Reader, I understand the desire to know more of the writer -- the curiosity to tell us something of the figure behind the pen (or in my case, the keyboard). Perhaps I shall let my venerable predecessor speak in my stead, having already addressed this subject with more style than I may allow myself to claim.
"Methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, Who is Elia? ... doubtless you have already set me down in your mind as one of the self-same college--a votary of the desk--a notched and cropt scrivener--one that sucks sustenance, as certain sick people are said to do, through a quill.
Well I do agnize something of the sort. ...
I am plain Elia ... I can here play the gentleman, enact the student."
This will do, for now. Suffice to say I am all these things, "votary of the desk," "a notched and cropt scrivener." I am also a scholar, a teacher, a husband and father. Would that I could play the gentleman!
