On Reading Against My Ruins

some thoughts on reading to shore up my soul

Capriccio of Classical Ruins by Giovanni Paolo Panini

I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my favorite college English professor. Besides opening the door to many books and authors that would go on to become favorites, Dr. Rosalie de Rosset was also known, after her nearly 40 years of teaching experience, for her oft-repeated quotes and one-liners. Many of these have remained with me long after leaving her class, but one in particular comes to my mind quite frequently:

“These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”

The quote comes from the final stanza of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. I am by no means a poetry aficionado. In fact, I find myself rather intimidated by Eliot’s poetry - especially The Waste Land. My understanding is that in this final stanza, Eliot reflects on the way in which elements of culture (the artistic, literary, historical) that have shaped his life and thought are ultimately what keep him from falling into destruction, despair, even chaos. Our professor would quietly repeat the words — a refrain, after reading aloud or discussing some particularly powerful statement.

What a beautifully somber image: the honest admission that we stand always at the precipice of our own “ruins”, but that out of the truth, goodness, and beauty we have inherited we can brace our souls to weather the storm. I have many fragments, mostly literary, that shore me up, as it were. Some are merely quotes that aid my own self-examination, others are scenes or characters that come unbidden to my mind. I would like to share with you just a few of my “fragments” and offer you the invitation to consider your own.

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The unforgettable closing line of Middlemarch by George Eliot.

”But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." 

What a mic drop to close this long and lovely story. Dorothea, our heroine to whom this closing line refers, begins the story with dreams of greatness. She hopes to attain this greatness by her marriage to a man (with a veneer) of brilliance. She says in considering her expectation of Mr. Casaubon’s proposal, “It would be my duty to study that I might help him the better in his great works. There would be nothing trivial about our lives. Everyday-things with us would mean the greatest things.”

Throughout the story we see Dorothea grapple with her idea of greatness while going about her duties to her husband, family, and community.  The contrast between her own attitude early on and this final line is a striking one, and it helps me to make better sense of and dig further into my own vocation as a wife and mother. In my worst moments I fall prey to the lie that greatness lies somewhere outside the often tedious, seemingly trivial day-to-day tasks that are mine to do, but Dorothea rises often to my mind and walks me back to the “faithfully hidden life” to which I have been called.

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The surrender of Madame la Comtesse from The Diary of a Country Priest

This one hurts, but it’s a Good hurt. In The Diary of a Country Priest, we are following the episodic reflections of a young, self-conscious priest as he goes about his parish duties. The entire novel is superb, but the fragment that especially remains with me is from chapter 5. The priest goes to visit the Madame la Comtesse, (matriarch of the most prominent family in the community) after her troubled teenage daughter has confided in the priest that her parents, anxious to avoid a scandal, are sending her away to relatives in England after she discovered that her father has been unfaithful to her mother.

The priest hopes to appeal to Mme la Comtesse’s motherly feeling and encourage her to allow the girl to remain at home, but finds the lady bitter and hard-hearted. She confides that many years prior, she had lost her one-year-old son to illness and ever since has harbored resentment, even hatred, towards God (as well as her husband and daughter). The priest strives with the great lady to let go of her bitterness, to soften her heart to God and to her family. The struggle reaches something of a crescendo when the lady says, with a surprising calm:

“Suppose that in this world or the next, somewhere was a place where God doesn’t exist: though I had to die a thousand deaths there, to die stoically, every second — well, if it existed, I’d take my boy do that place…and I’d say to God: “Now, stamp us out! Now do your worst!” (p 170)

And a few lines down, the priest appeals to her:

“Madame, if our God were a pagan god or the god of intellectuals…He might fly to His remotest heaven and our grief would force Him down to earth again. But you know that our God came to be among us. Shake your first at Him, spit in His face, scourge Him, and finally crucify Him: what does it matter? My daughter, it’s already been done to Him.” (p 171)

After this, the lady softens a bit. She takes from her neck a small medallion which holds the precious lock of hair from the head of her beloved, deceased child. She clutches the medallion tightly against her breast as the priest leads her slowly through, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.” She tries to pray, but jumps up and exclaims:

“I can’t. I seem to be losing him twice over.” (p 172)

The priest again appeals to her, and she relents:

“An hour ago my life seemed so perfectly arranged, everything in its proper place. And you’ve left nothing standing - nothing at all.”

“Give it to God, just as it is!”

“I’ll either give Him all or nothing. My people are made that way.”

“Give everything.” (p 173)

At that, the great lady throws her medallion, containing that precious relic, into the roaring fire. The priest rushes to the fire and reaches in to retrieve it. The lock of hair has been burned, and the priest’s hand is blistered and bloodied.

This scene is a fragment that comes quite often to my mind. Oftener than I’d like, if I’m honest. To put it simply, it is nothing less than an image of the gospel. Christ asks everything of us. We must take up our cross, let the dead bury their dead, hate father and mother, leave everything. No clenched fists. And yet we know, we trust, we hope, that Christ, plunges his hand into the very fire for us. He retrieves whatever we (believe that we) have lost, whatever we clutched and pined for and finally surrendered, and offers it back to us with His blistered and bloodied hands, and it is Good.

(

Close Reads HQ

has excellent episodes on this book from last spring.)

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The unsteadiness of Emma Woodhouse in Emma

I’ll offer one more fragment from my collection - we’ll end on a gentler note. This one, though “lighter” shores me up no less. It is a quick, easily overlooked line, describing our flawed heroine of Emma by Jane Austen.

“She played and sang, and drew in almost every style; but steadiness had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill, either as an artist or a musician; but she was not unwilling to have others deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often higher than it deserved.” (ch 6)

My closet-graveyard-where-hobbies-go-to-die (and perhaps a lingering touch of bitterness from my parents at the years of varying instrument lessons) rush to accuse me here.

I stubbornly refused to commonplace this passage when I first came to it, as it hit a bit too close to home. It stayed with me, nonetheless, throughout the whole story, and made me see Emma (and myself) more clearly. My problem is that, like Emma, I long to be proficient and admired in many things that I do not want to apply the time and effort to.

Emma is juxtaposed in this instance with Jane Fairfax. Jane’s skill at the piano is justly praised because Jane is a true amateur - she plays and practices and goes deeper into the art for the love of the thing itself.

This fragment comes to me most often when through some combination of my ADHD and vanity I am inclined to jump from one thing to another and feel satisfied with surface-level talent and unearned praise. I am inspired by Emma to examine my intentions, to stay the course, to love the work, to hone an art.

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So here, then, is why I read — as an act of dependence, as it were. I read, and invite you to do so, in admission to the reality that

“that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the [truth, goodness, and beauty, the fragments, which we have received].”


Until next time, keep revisiting the good books that enrich your life and nourish your soul.

In Case You Missed It:

• WoW and The Father Revisited

• Reading Revisited ep. 13: Intro to Madeleine L'Engle with Katie Marquette

• Revisiting Our Summer Bookshelf

• WoW and The Hint of An Explanation Reading Guide

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