I read this book, in truth, for one reason only, found on pages 7 and 8:

At last the woman raised her face. She was not young. There was wisdom and experience in her eyes and an unanswerable sorrow.
“You must have loved him very much,” Ta-Thea said softly.
“No,” the woman replied. “No. I wish I could say that I had, but I did not.” A smile like a ghost crossed her mouth and vanished. “Heaven forgive me, I did not even like him.” . . .
Ta-Thea stared at the woman’s face, uncomprehending. “But why do you grieve so much if you did not love him?” Surely only love could hurt this much. The pain of her own love for those she had lost was almost too much to bear, and there was no one else left who would mourn.
There were hollows under the woman’s eyes, lines around her mouth. “Because he had life,” she answered. “He had a chance to be brave and to seek the truth, to honor and defend it. He had time in which he could have faced fear and overcome it; to know himself without deceit, excuse, or self-pity; to bear pain without bitterness. He had days in which to laugh, to see beauty, to fill his heart with gratitude. He could have been kind and brave and generous.” Her voice was very soft, and she spoke slowly, as if even the words hurt. “Above all, there were people he could have loved and learned to forgive. He is gone, and who is there in the world that is poorer?” She looked at the grave, the dry surface already smoothing over in the wind. “Now all his chances are finished. Of course I weep for him!”
For a moment Ta-Thea glimpsed an untrodden region of the soul which dwarfed all she knew. The woman pitied the dead man not for anything that had happened to him, great or small, but for what he was, and even more profoundly for what he was not.

Everyone to whom I read this, or tell it, has the same reaction of awe and thankfulness. The rest of Tathea is not that good: how could it be? But the woman who wrote those feelings and has that understanding deserves to be read.

Pre-numbered label used for registration.

Passing the book on to rl711, about whom I have told this book. Receiving it should be a surprise to him--I hope it all turns out well!