This photograph, whose originator is unknown, shows a bombed-out library in London, with its patrons still calmly perusing its shelves for something of interest to read.
If this image doesn't bring a lump to your throat you're either dead inside, or a Nazi, or both. It conjures up such a classic British sense of moving on with life in the face of horrible, dangerous circumstances, and an unspoken, spine-straightening defiance of the warmongers who were bombing population centers with no military value. We WILL beat you, even if you bomb us to powder. We WILL perservere against you. And we will live our lives in our own quiet way, even if it means finding something of interest to read in a heap of rubble.
Actually what it says to me is "We are English, we know the library has been bombed but we always go to the library on Saturdays. BTW we will soon become socialists and pass some of the stupidest laws known to man."
ReplyDeleteAs the British themselves would say: quite.
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