Thursday, May 31, 2012

On taking Literature seriously




THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL

Street Art Washington D.C.
"I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can
love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this
book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or
rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they
stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were
handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our
commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been
handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their
imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too
vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think
of, except dynamite.

Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I had
no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so hard
to be frivolous. Let any honest reader shut his eyes for a few moments,
and approaching the secret tribunal of his soul, ask himself whether he
would really rather be asked in the next two hours to write the front
page of the  Times, which is full of long leading articles, or the
front page of  Tit-Bits, which is full of short jokes. If the reader
is the fine conscientious fellow I take him for, he will at once reply
that he would rather on the spur of the moment write ten  Times
articles than one  Tit-Bits  joke. Responsibility, a heavy and cautious
responsibility of speech, is the easiest thing in the world; anybody can
do it. That is why so many tired, elderly, and wealthy men go in for
politics. They are responsible, because they have not the strength of
mind left to be irresponsible. It is more dignified to sit still than to
dance the Barn Dance. It is also easier. So in these easy pages I keep
myself on the whole on the level of the  Times: it is only occasionally
that I leap upwards almost to the level of  Tit-Bits." 

(ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, G. K. CHESTERTON)

Sunday, May 27, 2012

two men, two republics, one nation and her dead.


Robert E. Lee (note Union Uniform)
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, 
we could find in each man's sorrow and suffering 
enough to disarm all hostility."  
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
(Driftwood, 1857)







Virginia Declaration of Rights
May 15, 1776 The Republic of Virginia is declared with the adoption of the Virginia Declaration of Rights by the Virginia Conventions.  

“A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

SECTION I. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."


The men who created this document helped give birth a new Nation of 13 independent republics.




John Parke Custis (1754–1781) married Eleanor Calvert on February 3, 1774. They purchase and move to Abingdon Plantation. This plantation is on Arlington Heights Virginia. In the future this plantation will overlook The District of Columbia;  home of the the capital of the United State of America.  John Custis is the son of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington. This plantation along with George Washington’s papers are inherited by his daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis  who married Robert E. Lee.  

At the outbreak of the American Civil War or as the Southern State prefer to call it “The War Between the States”, Robert E. Lee is offered Command of all the Union Forces by Abraham Lincoln.  Robert E. Lee declines the offer and resigns his commission.  He becomes a military advisor to newly formed Confederate State of America.

May 1861 Union Forces capture Arlington Heights to prevents its being used by Confederate
Montgomery C. Meigs 
 forces to fire on Washington D.C. Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, quartermaster general for the Union Forces, uses the newly capture plantation to create a “Potters Field” to bury the unclaimed dead of the Union Forces.  Over the next decade he continues to see that the plantation is used as an honored burial ground to insure that the Lee’s again never enjoy the use of their home.  


Out of one man's sense of loyalty and another one's sense of duty and enmity a sacred place is created for the nation they both loved



Maybe Abraham Lincoln stated it best when he dedicated another military cemetery. 

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

... and I must add I have hope that President Lincoln was addressing the great loss on either side of the Mason Dixon line;   both parties paid a terrible price for this conclusion, 






"By the end of 1901 all the Confederate soldiers buried in the national cemeteries at Alexandria, Virginia, and at the Soldiers' Home in Washington were brought together with the soldiers buried at Arlington and reinterred in the Confederate section. Among the 482 persons buried there are 46 officers, 351 enlisted men, 58 wives, 15 southern civilians, and 12 unknowns. They are buried in concentric circles around the Confederate Monument, ...."




To this Day, Arlington Plantation, holds a renewed nations honored dead.  





Arlington House


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Battle-of-Arlington.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia#Statehood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_(plantation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon_(plantation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee#Marriage_and_family
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/visitorinformation/MonumentMemorials/Confederate.aspx