Today’s Tea Tidbit:

Why, the club was just the quietest place in the
world, a place where a woman could run in to
brush her hair and wash her hands, and change
her library book, and have a cup of tea.

Kathleen Thompson Norris,
“Saturday’s Child”

In A Library
by Emily Dickinson

A Precious, mouldering pleasure ’tis
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was certainty,
and Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true:
He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.