.-Trastevere-225x300.jpg)

There's a nice little Wikipedia entry for *The Private Papers*. The references at the end include a link to [Paul Elmer More's introduction to the work](https://archive.org/stream/privatepapersof00giss#page/n5/mode/2up). I shouldn't have read it. Based solely on the picture painted by Gissing in that semi-autobiographical papers, I vaguely assumed he lived an enchanted simple life. Not so. Rather, he lived a short life of "sordid poverty and Unmerciful disaster." That really bummed me out.

![Ceiling. Trastevere](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Ceiling.-Trastevere-225x300.jpg)

But regardless, I agree enthusiastically with More's final words from the introduction: "The meditations of Henry Ryecroft are grave without being heavy, learned without being pedantic, wise and sceptical without being being frigid; the little book is one of the rare treasures of English literature."