LarchBurl of Shadow
Nov. 1st, 2020 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoNothing like stepping out of a nice hot shower and looking out my window to see the north wind whistling through the ragged leaves and the snow flurries flying thickly to make me appreciate having first world problems. Warm and dry under a good roof, with running water and the ability to keep clean and cook my abundant food over a stove instead of a smoky fire--pretty good day I'm having. Sure enough, the wind and cold, with intermittent snow, arrived right on schedule, so it was a great day to stay inside. The trees lashed around so much that I felt I was on a ship at sea, except that the deck wasn't moving. The highlight of the day was a Zoom with the Nonesuch and Moonmoth. It was also nice to think that by the time we chat again, the election will be over. Or at least sort of over. Or . . . oh, never mind. . . .
I was reading my old copy of Black Beauty, which has my name printed in pencil inside the cover, and must be over 60 years old now. It's interesting to me that I loved this book so much when I was so little I could barely print letters. I remember setting out to hand-letter a copy of it, because I was afraid I might lose my book some time, and I wanted to be sure I had a backup copy. Of course that task was too daunting for me, but the book was that important to me. It's not just a horse story. It's a treatise on how to live and be a good person, with revelations of the cruelty of the class structure and the prevalence of injustice! There's a chapter about elections that is surprisingly relevant.
A quote: The streets were very full, and the cabs with the candidates' colors on them were dashing about through the crowd as if life and limb were of no consequence; we saw two people knocked down that day, and one was a woman. The horses were having a bad time of it, poor things! but the voters inside thought nothing of that; many of them were half drunk, hurrahing out of the cab windows if their own party came by. It was the first election I had seen, and I don't want to be in another, though I have hard things are better now.
If only, my poor Beauty.
I was reading my old copy of Black Beauty, which has my name printed in pencil inside the cover, and must be over 60 years old now. It's interesting to me that I loved this book so much when I was so little I could barely print letters. I remember setting out to hand-letter a copy of it, because I was afraid I might lose my book some time, and I wanted to be sure I had a backup copy. Of course that task was too daunting for me, but the book was that important to me. It's not just a horse story. It's a treatise on how to live and be a good person, with revelations of the cruelty of the class structure and the prevalence of injustice! There's a chapter about elections that is surprisingly relevant.
A quote: The streets were very full, and the cabs with the candidates' colors on them were dashing about through the crowd as if life and limb were of no consequence; we saw two people knocked down that day, and one was a woman. The horses were having a bad time of it, poor things! but the voters inside thought nothing of that; many of them were half drunk, hurrahing out of the cab windows if their own party came by. It was the first election I had seen, and I don't want to be in another, though I have hard things are better now.
If only, my poor Beauty.
