"'A man that buys books is hardly fit to print them,' retorted the 'bear'." #balzactogether Sechard and son occupying different realities. Not sure David can transfer/adjust to his father's.

“The gaping newcomer always failed to note the perils of passage through the shop… No wight had ever been known to reach the further end without accident.” #balzactogether

“If, in the first instance, he had looked on David as his only child, he came to regard him as the natural purchaser of the business…Sechard meant to sell dear; David, of course, to buy cheap. His son, therefore, was an antagonist, and it was his duty to get the better of him.” #balzactogether

"The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humour or irony pitched in exactly the same key, so that their joint glances at any subject cross like interarching searchlights." Edith Wharton on her rapport with Henry James, in A Backward Glance, 1934 #SundaySentence📚

A tailorbird is a bird known for its remarkable ability to sew leaves together to create a nest. This process involves puncturing the edges of leaves and using plant fibers to stitch them together, creating a sturdy and camouflaged nest that protects the chicks from predators.

The profundity of death and the sordid administration of it. “A little deatharama,” the painter jokes. Madame tries to swipe Goriot’s gold locket. And no one but Christophe and Eugéne can be bothered to mourn. Rastignac sheds the last tear of his youth into the grave. RIP Pere Goriot #balzactogether

"Now he knew society's three great formulations: Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt; or...the Family, the World, and Vautrin. He hadn't dared enroll himself under any of these banners. Obedience was boring, Revolt impossible, and the Struggle at best uncertain." You said it, B. #balzactogether

#BalzacTogether "If only I were God, I'd throw the universe at your feet."

Rastignac and Bianchon are a touching pair, nursing Goriot through the night, with "all the strength and devotion of two young men." Taking turns while one reads his medical texts and the other writes to his mother and sisters. #balzactogether

Purple Crowned Fairy Wrens T - female B - male northern Australia 📷: Peter Merritt #birds

Roseate spoonbill bird in flight Original post

"I'll come and I'll go like some good fairy who's everywhere... To be happy, fathers must always be giving, and giving. Always giving: that's just what you do, when you're a father." In Eugéne's place, I think I might want to flee. #BalzacTogether

"Collin had been transformed into a kind of hellish poem which depicted all human emotions except one, remorse. He looked the very image of the fallen archangel, forever militant." #BalzacTogether

"'Young fellow, sometimes good things happen to us while we're asleep.' Then he dropped to the ground like a corpse. 'It's divine justice,' said Eugéne." Made me laugh out loud. What a day at Maison Vauquer. #balzactogether

And Eugéne--what an ingenu(e). Obviously handsome and so full of sincerity. His innocence and earnestness make everyone swoon, women and men, young and old, even a criminal. I wonder what will happen as he becomes jaded. I guess he'll be established then. #BalzacTogether

I'm impressed by Goriot's dexterity as an operator--perhaps the real foil to Vautrin. He can go head to head with the Death Dodger in planning Ratignac's future, motivated by love and working from the legal side, but no less shrewd. #BalzacTogether

Eugéne is like someone who thinks no one remembers his birthday and so goes off and celebrates himself, only to come home to a surprise party. (!) A shade too late to enjoy it, since the wheels of Vautrin have been set inexorably in motion! #BalzacTogether

"He agreed to answer for a crime actually committed...by a singularly handsome young man of whom he was very fond, a young Italian with a taste for gambling..." Knowing Vautrin, I'm sure there was a scheme in that. But he does seem to have a weakness for handsome young men... #balzactogether

"For me, life is my two daughters...Someday you'll understand how their happiness makes you happier than your own." Père Goriot is certainly appropriate for today. The paternal love in this book is fervent and true (however dysfunctional the relationships). Happy Father's Day! #balzactogether

"Bah! I'm up to my thirty-third Mandarin." 🤣 "Me, I'll be satisfied with the petty life I'll make for myself in the country, where I'm destined to go clomping around in my father's shoes." Can't help liking Bianchon. Temperamentally suited to the simple life (and R's "good angel"). #balzactogether

Deborah Sandidge Photography "A Great Blue Heron reaches toward the sky in a display that’s part of an ancient mesmerizing ritual to attract a mate. The deep bow and skyward stretch is a beautiful hypnotic gesture that I look forward to filming each year."

"And yet when you consider how few serious crimes in fact take place-indeed how few breaches of the peace of any sort these young people actually commit-how admiring we must be of these patient Tantaluses, constantly struggling to control themselves and almost always victorious!" 🤣 #BalzacTogether

"Seeing himself well dressed, with proper gloves and well-fitting boots, Rastignac forgot his virtuous resolution." Impossible to understate the importance of clothes in this novel. Then he goes to the Tuileries. "This walk...completed the student's downfall." #BalzacTogether

"Man's an imperfect creature. He gets either more or less hypocritical, depending... And I don't think common people are any better than rich ones: human beings are the same no matter where you find them." Vautrin is cynicism incarnate. Not without reason. #balzactogether

#Paridae #BirdoftheDay Tufted Titmouse

"Rastignac wanted to give the mailman a tip, but there was nothing in his pockets. Vautrin dug into his and threw a coin to the fellow." Eugéne receives the family sacrifice, but Vautrin takes care of the tip, understanding everything. Something ironic and ominous in that. #BalzacTogether

Mother, sisters, aunt all scraping together money, sending their savings, and selling precious things in a spirit of sublime sacrifice, so that Eugéne can seduce a rich woman? Become sophisticated? He has tenderness for them, but it's not going to stop him from ruining them all. #BalzacTogether

"Eugéne could not restrain a few tears [for poor Goriot]... Indeed, honest emotions have such an effect on others that, for some moments, all three of them remained silent." Radical in this callous Parisian world. #balzactogether

"It seems to me immensely difficult, here in Paris, to meet a woman who's young, beautiful, rich, elegant, and unattached..." Eugéne 🤣 Yet he's genuine, as Mme de Beauséant sees and values. "You'd be a faithful lover, I know you would!" For now, at least, until Paris gets to him. 😬 #balzactogether

It's funny and sad that Eugéne cannot simultaneously avoid being mud-spattered and plan his witty campaign at Madame de Restaud's. Both require his undivided attention. "If I were a rich man," he laments, "I would have come in a carriage...and thought it all through." #BalzacTogether