As we approach Jan. 20, I feel moved to share the words of the writer Henry Beston. These thoughts were penned in 1948 and contained in his book about life in Maine, “Northern Farm”:
“What had gone out of American life …? Essentially … a sense of direction. To use a metaphor, we are all of us passengers on a great ocean liner. There is plenty of food aboard, meals are served at given hours, and all goes on much the same as ever in the usual haphazard and familiar way. On the bridge there are quarrels as to who shall steer, and powerful and secret currents seize upon the keel. The pleasant-enough days go by; people read novels in sheltered corners of the deck. The ocean, however, is unknown, and no one, not a single soul, knows whither the ship is bound.”
Jane Biscoe
Brunswick
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