I have for years been intrigued with the ways in which Jews and southerners are alike--stepchildren of an anguished history. From ...the period before the Civil War, southerners have used Old Testament analogies to portray themselves as "the chosen people," surrounded and outnumbered but destined to survive and triumph against overwhelming odds. This analogy has endured deep in the southern psyche, influencing subconsciously its reactions to events. For example, in 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, polls showed that the South was caught up in military fervor and admiration for the lightning victory of the Israelis. It was almost as if Moshe Dayan had become the Israeli Stonewall Jackson, outthinking and outfighting his Arab foes, just as the boys in gray had done in the Shenandoah Valley against vastly superior numbers in the 1860s.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green... was my valley then.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am packing my belongings in the shawl my mother used to wear when she went to the market. And I am going from my valley. But thi...s time I shall never return. I am leaving behind me my 50 years of memory--memory. Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago of men and women long since dead. Yet who shall say what is real and what is not. Can I believe this all gone when their voices are still a glory in my ears. No. And I will stand to say no and no again, for they remain within my mind. There is no fence nor hedge around time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember. So I can go close my eyes on my valley as it is today and it is gone. And I see it as it was when I was a boy--green it was and possessed of the plenty of the earth. In all Wales there was none so beautiful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could be willed.... Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;... And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff the...y comfort me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.... He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No people require maxims so much as the American. The reason is obvious: the country is so vast, the people always going somewhere..., from Oregon apple valley to boreal New England, that we do not know whether to be temperate orchards or sterile climate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »