Friday, July 21, 2006

Who needs Sarvas, anyway?

On the off chance that the literary cognoscenti are slumming today and reading my blog instead of The Elegant Variation (which would serve Mark Sarvas right for taking the day off--there's no reason he can't watch Le Tour and blog during the commercials, as I have been doing since the Prologue), perhaps someone will tell me if Margaret Halsey is a name I ought to know.

Just now I discovered the following gem at The Quotations Page:

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

-- Margaret Halsey

This Margaret Halsey sounds like a woman after my own heart, but a quick Googling turned up no biographical information, just a bunch of sayings attributed to her.

Anyone?


Technorati Tags:

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This might be the author, Margaret Halsey, who wrote several books--not sure of the time frame, but I think around the early to mid-1900s. I think she wrote mostly nonfiction. She was American, I believe. Little help, I know.

If this is the author I'm thinking of, she used to poke fun at the Brits, bless 'er.

BJ

Shelley L. MacKenzie said...

I find when I concentrate on my short comings, they don't begin to seem mild and all she said. Mine tend to grow bigger and bigger and blown out of proportion...either that or they make me feel insignificant and depressed.

I've never heard of this lady. Sorry, can't help you with that.

Marianne Arkins said...

Go to Abe Books and type in Margaret Halsey's name (maybe THIS LINK will work to take you to a listing of her books).

Brenda Coulter said...

Thanks, B.J. and Marianne. Isn't it odd that she's so widely quoted when her work doesn't seem to be well known? I'm guessing she must have been popular a few decades ago, but fell out of fashion.