Lincoln, Steeped In The Bible And Shakespeare,

Lincoln, Steeped In The Bible And Shakespeare, Set An Impossibly High Bar For Presidential Prose.

One Classic American Landscape Haunts All Of American Literature. It Is A Picture Of Eden, Perceived At The Instant Of History When Corruption Has Just Begun To Set It. The Serpent Has Shown His Scaly Head In The Undergrowth. The Apple Gleams On The Tree. The Old Drama Of The Fall Is Ready To Start All Over Again.

When Traveling, I Usually Keep A Notebook: When Home At My Desk, The Notebook Serves Mainly To Remind Me How Little I Saw At The Time, Or Rather How I Was Noticing The Wrong Things. But The Notes Do Spur Memories, And It's The Memories I Trust. The Wine Stain On The Page May Tell Me More Than The Words There, Which Usually Strike Me As Hopelessly Inadequate.

In Rural Areas The Majority Of The Victims Of Violent Crime Know Their Assailants (indeed, Are Probably Married To Them); In Cities, The Killer And The Mugger Come Out Of The Anonymous Dark, Their Faces Unrecognized, Their Motives Obscure.

Good Travel Books Are Novels At Heart.