dear daddy did you ever hear of michelangelo he was a famous artist who lived in italy in the middle ages the whole class laughed because i thought he was an archangel doesn t he sound like one even more embarrassing somebody mentioned florence nightingale and i asked if she was a freshman that joke has gone all over college you wouldn t believe daddy what an abyss of ignorance my mind is the things that most girls with a properly assorted family and friends and a library know by absorption i ve never even heard of i didn t know that henry viii was married more than once or shelley was a poet i didn t know alexander the great had conquered most of greece or people came from monkeys i didn t know that the garden of eden was all just a beautiful myth i never read great expectations summer on the lake euripides electra i never met the two noble kinsmen or ever came across the merry wives of windsor i always feel like i m alice in wonderland stranded in vanity fair once upon a time o captain my captain i m so many years behind i m still so many years behind i didn t know that she d be so clever i never dreamed of such imagination i never read thoughts so expressive i really must reread the count of monte cristo what am i thinking i m missing appointments to read what she studied in french i m baffled and perplexed o captain my captain i really must get back to work i wonder what she ll write me next i never heard of meg jo beth or amy i d never been to dover beach or heard the phrase a man s reach should exceed his grasp i feel like the idiot or the toilers of the sea o captain my captain all the world is verse to me a lady with a lamp i see now daddy i must sleep but i will think of you for daddy i know there is so much catching up to do