Hope and Order

(Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 18)

As I read this chapter, all I could think or feel was how much I want to be like Kitty.  With such grace and power she brought order to this terrible situation!  Levin's brother lies dying and and Levin feels powerless to help him.  But not Kitty.  She has the sense, that I believe all women possess somewhere within themselves, of how to relieve this dying man's discomfort and, more importantly, to give him a brief respite of hope.

I feel that her actions in this chapter highlight the glorious work that women have to do: to love and serve.  She was doing what so many of us do on a daily basis.  She was cleaning, managing, organizing.  And yet reading it in Tolstoy's words helps me to see that it isn't just humdrum, run-of-the-mill work.  It is the work of God.  We are being His hands, even if we aren't doing it for a dying man, even if we're only doing it for our family.  Love and service--charity--is our legacy as women.  We must not cheapen it by considering it as naught.

"Charge of the Light Brigade"

I am currently reading Anna Karenina.  I've been reading it for a very LONG time, but lately I have received the motivation and determination needed to start making some much better progress.  I am about half way through now.

As I was reading I decided to put into practice some idealized ideas I've had about education and studying and such.  I looked into learning a little bit about Tolstoy and discovered that he fought in the Crimean War.  I learned a little bit about the war, such as that it was the same war in which Florence Nightengale began making her notable advancements in the field of nursing.  It was also considered to be the first "modern" war in that modern technology was used, such as the telegraph and trains.  It was the first war that was widely publicized to areas far from the action.

The most interesting thing to me was stumbling accross the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade" which was apparently written about a fatal charge made during one of the battles of the Crimean war.  You might be familiar with the first verse because it is quoted in "The Blind Side."  I find the words vivid and moving.  Enjoy.


Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
  Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
  Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
  Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
  All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
  Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
  Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
  All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
  Noble six hundred!