pagesofjulia

I’m stretching the definition of my hemingWay of the Day feature just a little bit. This is a quotation, not from Papa himself, but from Gregory H. Hemingway’s book Papa: A Personal Memoir. Here’s Gregory writing, and quoting his father.

He said he loved to read the Bible when he was seven or eight because it was so full of battles. “But I wasn’t much good reading at first, Gig, just like you. It was years before I realized that ‘Gladly, the cross I’d bear’ didn’t refer to a kindly animal. I could easily imagine a cross-eyed bear and Gladly seemed like such a lovely name for one.”

Isn’t that sort of darling? Aside from being funny, I think it’s a good example of what charmed me so much about Papa as seen through Gigi’s eyes: that he was often a tender and loving father. Here we see him reassuring his son the late reader. Gigi’s book is still resonating with me weeks afterward; isn’t it nice when a book does that for us?

Filed under: hemingWay of the Day | Tagged: authors, Hemingway, nonfiction |