NP? a little Melville on the 4th of July

[Tim Strzechowski]

-- With relevance to Mason & Dixon?  The War on Terrorism?  Patriotism on the 4th?


"[I]n many things we Americans are driven to a rejection of the maxims of the Past, seeing that, ere long, the van of the nations must, of right, belong to ourselves.  There are occasions when it is for America to make precedents, and not to obey them.  We should, if possible, prove a teacher to posterity, instead of being the pupil of by-gone generations.  More shall come after us than have gone before; the world is not yet middle-aged.

"Escaped from the house of bondage, Isreal of old did not follow after the ways of the Egyptians.  To her was given an express dispensation; to her were given new things under the sun.  And we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people -- the Isreal of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.  Seventy years ago we escaped from thrall; and, besides our first birthright -- God has given to us, for a future inheritance, the broad domains of the political pagans, that shall yet come and lie down under the shade of our ark, without bloody hands being lifted.  God has predestinated, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls.  The rest of the nations must soon be in our rear.  We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours.  In our youth is our strength; in our inexperience our wisdom.  At a period when other nations have but lisped, our deep voice is heard afar.  Long enough have we been sceptics with regard to ourselves, and doubted whether, indeed, the political Messiah had come.  But he has come in us, if we would but give utterance to his promptings.  And let us all remember, that with ourselves -- almost for the first time in the history of earth -- national selfishness is unbounded philanthropy; for we cannot do a good to America but we give alms to the world."

                                                           --- White-Jacket [1850], Chapter 36



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the
young know everything."
                                                                        ~~ Oscar Wilde
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20020704/106574f7/attachment.html>