"Louis L'amour - sackett02 - To The Far Blue Mountains" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

The sun arose, the fog lifted, sunlight lay gently upon the fens. Some distance
off we saw men cutting reeds and grass for thatch, then they were blotted from
view by a thick stand of saw-sedge, seven to ten feet tall, but giving the
appearance of a simple meadow if looked upon from distance. Passing through it
was quite another thing, and I recalled returning from those meadows as a boy
with cuts upon arms and legs from their wicked edges.
What memories would my children have? Would they ever know England? They would
be far away and in another land, without schools, without books. No. There must
be books.
It was born then, this idea that I must have books, not only for our children
but for Abigail and myself. We must not lose touch with what we were, with what
we had been, nor must we allow the well of our history to dry up, for a child
without tradition is a child crippled before the world. Tradition can also be an
anchor of stability and a shield to guard one from irresponsibility and hasty
decision.
What books then? They must be few, for the luggage of books is no easy thing
when they must be carried in canoes, packs, and upon one's back.
Each book must be one worth rereading many times, each a book that has much to
say, that can lend meaning to a life, help in decisions, comfort one during
moments of loneliness. One needed a chance to listen to the words of other men
who had lived their lives, to share with them trials and troubles by day and by
night in home or in the markets of cities.
The Bible, of course, for aside from religion there is much to be learned of men
and their ways in the Bible. It is also a source of comments made of references
and figures of speech. No man could consider himself educated without some
knowledge of it.
Plutarch also. My father, a self-educated man, placed much weight upon him. He
was, I quote my father, urbane, sophisticated, and intelligent, giving a sense
of calmness and consideration to all he wrote. "I think," my father said, "that
more great men have read him than perhaps any other book."
"Barnabas?" Black Tom was watching the riverbanks. "Is your boat anchored in
London?"
"Aye. And there is a man in London with whom I speak. I shall be gone for a long
time, and there are things he must do for me here, business he must handle when
I am far from England."
"Do you trust this man?"
"Aye," I said, after a moment of thought, "although he has the name of one
gifted at conniving. Yet we have things in common, I think."
"What manner of things?"
"Ideas, Tom. We have shared large ideas together, Peter and I. There is no
greater time than for young men to sit together and shape large ideas into
rounded, beautiful things. I do not know if our thoughts were great thoughts,
but we believed them so. We talked of Plato, of Cathay and Marco Polo, of Roman
gods and Greek heroes, of Ulysses and Jason."
"I know nothing of these."
"Nor I, of some of them, but Peter did. And I learned and became curious and
someday I shall know more of them. Peter spoke also of a strange man who came
once to his booth in St. Paul's Walk to sell some ancient manuscripts, a man who
spoke of the wise Adapa and the Hidden Treasure of the Secret Writing. He spoke
as if he expected somehow that Peter would respond, but although it disturbed