"All was bustle and confusion. (I have seen that remark before, somewhere.)"--The Innocents Abroad
Yesterday I started Mark Twain's first book, The Innocents Abroad. It's an account of a tour he took of the Mediterranean world that he took with some high-class Americans in the late 1860s, long before regular cruise ships. It's really, really funny.
I picked up the book after the memoir slam. (The subjects were "Going to a play" and "August," and I found more to write about than the previous week, when the subjects were "Hangups" and "Unusual neighbours.") I'd finished The Pioneers and wanted something to read while I was on my way to get the book, so I borrowed from the Lillian Smith library a Loyola Press coffee-table book for children about saints. Then I got The Innocents Abroad at the Deer Park library. I also paid a forty-cent fine: The Pioneers was due last Thursday so I renewed it, but I got around to it a day late.
Before going home, I also went to the Northern District library and returned The Pioneers directly. I could have returned it at any branch, of course, but I preferred to save the library people the trouble of transporting it back to Northern District. And I saved the energy that transportation would have taken: maybe little things like that will save us from climate change. Or maybe they won't.
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