Bear & Forbear

My forbearance has been eaten by a bear.
 I have several examples of me being (or at least feeling) bearlike from this week. Here's the latest.

A Grown-up Person (who really is a Very Nice Person) told me that today is the equinox.

"Oh, yes," I said. "The longest day--so neat! . . .You mean the solstice, though."

The Grown-up Person was pretty sure it was equinox. 

 "Well," I said––BECAUSE I AM THE LIBRARIAN––"I always remember which is which because equi-nox is when night equals day in length."

They remained unconvinced. So they googled it up (yay!) and read me the definition: equinox is when the sun is closest to the equator. 
"So it has nothing to do with the length of night and day," said the Grown-up Person.

I thought of a section in the bio I'm reading, The Knox Brothers, by Penelope Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald writes about her uncle Wilfred Knox when a young Anglo-Catholic priest joining a religious brotherhood called the Oratory of the Good Shepherd (OGS).
In the group...

"There were to be none of the 'quick of harsh judgements that harden differences' on anything or anybody, and this charity [––Fitzgerald adds––] would be hard to put into practice, because other people are not only infuriating, but boring. [bf mine]

The O.G.S. faced this from the beginning.
'It is fortunate for us that loving and liking are not the same thing. We are not called upon to like our neighbour, but to love him.' This comment by one of the Superiors, George Tibbatts, shows how practical unworldliness can be."

Oh so admirable. I would like to adopt that.
I confess here that I failed not to make a quick and harsh judgment on the Grown-up Person who told me that the relative position of the sun and earth has nothing to do with the length of day and night.

I didn't entirely blow it though. 

I did not bite the Grown-up Person. 

_________________________

Illustration from book donated to the store, Bear and Forbear: