ellenandjim
Bio: Ellen Moody holds a Ph.D in British Literature and taught in American senior colleges for more than 40 years. Since 2013 she has been teaching older retired people at two Oscher Institutes of Lifelong Learning, one attached to American University (Washington, DC) and other to George Mason University (in Fairfax, Va). She is also a literary scholar with specialties in 18th century literature, translation, early modern and women's studies, film, nineteenth and 20th century literature and of course Trollope. For Trollope she wrote a book on her experiences of reading Trollope on the Internet with others, some more academic style essays, two on film adaptations, the most recent on Trollope's depiction of settler colonialism: "On Inventing a New Country." Here is her website: http://www.jimandellen.org/ellen/ No part of this blog may be reproduced without express permission from the author/blog owner. Linking, on the other hand, is highly encouraged!
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
Hello,
Google led me to your blog. I’m writing an academic paper on John Betjeman and I saw that you have read his work Summoned by Bells. Unfortunately, I do not own the book. But if you still have this book, would you mind looking something up for me?
I need to know whether the poem “Sunday Afternoon Service in St. Enodoc Church, Cornwall” is in the book. If it is, it’s probably in chapter IV, or, alternatively, in chapter VIII.
I’m also interested in the page numbers of these lines that should be rather at the beginning of said poem:
As winds about
The burnished path through lady’s-finger, thyme,
And bright varieties of saxifrage,
So grows the tinny tenor faint or loud
All all things draw toward St. Enodoc.
Your help would be greatly appreciated!
I just saw this comment and note that you did not sign your name. There is no chapter in “Summoned by Bells” called “Sunday Afternoon Service in St. Endoc Church, Cornwall.” The fourth chapter is called Cornwall in Childhood and the eighth “Cornwall in Adolescence.” Neither poem has as opening lines those you cite. The poem is reprinted in John Betjeman, Collected Poems, enlarged edition, introduction by Philip Larkin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 191), pp. 138-143. The lines you cite go from 2-6.
It does seem to me that if you are doing an academic paper on Betjeman, the minimal thing to do would be to get a copy of the books yourself. What kind of paper can it be without the books? I can have no idea where you live, but in England public libraries used to do interlibrary loans and in colleges around the US they perform the same function. E.M.
The pleasure of rabbit holing when it leads to something so unexpected and expansive as your blog! Thank you for a glimpse into the way you see the world, and your wisdom. I wish you everyday joy that comforts your heart.
Thank you. I do need everyday joys and I hope you know them too. What does the phrase “rabbit holing” mean? I’m not sure. Ellen
Rabbit hole might refer to Alice in Wonderland, when Alice follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole and finds many marvelous (and occasionally, frightening) things. I think Ms. Dyer is referring to what happens when a person starts out to look something up on the Internet, and hours later, while reading something entirely different, thinks to themselves, how did I end up here?? 🙂 Down the rabbit hole!