{"id":3063,"date":"2016-09-26T11:10:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T16:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/?p=3063"},"modified":"2016-09-26T17:10:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T22:10:22","slug":"the-balm-that-soothes-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2016\/09\/26\/the-balm-that-soothes-the-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"The balm that soothes the soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am old and should know better. It is my annual season of despair and my health is in decline. As I wallow in an insecure and stagnant limbo, I escape into second and third-rate literature. Yesterday I thought, enough is enough. Late last night, I went to my shelves and picked out one of the great novels of the 20th century that I had never read (one reason why personal libraries are never obsolete). After an hour of reading, I fell into a deep sleep. My dreams were vibrant and exhilarating. For the first morning in nearly two months, I awoke with anticipation and firing on all eight cylinders (I am an old-fashioned, large engine. Yes, I consume an inordinate amount of fuel but, on the open road, it is worth the expenditure of my energy.). Great literature is a balm that soothes the soul.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/files\/2016\/09\/Love-in-the-time-of-cholera.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3064\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3064\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/files\/2016\/09\/Love-in-the-time-of-cholera.jpg\" alt=\"Love in the time of cholera\" width=\"324\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/files\/2016\/09\/Love-in-the-time-of-cholera.jpg 324w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/files\/2016\/09\/Love-in-the-time-of-cholera-195x300.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 324px) 100vw, 324px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am old and should know better. It is my annual season of despair and my health is in decline. As I wallow in an insecure and stagnant limbo, I escape into second and third-rate literature. Yesterday I thought, enough is enough. Late last night, I went to my shelves and picked out one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3063"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3071,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3063\/revisions\/3071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}