the phaeton

I can't really describe why one of the books I read today (Jacob Abbott's The Great Elm, 1856) was so unsettling, but I'd guess it's a cognitive dissonance issue. Candidly, I'd prefer to discuss it face-to-face, so ask me sometime, if you're curious. But I will share this picture with you, in hopes that this will help. For what it's worth, Blogger crashed my web browser just now, as I was starting this blog post, in what I can only assume was an editorial comment.