"A Time to Keep Silence" by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was best known for two books he wrote about a walk across Europe to Constantinople. He wrote quite a few other works considered just as good, including A Time to Keep Silence, republished a few years ago by the New York Review of Books.  

The book is about extended visits Fermor made to monasteries, including the Abbey of St. Wardrille de Fontanelle, Solesmes, La Grande Trappe, and the Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia. All were places one might visit to keep silence and not speak. Fermor could write, but rules restricted speech, including mealtimes.

 

Monasteries, and especially those associated with the Trappists, bear no relation to anything we regard as normal life. And that perhaps may the point. Abbey life is supposed to be different, removing any and all distractions and impediments to experiencing God. Fermor found himself attracted by more than curiosity.

 

“In the seclusion of a cell,” he writes, “an existence whose quietness is only varied by silent meals, the solemnity of ritual and long solitary walks in the woods, the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear, and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away; and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world.’

 

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Fermor had visited monasteries all over the world, but these four are th ones he chose to highlight. The Abbey of St. Wardrille is in northern France, and it’s been destroyed and rebulit many times over the centuries. Solesmes, also in France, had been an important rallying point for the Crusades. The Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia in what is now Turkey have been largely converted to living and hotel spaces, with the modern amenities expected by travelers. 

 

He was a fine writer; what could have been dry and repetitive is instead engaging and interesting. His intense focus on monasteries reflects some of his own leanings and inclinations as well as being interesting subjects of and in themselves.

 

Fermor was of Anglo-Irish descent but raised in England. His walk across Europe was the subject of A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986). He served in the Irish Guards during World War II, fighting in both Crete and Greece. His awards include the Distinguished Service Order and the Order of the British Empire, and he was knighted in 2004 for his service to literature and British-Greek relations. 

 

A Time to Keep Silence is relatively short; perhaps Fermor felt he didn’t need to say too much about places where one often didn’t speak at all. But what he does say invites you to join hm and explore these places of silence, contemplation, prayer, and purpose.

 

Related:

 

Patrick Leigh Fermor’s obituary.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The enduring Influence of James M. Cain – Tom Milani at CrimeReads.

 

Booknotes: Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military 1861-1865 by Damien Sheilds – Civil War Books and Authors.

 

“I Am the Ghost That You Haunt”: Paul Auster’s Final Novel – Lily Corwin at Literary Matters.

Czesław Milosz, 1946-1953: "Poet in the New World"

Poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) lived through some of the most tumultuous events of the 20^th century. His Polish parents having fled Poland during a political upheaval, he was born in Lithuania when it was ruled by tsarist Russia. Then came the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. His family returned to Poland, and life seemed to settle down.  

He was 21 when he published his first poetry collection, Poem of the Frozen Time, in 1932. The next year, Hitler became dictator of Germany. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Milosz became part of the underground resistance. After the war, he joined the new communist government’s diplomatic corps and was stationed in Paris and then Washington, D.C. In 1951, he defected to the West.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Close and Slow: “The Journey” by Mary Oliver – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street. 

 

Words we don’t say – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

From “Ruined Abbeys” – poem by Peter Levi at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

The Shape of Someday – poem by Michelle Ortega at Everyday Poems.

 

“The Owl and the Pussycat,” poem by Edward Lear – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient & Modern.

 

Tell No One – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

The Stamp of Generosity

The spring issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is online, and I have a short story, entitled “The Stamp of Generosity,” included with all the other articles that explore the topic of generosity. My story is based on an event from my own experience, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. A stamp store really did exist in that location, but it was known under another name.  

You can read my story here.

 

You can access the entire issue here.

 

Photograph by Krista Bennett via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"The Last Bookshop in London" by Madeline Martin

Grace Bennett travels to London with her best friend Viv. The two young women are determined to leave their small town behind and find work in the big city. They already have a place to live – with the best friend of Grace’s deceased mother. And it’s their landlady who helps Grace find a job – with an East End bookseller who doesn’t seem to want the help.  

And Grace knows nothing about books; she’s not even a regular reader. But she does know marketing, and she will soon set about transforming the bookstore, even if it’s not one of the better know bookshops like those on Paternoster Row near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

 

But it’s August 1939. War is declared within less of a month of the women’s arrival. They watch the children transported to safety in the countryside, the sandbags being positioned, the rules and regulations for blackout curtains and lights. At first, little changes; the first nine months are often referred to as the “phony war.” After France surrenders in June of 1940, they all know the Germans will be coming for London and Britain. 

 

Madeline Martin

Grace meets a rather charming customer who suggests she read The Count of Monte Cristo. She puts it off until she hears he’s being assigned for duty. She soon finds that books aren’t just about marketing but also about visiting and becoming part of entirely new worlds. And she can’t wait to share what she knows with the customer, assuming he survives the war. So she finds another way to share what she’s reading – during the great London Blitz.

 

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin is Grace’s story. Based on what happened in London during the famous Blitz, it’s a story of resilience, bookstores, books, and the courage to keep going on in spite of what look like insurmountable conditions. 

 

Martin has published more than 40 books in the historical novel and historical romance genres. Her series includes Borderland Ladies (six books), Borderland Rebels (five books), Highland Passions (four books), Wedding a Wallflower (several series), Matchmaker of Mayfair (six books), The London School for Ladies (three books), Heart of the Highlands (three books), and The Mercenary Maidens (three books), as well as several standalone works. She lives in Florida with her family.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

“Managerial Bureaucracy’s Threat to Democracy and Humanity” – speech by N.S. Lyons at the Civitas Canada Conference., May 3, 2025.

 

St. Louis Art Museum, Nighttime – photographs by Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

The lost palaces of Henry VIII – Monica Woods at Discover Britain.

 

The decline of the great literary name – Jacob Phillips at The Critic Magazine.

 

How “Puff (The Magic Dragon)” Transformed into a Timeless Treasure – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

This steadfast love

After Psalm 107 

What is this steadfast

love, for which we are

to give thanks? It is

a love of redemption,

redemption from trouble.

 

What is this redemption,

for which we are to give

thanks? It is a redemption

from trouble, from sin,

the sin we bring upon

ourselves and others.

 

Who are the redeemed?

They are the ones gathered

together from the lands,

gathered from the east

and the west, gathered

from the north and south.

 

They come from desert wastes.

They come from darkness

and from death. They come

from foolishness and sinful

ways.

 

Some went down to the sea

in ships, rescued from storm.

Some were oppressed.

Some were afflicted.

All were hungry.

All were thirsty.

 

Give thanks to the Lord.

 

Photograph by Josh Eckstein via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Mystical Prayer of the Early Christians – David Torkington at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

The Woman Who Saved Capitol Hill Baptist Church – Caleb Morrell at Crossway.

 

Mary and Eve – poem by Michael Stalcup at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Finding Christ in Isolation: A Sonnet for St. Julian of Norwich – Malcolm Guite.

 

How faith built the best of our nation (Britain) – book review by Esme Partridge at The Critic Magazine.

Saturday Good Reads - May 10, 2025

For a very long time, schools and education in the Deep South were always ranked near or at the bottom of test score rankings and literacy rates. Times have changed. Public schools in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama are now ranking higher than their counterparts in states like Oregon, Maryland, and Illinois. Tim Daly at The Free Press looks into why schools in politically red states are now outperforming those in politically blue states.  

Most fans of Charles Dickens know that the child worker scene in David Copperfield was based on the author’s own experience, although it was never known during his lifetime. But his troubled childhood had more effects than that one scene, writes Peter Conrad at Literary Hub, in an excerpt from his recent book Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller.

 

At Real Clear History, Robert Curry describes how the three pillars of the American idea were forged and fused during the American Revolution. The three are unalienable rights, self-evident truths, and free market economics. Collectively, they’ve come to be known as “common sense realism.”

 

We’ve visited and thoroughly enjoyed what Anglotopia Magazine calls “a bit of Britain in the American Heartland.” The “bit” is St. Mary Aldermanbury Church, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and bombed during the German blitz of London in World War II. The church’s ruins were transported and rebuilt at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The basement houses America’s National Churchill Museum, as is fitting for the college’s historical status as the site where Churchill gave the “Iron Curtain” speech.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

One Frenchman and the American Revolution – Miguel Faria at Real Clear History.

 

The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 by Rick Atkinson – book review by Alec Rogers at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Discovered: First Maps of the American Revolution – Edwin Grosvenor at American Heritage.

 

Visiting Parker’s Revenge – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Global Dimension of the American Revolution – John Ferling at Anglotopia Magazine (podcast).

 

Writing and Literature

 

Len Deighton and the Spy Novel and A Personal Selection – Paul Vidich at CrimeReads.

 

The Age of Genre Bending, Blending, and Juxtaposing – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft. 

 

Book Cover Images: An Author’s Guide to Using Stock Photos – Jonathan Green at Kindlepreneur.

 

Life and Culture

 

5 Takeaways from Data on Teens, Social Media, and Mental Health – Chris Martin at FYI.

 

Keeping a Culture: A Review of Thoroughness and Charm – Chrstine Norvell at Front Porch Republic.

 

My Education Solution – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

A Pogrom is Brewing in Canada – Casey Babb at The Free Press.

 

Poetry

 

The Second World War had its poets, too – Jeremy Wikeley at Engelsberg’s Ideas. 

 

From “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Lesson of the Moth” by Don Marquis – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Israel

 

The Gaza Famine Myth – Michael Ames at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

The Enduring City of God – Regis Martin at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why I Have Faith in the Bible’s Authority – Rondall Reynoso at Faith on View.

 

She Forgot Our Names, But No Rock of Ages – A.W. Workman at Entrusted to the Dirt.

 

Living between D-Day and VE Day – Stephen Steele at Gentle Reformation.

 

Art

 

Tate Modern, the ‘cathedral to contemporary art,’ celebrates 25 years – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

British Stuff

Firefighters of the Blitz - Spitalfields Life.

 

More – Unorganized Hancock

 Painting: The Bible Reader, oil on canvas (circa 1895) by Jozef Israels (1824-1911). 

Self-control

After Genesis 39:6-12 

She saw, she desired,

he evaded, he refused,

to maintain his commitment

to God, to honor his position

with his master, to be true

to his own integrity. It would

cost him his freedom.

 

It doesn’t have to be only

the temptation of adultery;

any desire will suffice.

We cannot maintain

self-control on our own,

it’s that simple and

simply that. If not dultery,

then food, or acquisitiveness,

or greed, or position, 

or reputation, or anything

that is always there, ready

to be worshipped,

or self-worshipped.

 

Photograph by Jack Sharp via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Discovery – poem by Toyohiko Kagawa at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin). 

 

The Shepherd’s Voice – sermon by Mark Daniels.

 

Where Death Is No an Is – poem by Katie Manning at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

St. Genevieve and 2,000 Sheep – poem by Megan Willome at Poetry for Life.

 

Poets and Poems: Alfred Nicol and "After the Carnival"

When you’re born and raised in New Orleans, you soon learn that one holiday frames and defines the city. The Mardi Gras season stretches for some three weeks before the final day of Shrove Tuesday. It’s filled with parades of floats with their masked revelers tossing beads and other trinkets to the crowds, marching bands, costumed balls, and (at night) the flambeaux carriers walking with the parades.  

My mother, also a native New Orleanian, always referred to Mardi Gras as “Carnival,” like its Brazilian counterpart.

 

Mardi Gras culminated on the Tuesday before Lent, with what seemed a series of endless parades beginning with the Krewe of Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. It was followed by the parade of the Krewe of Rex, King of Carnival, and the “truck” parades of Crescent City and Elks. ending with the nighttime parade of the Krewe of Comus (now discontinued). The balls of Rex and Comus were held at Municipal Auditorium, and at midnight, the two courts would meet and officially end the Mardi Gras season.

 

After carnival came Lent. Tuesday was excess in all of its varied forms; Wednesday was restraint and ashes on the forehead. Experiencing Mardi Gras in New Orleans was like experiencing a cultural theology, moving from riotous sin to humble repentance.

 

Reading After the Carnival: Poems by Alfred Nicol is a Mardi Gras kind of experience, plumbing both the depths and the heights of human existence. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

A Review of Like: Poems by A.E. Stallings – Midge Goldberg at New Verse Review.

 

“George Crabbe,” poem by Edgar Arlington Robinson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

John Thomas Smith’s Antiquities of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Shakespeare’s Film Moir: Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poet Laura: Gardens and Grandpa – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Research Doesn't Stop with Publication

It was a year ago that the manuscript for my historical novel was attached to an email and sent to the publisher who requested it. I felt an incredible sense of relief. The thing was done. I could take a break from literally years of reading and research about the Civil War. Nine years of reading and research.  

I had started this even before I’d thought about writing a historical novel. I started reading about the Civil War because I was interested in it. It was only when I stumbled across an event called Grierson’s Raid, a Union cavalry raid in 1863 that the idea for a novel arose. The raid began at the border between Mississippi and Tennessee, swept down through the state, and eventually ended at Baton Rouge in Louisiana. It was designed as a diversion for Ulysses S Grant to quietly move his Union army across the Mississippi and attack Vicksburg from the east.

 

My ancestors had experienced that raid. They lived in the Brookhaven, Mississippi, area, one of sites that Grierson’s raiders had visited.

 

I researched everything I could about the raid and the broader war. Once I knew I would be writing a novel, my research intensified. By the time I sent the email to the publisher, I was close to exhausted, at least mentally.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog. 

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Grand Review – Josh Frye at Emerging Civil War.

 

What If Collapse Has Already Happened? – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Murders for May – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go Twenty Years Later – at Literary Hub.

 

Murder and the Imagination – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and "The Mother of All Words"

As I began reading The Mother of All Words, the new poetry collection by Kelly Belmonte, an image of my childhood began to emerge. The image was the neighborhood where I grew up in suburban New Orleans. It has originally been something akin to swamp; our corner house still had two swamp cypress trees. And across the street were the woods stretching several blocks. As kids, we called it the “Little Woods,” to differentiate it from the wooded area on the other side of the drainage canal. That was the “Big Woods,” four to five times larger, which had what seemed like acres of blackberry bushes scattered among the trees and brush. 

Living near woods as a child was sheer magic. My childhood wasn’t especially notable or exceptional, but we had the woods, with its trails, its hiding places, its space so deep you could lose sight of the nearby houses. You could imagine anything and imagine yourself to be anything. And adults were nowhere to be found.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Things Worth Remembering: ‘Be What You Are’ – Joseph Massey at The Free Press.

 

A new Wendell Berry novel in October.

 

Golden-Cheeked Warbler – poem by Megan Willome at Every Day Poems.

 

“Corinna’s Going A-Maying,” poem by Robert Herrick – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

10 Ways to Help Your Favorite Introverted Author - T.S. Poetry.

"Reviving the Heart of Leadership" by James Decker

If there is one experience virtually all Americans share, it’s the experience of the health care industry. We know it primarily from the receiving end of the industry’s services – doctors, nurses, lab technicians, EMT professionals, and perhaps the payments and billing departments, medical insurance companies, and urgent care offices. What we don’t have much direct experience with is how this industry gets managed and administered at the company and hospital levels – the people who run the medical care systems. 

Dr. James Decker just might change that. Decker retired in 2023 and chief executive officer of MEDIC Regional Blood Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. His career includes executive positions at the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, Sumner Regional Health Center, and Gateway Health System, all in Tennessee, and the Baptist Health System of East Tennessee. And he’s written a memoir of his almost 50 years in medical administration, Reviving the Heart of Leadership: Empowering Healthcare Executives to Lead with Compassion.

 

He tells a great story. And he knows something is wrong with America’s healthcare system, looking from and at the inside. Few people are better placed than Decker has been to see what’s been happening. Medical system executives have had to face difficult if not impossible decisions in managing cost, insurance provider, and government demands, not to mention patients and their families who must navigate what looks like an impenetrable bureaucracy of medical care and medical insurance.

 

Decker describes how he became interested in hospital administration in graduate school. He had B.S. and M.S. degrees in microbiology from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and an M.S. degree in Hospital and Health Administration from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He later added an MBA degree from the University of Tennessee and a Doctor of Health Administration from the Medical University of South Carolina. (Five degrees, and, somehow, he and his wife still managed to rear a family.)

 

James L. Decker

He describes an industry in almost constant upheaval and re-invention over the course of his own career. Pressures to expand services and add new technologies have faced their own pressures of cost containment. Caught in the middle has been the people who comprise the industry. Decker not only writes with compassion, but also advocates for compassion, from administrators, hospital board members, and all the people who makes the healthcare industry work. He owns up to his own failures and describes how he worked to do better. Especially effective is his use of both professional and personal stories, including how his last position, as CEO of a regional blood supply center, during which he had to lead through the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Decker’s received many recognitions and awards during his career. He was named Alumnus of the Year by the University of Alabama-Birmingham, a Healthcare Hero by the Knoxville Business Journal, and Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by the Medical University of South Carolina. He also received the Meritorious Service Award from the Tennessee Hospital Association. He’s a Life Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and past ACHE Regent for Tennessee. Decker also holds faculty appointments at the University of Tennessee and South College. He lives with his family in Tennessee.

 

Reviving the Heart of Leadership is likely aimed at health care industry executives, but it’s also a valuable resource for people who work in hospitals, doctors, and even patients and consumers. To see how the industry has changed over the past half-century helps in understanding where it is today. And, Decker might add, where it can be better.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Why the Odyssey Matters – Andy Owen at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Devious Deceiver: Chaplain Fr. Joseph Bixio, S.J. – Rev. Robert Miller at Emerging Civil War.

 

We are letting schools poison our children – Hadley Freeman at The Times of London.

 

The second birth of JMW Turner – Michael Prodger at The New Statesman.

 

“Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Facing the burdens

After Matthew 11:28-30 

How do we face

the burdens of the day

with gentleness and

humility? He asks

us to consider what

it means, that we

reject domination, we

reject condemnation, we

reject any notion

of superiority. Gentleness

emerges from a changed 

heart, a loving heart,

a heart pained by the world

surrounding us. The world

knows anger and domination,

condemnation and condescension. 

The world does not know

gentleness, mistaking it

for weakness. Yet the gentleness

we are to pursue is a rock,

a great tower, a beacon.

 

Photograph by Stacie Clark via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Publication of the King James Bible – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

In the Shadow of Alfred the Great – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

When the World Seems to Be Winning – W. Robert Godfrey at Ligonier.

Saturday Good Reads - May 3, 2025

Mainstream news media seemed to be stepping all over itself this week. The New York Times published a story saying that the Trump administration had invented the surveillance state, forgetting J. Edgar Hoover, what happened during the Bush Administration after 9/11, Christopher Wray’s FBI monitoring of conservative Catholics and parents who protested at school board meetings, and its own reporting of government surveillance over the last 50 years. Then the BBC was discovered to have been using a “contributor” in Gaza who had said “we’ll burn the Jews like Hitler did.” And The Wall Street Journal heard from “a person familiar with the matter” that the Tesla Board of Directors had been looking to replace Elon Musk as CEO. Despite denials by both Musk and the board, the Journal published anyway.

He died almost 1,600 years ago, but almost no one since the time of Jesus and the apostles has had more of an impact on the church than St. Augustine. Regis Martin at The Imaginative Conservative reflects one the man he calls “one of the truly foundational figures of the Christian West.”

 

I have a Facebook friend who referred to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 this way: “I know Hamas did some terrible things, but…” The “but” implied that Hanas was justified in the frenzy of murder, rape, and butchery it committed. Seth Mandel, writing at Commentary Magazine, looks at how Hamas and its Western supporters carefully orchestrated a “blame the victim” defense. Terrible ideas have terrible consequences, he writes, and he’s right.

 

More Good Reads

 

Writing and Literature

 

75 Years Ago, The Martian Chronicles Legitimized Science Fiction – Sam Weller at Literary Hub.

 

MWA Announces the 2025 Edgar Awards Winners – CrimeReads.

 

History of the Words: Utopia, Dystopia, and Cacotopia – Bradley Birzer.

 

America 250

 

Who really first the shot that started the American Revolution? – David Kindy at Washington Post.

 

On the Hinge of History – Michael Auslin at Law & Liberty.

 

The Militia Myth – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The War is Here: The Politics of Continental Army Dispositions on the Upper Ohio –  David Ervin at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Battle of Lexington & Concord, 1775 – Ben Franklin’s World (podcast).

 

Faith

 

Crime and Redemption – David Banon at Front Porch Republic.

 

People Loved the Darkness Rather Than the Light – Mitch Chase at Biblical Theology.

 

Virtue Remains – Amy Mantravadi at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Israel

 

What the Kibbutz Can Teach Israel on Its 77^th Birthday – Matti Friedman at The Free Press.

 

Life and Culture

 

Are We in a “Soft” Civil War? – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Denounced, Cursed, and Ghosted: What Harvard’s Antisemitism Report Found – Maya Sulkin at The Free Press.

 

Antisemitism: The Modern Forces Fueling an Ancient Scourge – David Swindle at Real Clear Investigations.

 

Poetry

 

“Lord Lundy,” poem by Hillaire Belloc and “Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos,” poem by Lord Byron – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

This Life – David Whyte.

 

Bring Praises – Matt Boswell, Matt Papa

Painting: A Woman Reading a Letter by a Window, oil on canvas (1664) by Pieter de Hooch (1629-after 1683); Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.