"Marriage"

All marriages are spirited but not as dynamic as the world in which we live. Thank God. It is necessary from time to time to retreat from the day’s news and to reflect on what has brought happiness, and to let humor and lightness have their play. In my case, what has brought happiness (and smiles) has been the family Caroline and I raised, and the families being raised by our three children. 

 

The photo was taken after our wedding ceremony and on the way to the reception.

 

...and, by the way, don’t forget that Daylight Savings starts tomorrow. Get to bed early!

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Marriage”

March 7, 2026

 

“A woman’s life is not perfect or whole till she has added herself to a husband.

Nor is a man’s life perfect or whole till he has added to himself a wife.”

                                                                                                                                Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

                                                                                                                                Miss MacKenzie, 1865

 

On April 11 Caroline and I will celebrate our 62^nd wedding anniversary. We have been married longer than either of our parents or grandparents. 

 

The concept of marriage dates back four or five thousand years, but for most of that time it was a contract for managing property. Marriage for love only gained traction in the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries. Over time, attitudes changed. The courtships described by Jane Austen show partners standing in opposing lines. In 1828 Noah Webster wrote that marriage “was instituted by God himself.” In 1906 in The Devil’s Dictionary the satirist Ambrose Bierce defined the word marriage: “The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.” Our 1964 wedding vows were to last until death do us part. Marriage has always been considered the most stable environment in which to raise children. 

 

However, marriage is not a case of “one size fits all.” First, it is not for everyone, and second, not all marriages work. “Marriage,” the humorist Will Rogers once wrote, “is a habit. Divorce is a necessity.” It is impossible that two people can know all about one another after a few months or even after a couple of years. So luck plays a role. Nevertheless, when a marriage works angels sing.

 

Tens of thousands of books have been written, offering advice for a successful marriage – prioritizing your spouse, practicing forgiveness, maintaining a sense of humor, and committing to navigating both good and bad times together. While those words sound substantive, they sport an institutional tone; they could have been spit out by a ‘bot.’ When asked of lessons learned from our marriage, I demur. But love comes first.

 

“Vive La Différence,” sang Maurice Chevalier. And certainly Caroline and I are different. I am sensitive; she is empathetic. I am short-tempered, especially when interrupted while writing; Caroline is patient. However, like magnets we were attracted. P. G. Wodehouse had a sixty-one-year marriage to Ethyl Wayman. In 1932, eighteen years after he was married, he wrote Doctor Sally. The book includes humorous marital advice: “Chumps make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first and if it rings solid, don’t hesitate. All unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains.”

 

While I don’t think I am a chump – there, my sensitivity is showing! – Caroline and I have had a good marriage. Besides being lovers, we are good friends. There is no one with whom I would rather take a trip or share a meal. But the glue has been the children we produced, and the children they, with their chosen spouses, have produced. There is something magical in knowing that the genes we inherited from our forefathers and foremothers will live on in generations yet to come. While the future is unknowable, we pray that their lives will be happy ones. And all this because of a young woman my sister introduced me to at a small ski area in New Hampshire more than sixty-four years ago. Fortune has smiled upon us.

"Home"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Home”

October 19, 2024

 

“Maybe the best part of going away for a vacation – coming home again.”

                                                                                                     Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007),

                                                                                                     Meet the Austins, 1960

 

A couple of weeks ago Caroline and I returned from a long weekend visit with a grandson, whom we love and are proud; but what really brought happiness was returning to our apartment on Monday. Charles Dickens is alleged to have said: “Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”

 

I have always liked being home, whether it was where I grew up, school or college, but especially the homes Caroline and I have made – from our first apartment to our six houses in four Connecticut towns, to our new home, an apartment at Essex Meadows. As we age, we are embraced by those we knew, know, loved and love, as well as by the places we have been and the people and events we have seen and experienced, all of which can be recalled through photos and mementos. Even on the bleakest of days, I gorge on memories of bygone days by observing and picking up treasures: photo albums, books, sculptures created by my parents, paintings and drawings, a few by Caroline, my parents, siblings, children and grandchildren.

 

On my desk are photos of Caroline, our children and grandchildren. There are photos of my parents and siblings, as well as ones of my grandparents. There are postcards from a brother, now deceased, who suffered from Prader-Willi Syndrome, a photo of the group with whom I skied in Vail every winter for twenty years, and a framed photo of an evening with Wodehousian Drones of New York. On the walls are drawings of my parents, paintings of our house in Old Lyme, portraits of Caroline and my mother, and a framed letter from P.G. Wodehouse to my uncle when a student at Andover. In Emma, Jane Austen wrote: “There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”

 

Home is awakening in a familiar bed. It is following a morning ritual – breakfast with the day’s newspapers. It is talking with Caroline about the day’s schedule, a few hours at the computer, a walk and cup of tea in the afternoon. A perfect day in eating dinner with family or friends, or while watching an old movie. In his book The Poet at the Breakfast Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. includes this poem “Homesick in Heaven.”

 

“For there we loved, and where we loved is home,

Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,

Though o’er us shine the jasper lighted dome: –

The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!

 

In a 1938 posthumously published collection, The Coloured Lands, G.K. Chesterton wrote: “It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic to his own imagination as he can.” To which I reply, Amen!

Burrowing into Books - "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf

                                                                 Sydney M. Williams 

Burrowing into Books

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

February 12, 2022

 

“She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged.

She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on.”

                                                                                                                                Mrs. Dalloway, 1925

                                                                                                                                Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

 

In this short novel – 166 pages in my edition – Virginia Woolf provided vignettes and flashbacks, in kaleidoscopic fashion, to tell the story of one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway: “She was not old yet. She had just broken into her fifty-second year.” We learn that she is preparing for a party that evening. The novel’s opening sentence – “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself” – is almost as well-known as that of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”

 

The story takes place on a June day in London, in 1923. The Great War has been over for five years, except for those who suffered. A reminder of its devastation is Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian wife Rezia: “he had gone to France to save England.” Now home, his mood – a consequence of “shell shock” – swings from mourning his friend Evans, who was killed in Italy a few days before the Armistice, to febrile joy. His suicide serves as contrast to the gala of Mrs. Dalloway’s party. 

 

Mrs. Dalloway’s home was near Westminster Bridge where she lived with her MP husband Richard and seventeen-year-old daughter. Richard: “…he liked continuity, and the sense of handing on the traditions of the past.” Elizabeth: “…charming to look at,” but “she never seemed excited.” We hear Clarissa reminisce, as she crosses Green Park to Piccadilly, walks past Hatchards to Mulberry’s florist on Bond Street. It is the passage of time – punctuated by Big Ben’s chimes – that dominate the story. Earlier, Clarissa received Peter Walsh, a beau from her youth who had spent the intervening years in India. She invites him to her party. Separately, an old friend Sally Seaton, now Lady Rosseter comes by and is also invited to the party. These visits and the memories they evoke provide flashbacks to the turn of the Century when as young people they gathered at Clarissa’s family’s country home, Bourton, for parties and games.

 

The party includes old friends and Parliamentary acquaintances of Richard, including the Prime Minister: “He looked so ordinary. You might have stood behind him and bought biscuits…” Peter Walsh observes that no one looked at him, yet they “felt to the marrow…this symbol of what they all stood for, English society.” Others at the party are described, in Virginia Woolf’s inimical voice: Sir Harry, “…who had produced more bad pictures than any other two Academicians in the whole of St. John’s Wood.” Professor Brierly, “…his innocence blent with snobbery.” Lord Gayton, “Ponies mouths quivered at the end of his reins.” Clarissa, according to Richard, was criticized unfairly for her parties, though he thought they were foolish, as excitement was bad for her heart. Her childhood friends thought she enjoyed having famous people about. But they were wrong; her parties were celebrations of life: “What she liked was simply life. ‘That’s what I do it for,’ she said, speaking aloud, to life.”

 

This is a short novel, providing the reader vivid images and witty commentary on an age and time gone by.

"Facts, Truth & Honesty"

 Yesterday was my second youngest grandchild’s (a granddaughter) 15^th birthday. Tomorrow, her father, our youngest child, turns 50. Anniversaries appear with increasing frequency, as time marches forward, never taking a moment to stop and look back. That is left to us, and this essay reflects a moment of pause in busy schedules and fast-breaking news – that there is value in taking a few minutes to consider some of the more philosophical questions that daily confront us. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Facts, Truth & Honesty”

June 1, 2021

 

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” 

                                                                                                                Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

                                                                                                                 Letter to Nathaniel Macon, January 12, 1819

 

In the above letter to Nathaniel Macon, Senator from North Carolina, a proponent of slavery and a political foe, Jefferson explained wisdom that comes with age – that it can only be based on a foundation of honesty. If we are not honest with ourselves and others, what good are facts and truth?

 

A friend suggested an essay on facts and truth – a challenging but interesting assignment. The result is my opinion, expressed as truthfully as I was able, but it is not a factual last word. The two words are commonly used synonymously, but they are different. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines fact as “something that has actual existence…an occurrence…[or] having objective reality.” Truth is the opposite of a lie. It is defined by the same source as “the body of real things, events and facts.” But the roots of the two words provide clarity as to their differences. “Fact” comes from the Latin facio, to fashion or fabricate something, while truth comes from the old English word treoth, meaning fidelity or faith, as in “I pledge thee my troth,” an archaic wedding commitment, meaning a lifelong pledge of faithfulness.

 

Larry Walsh, founder of the technology business strategy company 2112 Group recently wrote an essay on how the technology industry must “freely share new facts” and stop “clinging to accepted truths.” He described the two words: “A fact is something that’s indisputable, based on empirical research and quantifiable measures. Truth is entirely different; it may include fact, but it can also include belief.” In my opinion, his definition of fact is too simplistic. There are facts that are unalterable, like grass is green, water is wet, and skunks are odoriferous. Other facts are subject to change, as products, mechanizations, services and research evolve and improve. A fact is a fact until it isn’t. What better examples than the use of “facts” to determine the origin of COVID-19, the cause of the Trump Russian probe, or what was behind the January 6 protests. Mr. Walsh’s definition of truth implies a deficiency in faith and historical knowledge and a supercilious attitude toward the beliefs of others. 

 

In geometry, it is axiomatic (taken as a truth without need for verification) that a line can extend to infinity. Facts cannot explain it. It is a universally accepted truth. Jane Austen opens Pride and Prejudice with the line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” We know that not all young, wealthy, single men are looking for a wife, but many accept what she wrote as a truth. Individually, we are true to somebody or some belief, or we are not. Truth is personal and can take varied shapes. Truths, based on faith, are absolute and eternal, at least in the minds of individuals who possess them. The Wokeism that emerged from George Floyd’s tragic death speaks to the “truth” of systemic racism, white supremacy, and black victimization. And, just as the Woke maintain the truth of their beliefs, those who celebrate a higher power believe in prayer to God to help understand that which is inexplicable. Both Wokeism and Judeo-Christian beliefs represent ideological “truths” to their followers, but one practices racial discrimination and hate, while the other preaches unity and love. All truths are not equal.  

 

When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, he wrote: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Jefferson did not use the word “Facts.” His self-evident “Truths” are based on “natural’ rights, which means they stem from a higher power, something not provable by science, but accepted as truth. In our more secular age, some prefer facts based on science to truths embedded in belief. 

 

However, he who bases conclusions solely on facts should be viewed skeptically, for facts can be (and are) used selectively. Interpretation of facts presented in Court will vary, depending on whether presented by the prosecution or defense. Scientific facts are subject to change as research advances. The “fact” of global warming became the “fact” of climate change when weather failed to cooperate with the narrative. As well, facts can be contradictory. The southern border is an example where photographs can be used to support whatever conclusion one might prefer. A photo of an empty cage does not necessarily mean the adjoining one is not over-crowded, and vice versa. Politicians, without always lying, are skillful in the selective use of facts. Cities and states were shut down during the pandemic, with mayors and governors claiming justification in the “science.” “Follow the science” (the facts) became their mantra, as they shutdown “non-essential” businesses, putting millions of people out of work. But the science kept changing as more was learned about COVID-19, and many politicians were slow to relinquish power when facts showed the disease abating. In re-opening, can we assume all facts about the disease and its origins are known? And what about gender wars. Should a transwoman, factually a biological male, be considered truthfully a female when it comes to sports and bathrooms? 

 

Facts and truth are not mutually exclusive. In fact (to borrow a phrase), both are essential to a well-ordered society and life. But a scientist is honest when he admits what he does not know, along with relating the facts he has determined. A theory yesterday may become a fact today and discarded as not factual tomorrow. Truths change as beliefs change, and respect for the beliefs of others should be part of our fabric. Facts may be disputable, depending on what input is used. Consider the 1619 project versus the 1776 project. Honest, educators should be clear: Slaves were imported to the British Colony of Virginia in 1619, but the concept of the United States was created in 1776. And they should tell their students that the use of slave labor is as old as mankind – a fact, and that the concept of a government of, by and for the people was something new in 1776 – also a fact. A study of governments would show the fact that a combination of democracy and capitalism has done more to lift people from poverty and advance economic growth than any other form of government, including socialism. Educators should encourage debates over truths and present facts without bias, while recognizing that many are subject to change. But values immersed in our Judeo-Christian heritage should, like the North Star, always be there to guide us.

 

We will never agree on all facts, and definitions of truth vary depending on individuals’ beliefs. But there are facts that are facts without question and there are truths, such as the ones used by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, on which all Americans should agree. Honesty and respect are missing in today’s political dialogue – half-truths and partial facts fill the void left by an absence of self-restraint. After my father died in 1968, my mother wrote to her nine children of the basic values she and my father had hoped to instill in their offspring: “…namely truth and honesty – true to your beliefs and honest with yourselves.” It is advice that should be welcomed by those we entrust to govern this land. As Jefferson wrote in the rubric that heads this essay, it is honesty, about what we know and what we don’t know, that leads to wisdom, and that it is respect for the opinions of others that allows wisdom to influence society.

"Stuck in a Reading Rut"

Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“Stuck in a Reading Rut?”

March 3, 2018

“The more that you read, the more places you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you will go.”

                                                                        Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel, 1904-1991)

                                                                        “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

As in most things, we tend to stick to what’s familiar in books we read. If one likes mysteries, and one just finished a juicy murder by Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey or Patricia Cornwall one will turn to Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times to find out what she’s recommending, or Otto Penzler, of the Mysterious Book Shop in Manhattan.

But does it not make sense to try something different? Recently, Erin Geiger Smith of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article with the title I borrowed for this piece. Her column made me think of a change I had made. I have long alternated between fiction and non-fiction. I read non-fiction to learn – history, people, events – books like Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, David Brooks’ On Paradise Drive, Jennet Conant’s Tuxedo Park and Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money.  Fiction, in contrast, I used to read only for pleasure – like watching a light movie after a docudrama. I read anything by Wodehouse and everything by my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams. I read Robert Barnard, John Marquand, and Old Lyme’s David Handler. Generally, I read about thirty books a year – not much when one considers that more than 100,000 books get published every year, but enough to keep me occupied.

But a few years ago, I decided I should read (or re-read) some of the classics – Dickens, Austen, the Bronté sisters, George Eliot even Tolkien. Reading these authors is not only entertaining, but instructional. While language, venues and manners change, human nature does not. This exerciset led me to Anthony Trollope. My parents had had a set of Trollope, but I never read him. He seemed intimidating. However, in 2011 I picked up Barchester Towers. I enjoyed it but found the characters difficult to track. For five years Mr. Trollope lay fallow. Finally, in 2016, I read The Warden, the first of the six Barsetshire novels. I was hooked. That same year I read Doctor Thorne. The characters became old friends. Last year I read Framley Parsonage and The Small House at Allington. I am now reading The last Chronicle of Barset, the final of the six books in the series, and am looking forward to starting the Parliamentary (or Palliser) series.

There are thousands of writers, and it is fun to try someone different, especially authors we read when in school or college – classics that have stood the test of time. I still like to read those I know. With the wind blowing and the rain coming down, old favorites like Charles McCarry and Lee Childs are as comfortable as a hot cup of cocoa. But we cannot spend our lives in a cocoon. No matter our age, we should challenge ourselves, and there is little that is more rewarding than re-reading a book we read sixty or seventy years ago. Now, with time to savor the story (and no one looking over our shoulder), we have the advantage of reading with a perspective unavailable to those in their teens.

Oh, and this essay should be shown to children and grandchildren who feel STEM programs alone lead to success. Remember, classics open the mind in a way an algebra text does not.

"Burrowing into Books - Sense and Sensibility"

Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

Reviews of Selected Readings

“Sense and Sensibility”

Jane Austen

                                                                                                                                     March 29, 2017

“…and because they were fond of reading,

 she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical.”

                                                                                                            Jane Austen (1775-1817)

                                                                                                            Sense and Sensibility, 1811

Jane Austen sits among a select pantheon of English writers when it comes to craftsmanship of the language and an understanding of human nature, especially matters of the heart. Her stories and precise choice of words make for pleasurable reading.

As in many of her books, Austen pits opposites against one another, ergo sense and sensibility. Elinor represents “sense.” She is clear and sound; she is reasonable and has good judgment. As the oldest daughter (age 19) of a recently widowed mother, she helps hold the family together when they are forced to move. The middle daughter, Marianne, age 17, is “sensibility.” She is more emotional; quick to form opinions; in love with love and given to outbursts. She wears her heart on her sleeve.

Both girls, along with their younger sister Margaret, are intelligent, well-bred and well-read. Their father died young, so they and their widowed (and impoverished) mother move to a cottage on the estate of a distant relative. The story, which takes place over about a year, twists and turns, in plot and venue, between the countryside and London. And, of course, we discover that Elinor is vulnerable beneath her exterior of reason. She falls in love with and then fears she has been jilted. Ultimately, this confusion is unraveled and she marries. Marianne, early in the novel, falls in love with John Willoughby, and then is summarily abandoned. Nevertheless, she has difficulty seeing him for the scoundrel he is. In the end, though, reason intercedes and she marries an older (35) friend of her father’s family – a man who had fallen in love with her at first sight, but who, at first, had to suffer his beloved’s infatuation with Willoughby. So, in the circuitous manner of human behavior, sense comes to Marianne and sensibility to Elinor.

Jane Austen died a spinster, at age 41, in 1817. This, her first book, was published anonymously by “A Lady” in 1811. Three more novels were published during her life and two posthumously Her father, a descendant of wealthy wool merchants, had fallen into poverty. He was the rector of a parish in Hampshire County. Her mother was the daughter of the rector of All Souls College at Oxford. Austen wrote about people she knew – the British landed gentry, both the wealthy and those who were not.

It is easy to get caught up in the web Jane Austen weaves and in the lives of her characters. She writes with insight and humor. Not only do we learn manners and customs of late 18^th and early 19^th Century English gentry, we come to understand them in a way that is as pertinent today as it was 200 years ago.