HIGHLANDS, N.C., Feb. 27 (UPI) -- This here's the 339th Report ta the Folks Back Home from the (More er Less) Honorable Billybob, cyberCongressman from Western Carolina.
The beginnin subjeck this week izza marble angel carved by the father ov Thomas Wolfe what inspired the title ov his towerin novel, "Look Homeward, Angel." It has some application ta modern American politics.
Since ma able assistant, John Armor, Esq., izza lit'rary eggspert onna premises, I'll turn this over ta him.
Thomas Wolfe's Angel
On a trip to Raleigh, the North Carolina capitol, to do a radio interview on constitutional law, I visited Thomas Wolfe's angel. His father, W.O. Wolfe, was a reprobate and separated from his family. But he was a merchant and a stone-cutter. His masterpiece was this monument, placed in a cemetery in Hendersonville over the grave of Margaret Johnson.
Young Thomas Wolfe saw his father carve this monument in 1905. His parents effectively separated the next year when his mother bought a boarding house in Asheville and moved there, while his father remained in the former home. That boarding house, where Wolfe observed the passing human condition, provided grist for the mill from which came his most famous novel "Look Homeward, Angel," probably second only to "Huckleberry Finn" as the great American novel. Wolfe chose for his title the gravestone carved by his father. Today, it still speaks volumes.
The angel is a graceful figure about four feet high and of a piece with the pedestal. So, Wolfe certainly saw his father carve the inscription as well as the angel. The inscription gives Mrs. Johnson's name, husband, the date of birth and of her death in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and then says, "Her children arise up and call her blessed." This must have struck a chord with Wolfe, who was the youngest of eight children.
The angel is looking downward toward the grave of this woman. The angel's right hand is raised, and one finger points upward. This is the promise of salvation, which in some form or other is essential for all great novels.
The grave of H. F. Johnson is next to his wife's. His obelisk states that he was a Freemason, a Doctor of Divinity, and the president of a women's college in Brookhaven, where he also died. But his family brought him home to North Carolina for burial as they did his wife. There are parallels between him and his wife, and Thomas Wolfe's parents.
Dr. Johnson died many years before his wife, leaving her to soldier on alone, as happened in a way with Wolfe's mother. I've read many literary analyses of Wolfe, but none referred to the inscription on the angel his father carved. I think those words applied not only to Mrs. Johnson, but also to Thomas Wolfe's mother, Julia. I think Wolfe saw that as his father's gift to his wife and children.
The best remembered concept from "Look Homeward, Angel" begins there, but becomes explicit in the title of his second, posthumous novel, "You Can't Go Home Again." Wolfe's thousands of pages tell the truth that change is inexorable, and irreversible. As Omar Khayyam wrote in the Rubaiyat, "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it." As events accumulate and circumstances change, the home that one remembers --- the people, not the building --- change and are never the same again. But this truth contains a necessary and opposite truth.
For better or worse, we are products of our parents and their lives. Both their virtues and vices live on in us throughout our lives, in altered but mirrored fashion. I am certain that Thomas Wolfe understood that as well.
In the Wolfe boarding house preserved in Asheville, hundreds of thousands of visitors tour annually. (Numbers were down a while due to a serious fire in 1998). Visitors come looking for the genius of Thomas Wolfe, who drew his understanding of humankind from the transients who came and went through those halls. But most visitors lack the understanding of Wolfe's vision, to see beyond the particular to the universal. Most also lack his capacity to put that vision into words. So, most leave no wiser than they came.
What applies to the continuum from parents to children applies equally to the continuum between the generations in a nation. We ignore our past at our peril.
Thomas Wolfe's angel is in an old part of the cemetery. Around it are monuments to veterans of World Wars I and II. But there are also survivors of the Spanish American War and the Civil War. Some of the stones are so ancient and worn by time and weather they can no longer be read. Some probably date further back than 1850.
Almost the whole span of American history is reflected in the stones around this angel. There is a deep sense of "home" in these graves. Some name the nations where these people of the mountains of North Carolina began their lives. Some, like the graves of the Johnsons themselves, reflect the fact that people here bring their folks "home" for burial.
It is worthwhile to apply Thomas Wolfe's hard-earned understanding to the two great issues of the American "family" today, war and peace.
We begin with the New Jersey Department of Education, whose guidelines for the basics of history education conclude that the life and times of George Washington are no longer of sufficient importance or relevance to be taught to high school students. George Washington, after all, lived a long time ago, and he owned slaves all his adult life.
Was George Washington perfect? Of course not. Neither was H. F. Johnson, or his wife, Margaret. Neither was Julia Wolfe, nor especially W. O. Wolfe. But all of them left at least one "monument" behind them which offered enduring value. And Washington's monuments were among the greatest ever created. In the immortal eulogy of Congressman Henry Lee, Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
George Washington is called, with historical accuracy, "the Father of his country." Every person who calls himself an American is a "child" of this man. If we are not taught what he accomplished, and how and why, it is not Washington's memory that suffers. It is our capacity to function now and in the future that suffers.
Every nation is only one generation from barbarity. Only to the extent we pass on to the next generation the basics of our history, language and culture, does our nation continue on. Two examples from Washington's life prove the point.
First is his example in war. The pathetically thin references to the Revolutionary War in most high school textbooks today give the impression that most Americans supported the war, and that it was almost inevitable that the Americans would prevail. Both impressions are flatly false.
Best current research is that about one-third of all Americans actively supported the war. About a third actively opposed the war. And the remaining third tried to stay out of and away from the war as best they could.
As for the prospects of success, Washington's troops lost every battle they fought from the heights around Boston, through New York, through New Jersey, and into Pennsylvania. They were in constant retreat. The entire army, including Washington, were nearly captured in New York City, escaping only through the bravery of the Maryland Line, half of whose men were killed while covering the retreat.
Washington wrote to his brother from Pennsylvania, where the remnants of his army were encamped in the winter of 1776, that "the cause of the Revolution is almost lost." Then Washington called on Thomas Paine to read to the troops the newly-written American Crisis I. It began with, "These are the times that try men's souls...." A week later, on Christmas Day, General Washington risked all by attacking the Hessians at Trenton. A spy gave the Hessian general a note that the Americans were coming to attack him. He was in the midst of a Christmas party with his officers, and put the unread note in his pocket. It was found in his jacket when he died of his wounds, after Washington defeated and captured his men.
What is the relevance of near defeat both of Washington's troops and of all hopes for the American revolution? It is this: all wars are monumental risks --- none should be entered without valid cause. But once entered, all possible resources must be committed to victory. There is no other choice.
If there is justice in the causes of Gulf War II, then the quibbling of Congress over the resources for this war is no different from the quibbling of the Continental Congress over the resources for the Revolutionary War. Again and again, Congress nearly strangled General Washington's ability to prosecute that war to victory. Note that the Continental Congress quarreled over paying the costs as incurred. It did not engage in the absurdity of the current Congress (and several members of the White House press corps), demanding to know the cost of the impending war in advance, or before the Declaration of Independence was passed.
Preserving a nation in war is perilous and harsh. Paradoxically, preserving a nation in peacetime is more difficult. At least in wartime a nation is focused on the task at hand. In peacetime, nations are unfocused. They have the luxury of petty quarrels on the full panoply of lesser political and social issues.
On the subject of peace, Washington's example is equally relevant. Certain members of Congress, most notably Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, have condemned Miguel Estrada, nominee for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, for holding "extreme" views. Would the eminent senator also consider these words to be extreme? "[T]he constitution which at any time exists 'til changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all."
That statement means that changes in the Constitution are not in the hands of the Supreme Court, nor the Congress, nor the president. Changes can only be made as specified in the Constitution itself, by two-thirds of Congress proposing any change, to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. It means obeying the Constitution and its amendments as written, until changed by the people themselves.
That "extreme" statement was written by President Washington in his "Farewell Address to the American People." It was one of many warnings he gave about preserving the nation that both a successful war and a successful Constitution had given us. It is a warning that all students ought to learn. It is a warning that all senators ought to know, and take to heart.
Sadly, the filibuster against Mr. Estrada, which will probably begin in earnest this weekend, will provide examples in both peace and war of the failure of some members of Congress to honor the heritage of Washington. A minority of the Senate will seek to prevent that body from performing its constitutional duty of voting on a judicial nominee. Also, in the course of that filibuster, the opposing senators will ramble on at great length about all manner of subjects which become relatively trivial in time of war.
I saw those failures of national memory through an elegant marble angel in a quiet North Carolina cemetery, just a few days ago. "Look homeward, angel."
--
(About the author: Congressman Billybob is fictitious, but prolific, on the Internet -- the invention of John Armor, who writes books and practices law in the U.S. Supreme Court. Comments and criticisms are welcome at [email protected]).
