iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mental health/PTSD “ear, eye, and mind were alike strained by dread” “it only gave my nerves a shock, on which I feel the reverberation to this day…to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering.” “my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind” “my racked nerves” #brontefest

Who can you trust? “Well, I see that you are entering the world of literature and journalism with your illusions intact. You believe in friendship. We are all friends or enemies according to circumstances.” #balzactogether

“Why, this was moulded on a porringer; A velvet dish;—fie, fie! ‘t is lewd and filthy; Why, ‘t is a cockle, or a walnut-shell, A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap; Away with it, come, let me have a bigger.” #theshrew2026

“Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave” #theshrew2026

020

Word of the day: resolve “…I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.” With a capital R: “and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression…” #brontefest

060

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“I resisted all the way: a new thing for me…” #brontefest

181

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

“O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever The patron of my life and liberty.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

We can see why Jane relates to the book by the words that are used and how they reflect her circumstances: “solitary,” “bleak,” “forlorn,” “dreary,” “broken,” “desolate,” “ghastly,” “haunted,” “phantoms,” “terror,” “gallows” #brontefest

070

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The weather immediately sets the mood in Chapter 1. “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day…The cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre and a rain so penetrating…” #brontefest

180

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“he felt a terrible itch to dominate this world of potentates and believed he had the power to overcome them.” Amazing what good food and wine can do! #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here sir! You loggerheaded and unpolish’d grooms! What? no attendance? no regard? no duty? Where is the foolish knave I sent before?” #theshrew2026

130

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“Welcome, you;—how now, you;—what, you;—fellow, you;—and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?” #theshrew2026

031

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“now, were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“Grumio, Draw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves; Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man: Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee, Kate; I’ll buckler thee against a million.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“Nay, by Saint Jamy, I hold you a penny, A horse and a man is more than one, and yet not many.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“My friend, more things are happening to me in one evening than ever did in the first eighteen years of my life.” Will our young poet succumb to the “dream,” “spell,” “narcotic” and “intoxication?” #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down: Take you your instrument, play you the whiles; His lecture will be done ere you have tun’d.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Temptation! “…feeling so much more vulnerable to the enchantments this kind of life offered with its alternations of lightning flashes and clouds because it was as dazzling as a firework display after the profound darkness of his own laborious, inglorious, monotonous existence.” #balzactogether

031

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

“Why, then the maid is mine from all the world, By your firm promise; Gremio is outvied.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

“…you’re wading knee-deep in scruples like a nun accusing herself of having eaten her egg with concupiscence” Conscience + scruples = poverty #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“Thou must be married to no man but me; For I am he am born to tame you, Kate; And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate Comfortable, as other household Kates.” #theshrew2026

041

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench; I love her ten times more than e’er I did: O, how I long to have some chat with her!” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“The thing we give our lives for, the subject we rack our brains over and wrestle with for nights on end, the race we run across the fields of thought, the monument we build with our heart’s blood: editors regard all that as a good or a bad piece of business.” #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“Poetry is like the sun: it makes the eternal forests grow but also engenders gnats, midges and mosquitoes…There’s nothing good that doesn’t bring something bad in its wake.” Here’s to poetry! #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“Why, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence? Bianca, stand aside;—poor girl! she weeps:— Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her . For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit, Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee? When did she cross thee with a bitter word?” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Words of the day: pleonasm: the use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense, redundancy tiro: novice cicerone: mentor #balzactogether

160

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“There’s Finot, the director of my paper, chatting with a talented young man, Felicien Vernou, a little rascal who’s as nasty as an unmentionable disease.” Leading with a compliment, ending with a zinger. #balzactogether

052

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“Sir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof, Please ye we may contrive this afternoon, And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health; And do as adversaries do in law,— Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“Help, masters, help! my master is mad.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“All this inglorious poetry has gone…It was horrible but gay.” Loved this chapter and its depiction of a once vibrant microcosm of society. #balzactogether

073

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

“I am agreed: and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin his wooing, that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“And don’t imagine that the political world is much cleaner than the literary world: in both of them bribery is the rule; every man bribes or is bribed.” And afterwards, are sent home for vacation by the Speaker of the House! #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“My poor boy, like you I came here with my heart full of illusions, spurred on by the love of art, swept forwards by an invincible learning for fame.” Later, undiscouraged by Loustreau’s art of war tutorial, Lucien vows “I must fight…I shall win through!” #balzactogether

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“Glad that you thus continue your resolve, To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue, and this moral discipline, Let’s be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray” #theshrew2026

070

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Sly: “Madam wife, they say I have dream’d, And slept above some fifteen year or more.” Page: “Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me; Being all this time abandon’d from you bed.” #theshrew2026

Alison @alisonjaye.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“A pair of stocks, you rogue!” #theshrew2026

130

“But no Age is so new as that! Human Nature, under its changing pretensions and clothes, is and ever will be very much of a Forsyte, and might, after all, be a much worse animal.” Preface #forsytesaga26

“The boom of an airplane passing under the gold-tinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes.” Time marches on. Reminds me of how Proust introduced the airplane. #forsytesaga26

180

Love JG’s comedic touches in this chapter. “Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful, seeing that she had been cremated.” “there was not much real harm in English people except their teeth and their taste, which was certainly deplorable” #forsytesaga26

161

There’s that word “fatal”…again! “the fatal house at Robin Hill” #forsytesaga26

150

Nod to Samuel Butler? “they had to go the way of all flesh and furniture, and be worn out” #forsytesaga26

150

The Benjamin Button of the Forsytes! “For six years Mr. Timothy had been their baby, getting younger and younger every day, till last he had been too young to live.” #forsytesaga26

“Well, while I live, I’ll fear no other thing So sore, as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.” #themerchant2026

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus” #themerchant2026

041

“I would out-night you, did no body come; But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.” #themerchant2026