because she knew that
it’s foolish to shut oneself
in any wardrobe
Adapted from the passage:
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up—mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further in and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. It was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe. She took a step further in—then two or three steps—always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.
From the book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, released in the United States, 75 years ago.
There is a bookstore in Richmond Hill, Ga (the town once owned by Henry Ford) where you can walk through the Wardrobe.
I would go to this bookstore just to walk into the wardrobe even if all the books were priced $2/paperback and $4/hardcover.
Reading the article in the New York Times, The First Time I Read ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by multiple contributors, I liked the remembrance by Stefano Montali, a news assistant at The Times who wrote:
More so than “The Hobbit” or Tolkien’s books, Lewis’s books felt aspirational. I didn’t want to go on adventures that involved spiders and dwarves and Ringwraiths, much as I enjoyed hearing about them. But I did long to have a closet that led to another world, to meet a faun and to try Turkish delight.
Now I’m old and even more of a hobbit than I used to be, and I still want a closet bigger on the inside than the outside. I’d still like to meet Mr. Tumnus. I have, at least, tried Turkish delight.
I like that I still want a closet bigger on the inside than the outside.
In his dedication, Mr. Lewis wrote:
My dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
C. S. Lewis
But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
Is that not fabulous?
Something to remember, much like the advice to leave the door open, of course, because it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.
Maybe worth the entire series of seven books.
Right up there with JRR Tolkien’s, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
No Haiku For You 