The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 4

by Beth Brower

(he’s fastidious about his labels). A perusal of The Dalliance confirmed that there are still books being printed in this world, despite the limited buying power of our heroine.

Rain this morning. It smells of Heaven. Or how Heaven would smell, were I in charge. That doesn’t feel blasphemous, but it sounds as if it might be. Reminder to self: Enquire of Hawkes. Come to think of it, I’ve never looked into the theological record of what canonical scripture supposes the scent of Heaven to be. Wet earth? Fresh grass? Both of which make up the transcendent aroma of rain. I rest my case.

Shrugging, I opened my own book—I’ve just begun “Experience”—and settled in for a cose. Cose it was. In each other’s company, we read and read and read.

Meanwhile, I had escaped over a creek, through two miles of woods, and was lying in a field of long grass, reading Emerson. “What a perpetual disappointment is actual society…” To which I can only say, Mr. Emerson, I couldn’t agree more.

Is it immoral to marry a man solely to gain a library? And if that man happens to be tremendously good looking, is it more or less of a sin?

It was then I thought that life—my life, in particular—wasn’t wholly worth giving up on yet.