The Wild Still Lingered In

A Good Soldier Is A Blind, Heartless, Soulless, Murderous Machine. He Is Not A Man. His Is Not A Brute, For Brutes Kill Only In Self Defense. All That Is Human In Him, All That Is Divine In Him, All That Constitutes The Man Has Been Sworn Away When He Took The Enlistment Roll. His Mind, His Conscience, Aye, His Very Soul, Are In The Keeping Of His Officer. No Man Can Fall Lower Than A Soldier-it Is A Depth Beneath Which We Cannot Go.

The Grapes On A Score Of Rolling Hills Are Red With Autumn Flame. Across Sonoma Mountain Wisps Of Sea Fog Are Stealing. The Afternoon Sun Smoulders In The Drowsy Sky. I Have Everything To Make Me Glad I Am Alive. I Am Filled With Dreams And Mysteries. I Am All Sun And Air And Sparkle. I Am Vitalized, Organic.

And How Have I Lived? Frankly And Openly, Though Crudely. I Have Not Been Afraid Of Life. I Have Not Shrunk From It. I Have Taken It For What It Was At Its Own Valuation. And I Have Not Been Ashamed Of It. Just As It Was, It Was Mine.

He Was Always Striving To Attain It. The Life That Was So Swiftly Expanding Within Him, Urged Him Continually Toward The Wall Of Light. The Life That Was Within Him Knew That It Was The One Way Out, The Way He Was Predestined To Tread.

Affluence Means Influence.