everything in print

18th april 1872 and kilvert is still on holiday in the gower. he's off to the mumbles.

'a tramway runs along the roadside from swansea to the mumbles, upon which ply railway carriages drawn by horses.

oystermouth castle stands nobly upon a hill overlooking the town and bay. the lurid copper smoke hung in a dense cloud over swansea, and the great fleet of oyster boats under the cliff was heaving in the greenest sea I ever saw...' 

'I read. it is like a disease, I read everything that comes to hand, everything that meets my glance: newspapers, schoolbooks, bits of paper found in the street, recipes, children's books. everything in print.'

- from the illiterate by Ágota kristóf, describing her childhood in hungary.

horsemouth read the notebook by her a long time ago. and yesterday he read an article on her in the LRB and a few other things he found on google books.  she learned to speak french and then read french later in life (this is why she is the illiterate) and then began to write in it (like e.m.cioran, like milan kundera, like samuel beckett). 

she was another writer who burned their diaries. 

it's still a bit cold in the mornings and overnight. this is making horsemouth hesitant about planting out the runner beans (he's got the bamboo frame for them in already). the overnight temperatures are staying low all week.