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A review by doublelisha
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
4.0
I came to leave a review and Corrine has already left the review that I would leave if I were eloquent and thoughtful.
My only other thoughts are about the portion of the book that discusses the seventh sense, which I have copied out so that I can consider again.
“You can’t teach a baby to walk by explaining the matter to her logically—she has to learn the strange poise of walking by experience. In some way like that, you cannot teach a young woman to have knowledge of the world. She has to be left to the experience of the years. And then, when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living—not by principle, not by deduction, not by knowledge of good and evil, but simply by a peculiar and shifting sense of balance which defies each of these things often. She no longer hopes to live by seeking the truth—if women ever do hope this—but continues henceforth under the guidance of a seventh sense. Balance was the sixth sense, which she won when she first learned to walk, and now she has the seventh one—knowledge of the world.”
It goes on in some detail afterwards and expands on this idea, and I am grateful. When I was learning my seventh sense, if I had read this, it wouldn’t have mattered, you can’t teach a baby to walk by explaining it logically! But now that it is past, and I am safely and automatically balancing along toward the inevitable grave, I am grateful for an explanation that sensibly explains the learning, so that I will not forget.
My only other thoughts are about the portion of the book that discusses the seventh sense, which I have copied out so that I can consider again.
“You can’t teach a baby to walk by explaining the matter to her logically—she has to learn the strange poise of walking by experience. In some way like that, you cannot teach a young woman to have knowledge of the world. She has to be left to the experience of the years. And then, when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living—not by principle, not by deduction, not by knowledge of good and evil, but simply by a peculiar and shifting sense of balance which defies each of these things often. She no longer hopes to live by seeking the truth—if women ever do hope this—but continues henceforth under the guidance of a seventh sense. Balance was the sixth sense, which she won when she first learned to walk, and now she has the seventh one—knowledge of the world.”
It goes on in some detail afterwards and expands on this idea, and I am grateful. When I was learning my seventh sense, if I had read this, it wouldn’t have mattered, you can’t teach a baby to walk by explaining it logically! But now that it is past, and I am safely and automatically balancing along toward the inevitable grave, I am grateful for an explanation that sensibly explains the learning, so that I will not forget.