Love Is Friendship On Fire

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a book.

I was 18 when we were first introduced. I had to find a novel to read for my AP English class, and it had to be written before the 20th century. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t dense and boring. Then, my dad suggested I read Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. It was love at first sight. I was addicted to this book. Over the years I’ve read it dozens of times, and I’m not usually one to reread books.
In one of the earliest chapters, there is a line that I continue to find breathtakingly beautiful. I have since committed it to memory:

The sky was clear, remarkably clear, and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

The imagery of that line continues to amaze and entrance me. When I read it, I am suddenly thrust into the scene, gazing up at the stars in awe. The idea that the night sky had a pulse, and was therefore alive somehow, struck something deep inside of me. To this day I continue to find a simple joy in gazing up at the stars on a clear night and trying to find that “common pulse.”

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