Yes, that is a good point that hiding emotions is as important as recreating them. It's interesting that Lawrie can also do this if she tries, but she very rarely does try.
As well as being a bit shocked at Nicholas's resilience at the beating (I once read that younger boys birched at Eton usually lost control of their bladder and bowels) I do wonder how he could then fall asleep riding on a horse that night.
His happiness as a ship's boy also makes me uneasy mainly because of the sentence "and if he did not entirely escape the cuffs and welts common to any ship's boy..." Welts sound serious and we're only talking about three days. It seems to deny the trauma of violence and is probably the only sentence in AF to actually make me cringe.
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timeasmymeasure
Casual Violence
Date: 2015-05-03 05:42 pm (UTC)As well as being a bit shocked at Nicholas's resilience at the beating (I once read that younger boys birched at Eton usually lost control of their bladder and bowels) I do wonder how he could then fall asleep riding on a horse that night.
His happiness as a ship's boy also makes me uneasy mainly because of the sentence "and if he did not entirely escape the cuffs and welts common to any ship's boy..."
Welts sound serious and we're only talking about three days. It seems to deny the trauma of violence and is probably the only sentence in AF to actually make me cringe.
Mrs Kent