Andante--Adagio--Allegro; Good measure in the etc.

I know it's kind of kitsch, but I've been pining for months for one of these nostalgic-looking record players. It was one of the things on my short "Heart's desires" list. (Along with a pet donkey, a Victorian house, and a day in Paris with a convertible.) One day last week my guy showed up carrying a huge box with my beloved new stereo. He also gave me three new records, one of them being Handel. (: My heart burst--I wanted to tell him all about Great Expectations, Pip, Estella, "Handel," etc., all images of which this record conjured up for me. I'm sure it's hard for him sometimes to be married to an English major. I am a person for whom everything means something else. Symbolism. Recurring motifs. Every sentence is "metaphorically speaking." I can actually recognize "foreshadowing" in my own life like I am living out a novel.

I didn't want my words to do his great gifts any injustice. I just said "thank you." But I think I might leave my paperback copy of Great Expectations on his bedside table just for good measure.

"I don't take to Philip," said he, smiling, "for it sounds like a moral boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, or so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a bird's-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the neighbourhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and you have been a blacksmith - would you mind it?"

"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose," I answered, "but I don't understand you."

"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith."

"I should like it very much."