Hear ye, hear ye, good citizens of Concord!
It hath come to our attention that our beloved Concord contemplates a most grievous act — the barring of our library doors upon the very day when citizens might best commune with the eternal truths preserved therein.
What Gulliver-like giants of misguided frugality now stomp upon the fields of intellectual pursuit, crushing beneath their heavy boots the tender seedlings of wisdom that Sunday readers cultivate in solitude?
A mere $44,000 — a pittance so laughably insignificant that even the meanest squirrel of Walden Woods would scorn to gather such meager nuts for winter’s store.
Pray tell, dear board, have you taken leave of your senses?
Have we not, through our pens and philosophies, elevated this humble hamlet to a beacon of enlightenment? Shall we now cast ourselves into the pit of ignorance, denying our fellow Concordian the sustenance of knowledge on the very day when leisure permits its consumption?
Let it be known that we — Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts — stand united in our vehement opposition to this unconscionable act. We call upon our fellow Concordians to rise and defend our libraries.
In these tumultuous times, when the very fabric of our society is threatened by the forces of ignorance and intolerance, you propose to lock away the key to our salvation?
Thus, we implore our civic shepherds to reconsider this ill-advised folly. For if we allow this travesty to pass, we shall surely find ourselves adrift in a sea of mediocrity, our once-proud legacy of thought and reason reduced to naught but a footnote in the annals of history.
Esteemed Concordian Literati
(as channeled by Meghan O’Malley of Hayward Mill Road)
