faulkner of the day
Dave Long (dl@silcom.com)
Sat, 03 Jul 1999 15:21:22 -0700
"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he
wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two oclock on
that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the
rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled
flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his
long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword
in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the
word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't
even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time
for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances
which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox
look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have
come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need
even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time
with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania,
Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown
with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the
cast made two years ago...."
-Dave
on a lighter note, Faulkner's comment on losing his job at the Post
Office:
"I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my
life, but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the beck and
call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a stamp."