random library read

Pulled this off the shelf in the library and read it the other day (after looking through a pictoral quasi-kids-book version of the Odyssey, whose author/title I can't remember now) because when I was a kid the name of the protagonist got in my head because I read something like this...

"A great joke, this growing old--but a sad joke, too, in a way. And as Chips sat by his fire with autumn gales rattling the windows, the waves of humor and sadness swept over him very often until tears fell, so that when Mrs. Wickett came in with his cup of tea she did not know whether he had been laughing or crying. And neither did Chips himself."