Little White Horses

When I was small, there was one book in my collection that I loved best of all: The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. It tells the story of a girl who loses her London family and moves to the English countryside, where she heals a longstanding rift between relatives, restores balance to her community, and, of course, finds love and defeats evil. She was terribly inspirational. And against the backdrop of all her victories, adventures, and thrilling close shaves, a little white horse who is sometimes there and sometimes not stands watch over human upheavals from the silvery shadows of the wood.

Years ago now, I was in England on one of real life’s beautiful adventures. As I rose from sleep to wander the lofty country manor that had become my temporary home, I found myself in the drawing room looking out on the morning mist.

If you have never seen the English countryside, trust me when I say that for a lover of British literature, there is something about adding your eyes to the countless many who have gazed on England’s trees and fields and valleys, land that has been lived on and loved and written about for thousands of years. As the sun began to rise and burn off the mist, gently rolling pastures and split-rail fences came into view. And there, away off at the edge of the fields and the wood, stood a little white horse.

In that moment, the magic of childhood reading superimposed itself on my present. In a foreign country, in a period of post-college doubt and ambiguity, even amidst the general fog of jet lag and early morning, I felt completely at home.

I have no words of wisdom or groundbreaking insights. I only know that today I was reminded of something I had long forgotten. The dreams we have as children, the stories we read young that shine down the years for the rest of our lives—these are still lovely and still important.

Many dreams do not come to be. Other dreams, once realized, shape themselves around the fact of our collective mess, this impossible reality. But there are perfect moments, and memories of perfect dreams. They run out of light and fade back into evening, hoof beats pounding the Earth, a little white horse just out of reach.

“…The raised hoof, the proud poised head, the flowing mane,

The supreme moment of stillness before the flight,

The moment of farewell, of wordless pleading

For remembrance of things lost to earthly sight...

Lost and gone and now I do not know

If it was a little white horse that I saw,

Or only a moonbeam astray in the silver night.”  - Elizabeth Goudge

Original context: Letter From the Editor, Florida newspaper with circulation 95,000.