Surfing the Inner N8

I have a new favorite paragraph.

It’s from page 115 of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  The narrator is an old dying country preacher writing about dancing the waltz alone in his study:

“I plan to do all my waltzing here in the study.  I have thought I might have a book ready at hand to clutch if I began to experience unusual pain, so that it would have an especial recommendation from being found in my hands.  That seemed theatrical, on consideration, and it might have the perverse effect of burdening the book with unpleasant associations.  The ones I considered, by the way, were Donne and Herbert and Barth’s Epistle to the Romans and Volume II of Calvin’s Institutes.  Which is by no means to slight Volume I.”

Now that’s rich.  What an amazing writing gift.  And what a lovable character!