Lincoln’s Legend and Legacy

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;
The smack and tang of elemental things:
The rectitude and patience of the cliff;
The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves.

— Edwin Markham, Lincoln, Man of the People

I watched the Bill Moyer’s special last night on Lincoln’s Legend and Legacy. Since moving to North Carolina a year and a half ago, I have become a student of the Civil War. The passion with which both sides fought and Lincoln’s incredible role in holding the Union together ignites in me a deep fascination for my adopted country.

The excerpt above is but a few lines from a rich and delightful poem by Edwin Markham. The second verse alone brings tears to my eyes and is worth committing to memory. Steel away a few quiet moments today and indulge yourself in a full reading of Markham’s Lincoln, Man of the People.

Similar Posts

  • Don’t Hand Me A Yellow Volkswagen

    The Writers Almanac tells a story about Frank Conroy today. 

    Once, while directing the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Conroy scolded a student for using irrelevant details in her short story. He said…

    The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain…

  • It’s a good time to be an introvert …

    … in the last ten years or so, there’s been a major economic resurgence for introversion—the “geek” economy. The prototypical geek is really good at thinking, has superb powers of concentration (which tends to be an introvert trait), and works very well independently. They’re often pretty awesomely brilliant people, and they’re fairly defiant about being geeks. They’ve turned this word “geek” into a term that’s almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they’ve been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what’s happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun.

  • The South is a Place

    The South is a place. East, west, and north are nothing but directions.

    — Letter to the editor, Richmond Times Dispatch, 1995

    I am reading the delightful book Confederates in the Attic. The quote above opens the second chapter.

    When I lived in Colorado I took every opportunity to explore the magnificent hiking trails and striking mountain vistas offered by the Rocky Mountains. When I lived in Albuquerque I breathed deep to absorb the Native American spirit still alive in The Land of Enchantment. And when I lived in Princeton, NJ, I savored Washington’s Crossing and then immersed myself in the local history surrounding the Revolutionary War.

  • We Pay For What’s Important

    On Wednesday, in his NY Times editorial, Nicholas Kristof cited an article by the American Journal of Public Health stating that 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance.

    We accept that life is unfair, that some people will live in cramped apartments and others in sprawling mansions. But our existing insurance system is not simply inequitable but also lethal: a very recent, peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health finds that nearly 45,000 uninsured people die annually as a consequence of not having insurance. That’s one needless death every 12 minutes.

    Today Paul Krugman has an editorial on the demise of American education.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.