The White Cold
1 journaler for this copy...
The insert says:
"The white colt of the title ambles warily into the life of Philip, who lives with his parents in a Dartmoor village. The colt and the boy instinctively recognise in each other something the other needs and the amazing relationship between the two forms the basis of a most unusual story, for Philip is no ordinary boy and his needs no ordinary needs. Deprived in early childhood (through a series of mischances for which no one can be allocated blame) of the normal means of human contact, he has withdrawn into an intense private world, dependent on no one, admitting no one except, gingerly, an old retired army officer who can penetrate the boy's condition and who shares with him a deep and consuming love of the moor. The boy, the colonel and the colt now build up a life together which is then shattered, apparently irreparably, for the pony disappears, and instead a small trained falcon becomes the means of contact between the boy and his surroundings until disaster befalls her also.
The story itself, in its conception and whole feeling, is a deeply moving one in which the sympathetic reader cannont but feel intensely involved. The author's wideranging knowledge of the ways of horse and falcon, his understanding of the place of nature in the lives of people to whom contacts with their fellow men are difficult and, above all, his compassionate picture of boy's struggle against what seem insuperable odds, make THE WHITE COLT a truly memorable experience."
"The white colt of the title ambles warily into the life of Philip, who lives with his parents in a Dartmoor village. The colt and the boy instinctively recognise in each other something the other needs and the amazing relationship between the two forms the basis of a most unusual story, for Philip is no ordinary boy and his needs no ordinary needs. Deprived in early childhood (through a series of mischances for which no one can be allocated blame) of the normal means of human contact, he has withdrawn into an intense private world, dependent on no one, admitting no one except, gingerly, an old retired army officer who can penetrate the boy's condition and who shares with him a deep and consuming love of the moor. The boy, the colonel and the colt now build up a life together which is then shattered, apparently irreparably, for the pony disappears, and instead a small trained falcon becomes the means of contact between the boy and his surroundings until disaster befalls her also.
The story itself, in its conception and whole feeling, is a deeply moving one in which the sympathetic reader cannont but feel intensely involved. The author's wideranging knowledge of the ways of horse and falcon, his understanding of the place of nature in the lives of people to whom contacts with their fellow men are difficult and, above all, his compassionate picture of boy's struggle against what seem insuperable odds, make THE WHITE COLT a truly memorable experience."