Re: Coddling children
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Posted by Jock on November 12, 2006 at 18:29:56 from 87.105.81.146
user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Coddling children posted by John Wilson on November 12, 2006 at 12:31:16:
In SD the Swallows, well John & Susan, are taken aback by Nancy & Peggy sneaking out
on a day trip while the GA is there, rather than delaying until she has gone. But Susan
understands that Nancy refuses to let the GA limit her.
Although I have posted this excerpt from SD before, I think it will stand reposting.
John and Susan were very glad that this stage of the expedition was safely
over. There was something about these Amazons hard for them to understand.
It was clear that they had been forbidden to have anything to do with the
Swallows, that they had been forbidden to touch their own boats, since the
boathouse was out of bounds, that they were supposed at that very minute
to be sitting somewhere solemnly learning poetry by heart... Susan almost
wished that they had not come. Why couldn't Nancy have waited a day if the
great-aunt was leaving? John, of course, knew that Nancy would not have
been Nancy if she had.
It's one of the most powerful and enigmatic passages in the whole canon. What does
'Susan almost wished' mean? And why, 'John, of course'?
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