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From My Commonplace Book

Every now and then I think to myself how much I would like to have an old-fashioned commonplace book in which I could copy down passages from books that make a particular impression on me. Occasionally I even start copying a few on scraps of paper, or into files on the computer.

Just now while tidying up some old papers I found one of these abortive attempts, which as far as I remember dates from around 1987. Here is the first entry:

He could finish this horse if he wanted to, and nobody but he would ever know that he had not kept his bargain to the full. Nobody but he would ever know that he had betrayed the dream, the vision that comes to all the makers of the world before they make a new thing, whether it be a song or a sword or a chalk-cut horse half a hill-side high.

Rosemary Sutcliff, Sun Horse, Moon Horse.