And There Is The Headlight, Shining Far

The Present Moment Is Nice But It Does Not Last. Living In It Is Like Waiting In A Junction Town For The Morning Limited; The Junction May Be Interesting But Some Day You Will Have To Leave It And You Do Not Know Where The Limited Will Take You.

Soldiers Who Had Been In The Army Long Enough To Know What A Bloody Swindle War Really Is Would Begin To Feel That Army Life Was Really Kind Of Fun, As Long As [general Philip] Sheridan Was Up Front.

It Began With One Act Of Madness, And It Ended With Another. John Brown Heard History's Clock Strike In The Night And Tried To Hurry Dawn Along With Gunfire; Now John Wilkes Booth Heard The Clock Strike, And He Tried With Gunfire To Restore The Darkness. Each Man Stood Outside The Human Community, Directed By Voices The Sane Do Not Hear, And Each Kept History From Going Logically... The Line From Harper's Ferry To Ford's Theater Is A Red Thread Binding The Immense Disorder Of The Civil War Into An Irrational Sort Of Coherence.

And There Is The Headlight, Shining Far Down The Track, Glinting Off The Steel Rails That, Like All Parallel Lines, Will Meet In Infinity, Which Is After All Where This Train Is Going.

Beneath Everything Else, North And West, There Ran A Profound, Unvoiced, Almost Subconscious Conviction That The [american] Nation Was Going To Go On Growing-in Size, In Power, In Everything A Man Could Think Of-and In That Belief There Was A Might And A Fury That Would Take Form Instantly At The Moment Of Shock.