The Cruise Of The Nona

The Cruise Of The Nona
By Hilaire Belloc

How then should I approach this task which has been set me of writing down, in the years between fifty and sixty, some poor scraps of judgment and memory? I think I will give it the name of a Cruise; for it is in the hours when he is alone at the helm, steering his boat along the shores, that a man broods most upon the past, and most deeply considers the nature of things. I think I will also call it by the name of my boat, the “Nona” and give the whole book the title “ The Cruise of the ‘ Nona,’ for, in truth, the “ Nona ” has spent her years, which are much the same as mine (we are nearly of an age, the darling, but she a little younger, as is fitting), threading out of harbours, taking the mud, trying to make further harbours, failing to do so, getting in the way of more important vessels, giving way to them, taking the mud again, waiting to be floated off by the tide, anchoring in the fairway, getting cursed out of it, dragging anchor on shingle and slime, mistaking one light for another, rounding the wrong buoy, crashing into other people, and capsizing in dry harbours. It seemed to me as I considered the many adventures and misadventures of my boat, that here was a good setting for the chance thoughts of one human life ; since all that she has done and all that a man does, make up a string of happenings and thinkings, disconnected and without shape, meaningless, and yet full : which is Life.

Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 360 pages

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