How she'll greet me when she meets me when my ship gets in to port

[sovay]

It has not been a good week for sleep in the sense that I have managed about three to four hours out of every twenty-four and generally not when it's night out, but it has been an excellent week for ocean. After contemplating the question and decisively answering that she would rather be a dragon than a cat, my niece who was part of this afternoon's excursion with out-of-town family to Castle Island showed her fire by the sea.

Comments

[greenwoodside]

Hope your niece never gets tired of people complimenting her copper red hair!

I agree re dragons broadly, though think the question really needs to be refined down to individuals due to the diversity in both species. Thus, is it better to be Smaug or Behemoth? Temeraire or Fankle the Cat? Eustace Scrubb or Greebo?

[sovay]

Hope your niece never gets tired of people complimenting her copper red hair!

I will tell her! It is blondish in most lights and then it fires.

I agree re dragons broadly, though think the question really needs to be refined down to individuals due to the diversity in both species. Thus, is it better to be Smaug or Behemoth? Temeraire or Fankle the Cat? Eustace Scrubb or Greebo?

You know, that's a compelling question. There's always that Nesbit story wherein all cats are really transformed dragons.

[greenwoodside]

The ideal sample group! "Do you prefer being cats or dragons?"

Also, thank you for introducing me to the story. I have never read Nesbit, and only know her work via a creaky eighties adaptation of The Five Children and It.

And from that day he grew furrier and furrier, and he was the beginning of all cats. Nothing of the dragon remained except the claws, which all cats have still, as you can easily ascertain.

[sovay]

Also, thank you for introducing me to the story. I have never read Nesbit, and only know her work via a creaky eighties adaptation of The Five Children and It.

You're welcome! I grew up on The Book of Dragons (1901). I also grew up on most of her other children's novels, some of which—The Railway Children (1906), The Enchanted Castle (1907)—really hold up and some of which were rougher to re-read. Others I have not revisited recently enough to have relevant opinions on. As an adult, however, I can really recommend her weird fiction.

And from that day he grew furrier and furrier, and he was the beginning of all cats. Nothing of the dragon remained except the claws, which all cats have still, as you can easily ascertain.

Autolycus was most purrily dragonish.