[T]he cyclists go in flocks like starlings, gathering together, skimming in & out.
Yes, I wrote that...in another life. If only....
Actually, it was written about a quarter century before I was born, by someone whose talent I wish I could have, if only for a day. And she was writing about cyclists in a city she was visiting.
I have visited that city, too. I am sure, though, that there wasn't a cloud hanging over it--unless you count the Cold War, which shrouded every place--as there was during her sojourn there.
Most people in that city were living relatively peaceful lives. But in a neighboring country, a xenophobic demagogue had seized the reins of power by, essentially, convincing people that foreigners and members of minority groups were responsible for everything that had gone wrong in their nation. And his sense of hair styling was, shall we say, out of the ordinary.
No, I'm not talking about The Orange One. I am referring, of course, to the author of Mein Kampf.
Now, he wasn't nearly as good a writer as the person who penned the quote at the beginning of this post. (A professor of mine once told me that most translations make MK sound better-written than it actually is.) But he would, within a few years, invade the country where the cyclists skimmed in and out on its capital's streets.
That capital is, of course, Amsterdam. And the observant visitor was none other than Virginia Woolf, who recorded that verbal image of its cyclists in her diary.
Today is her 136th birthday. She never looked better--her writing, I mean.
Yes, I wrote that...in another life. If only....
Actually, it was written about a quarter century before I was born, by someone whose talent I wish I could have, if only for a day. And she was writing about cyclists in a city she was visiting.
I have visited that city, too. I am sure, though, that there wasn't a cloud hanging over it--unless you count the Cold War, which shrouded every place--as there was during her sojourn there.
Most people in that city were living relatively peaceful lives. But in a neighboring country, a xenophobic demagogue had seized the reins of power by, essentially, convincing people that foreigners and members of minority groups were responsible for everything that had gone wrong in their nation. And his sense of hair styling was, shall we say, out of the ordinary.
No, I'm not talking about The Orange One. I am referring, of course, to the author of Mein Kampf.
Now, he wasn't nearly as good a writer as the person who penned the quote at the beginning of this post. (A professor of mine once told me that most translations make MK sound better-written than it actually is.) But he would, within a few years, invade the country where the cyclists skimmed in and out on its capital's streets.
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| Telegram deliverers in Amsterdam, 1930 |
That capital is, of course, Amsterdam. And the observant visitor was none other than Virginia Woolf, who recorded that verbal image of its cyclists in her diary.
Today is her 136th birthday. She never looked better--her writing, I mean.
