XLVIII

Reading Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility, this being not the first book I have added to my library from this author of two centuries past, and becoming quite disturbed by the never ending single-mindedness and, yes, divisiveness of the female characters so obviously preferred by the author, seeking a favorable anchoring place for themselves or someone they love, as well as, I must add in correcting the impression of my apparent sexist bias, the men who have nothing on their minds but horses and shooting while accepting the need of entering into a relationship with a female only on the attending potential source of income and wealth, I prompted a 'look-up' of the above Latin numerals signifying the count of chapters at which I had arrived at that stage of my current reading.

 

The dictionary on the level of the book had no record answering to my inquiry, so I forwarded my request for enlightenment to the Wikipedia.  Please google the subject line!

 

Knowing, of course, the translation of these numerals to their Roman equivalent, I was nevertheless exceedingly surprised about the wealth of content locked into these symbols, and I refer this to your kind attention, hoping to stir at least minimal interest in the possibility to refer to the same article in Wikipedia that has gained my own deep awareness of the wisdom, nay, intelligence our civilization was capable to raise itself to during the past many centuries since the age of relative innocence in which our ancestors, many generations past, were condemned to pass their time on earth.

 

In my style of writing, you may immediately detect a very imperfect imitation of the style favored by the above mention author. You will also be prompted to reflect on the unfair criticism today's English linguists raise against German writers: they construct interminable sentences, sometimes covering the entire page of a book or more before the reader obtains any conclusive meaning of the sentence through the knowledge conveyed by the one and only defining active verb which is invariably placed at the very end of the said sentence.

 

I rest my case. I came to the USA to learn English as it is used in conducting global business, and in the pursuit of the Engineering sciences, and never would I have thought that my search for technical and practical learning would get me lost on a path such as the one I am following now - and this is not the first time I experience this sense of distraction from my original goal. I'll never be the same again.