At Another Level
I have, over the years, mentioned the single class that changed my Weltanschauung, worldview. It was Mrs. Davis’s English class. During my junior and senior years, we had to memorize 100 lines of poetry or prose each semester. To be honest, I hated it. It didn’t matter what we chose to recite; it had to be perfect.
What changed me was what I learned about why a particular author wrote his or her writing. Then, I picked a stanza or paragraph that intrigued me about what I had memorized. For example, I read the novella Silas Marner written by George Eliot in 1861. However, that was Mary Ann Evans’ pen name. That pseudonym was due to the fact that Victorian society didn’t think women could write important books. They were relegated to writing books for children. This is a link to my website about Silas Marner.
I graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School in 1961, a century after Eliot wrote Silas Marner. This is the paragraph that I memorized. I still can recall most of it.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
I would bet any of my classmates over six decades ago that I could recite more lines like Silas Marner than they could.
This essay is about another famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, and his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway quoted from John Donne’s Meditation XVII. Interestingly, it is a long meditation. However, he quoted two lines from it, and I had memorized that section while in Mrs. Davis’s English class, also.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
My understanding of lines that I memorized back when I had just started my journey down the yellow brick road was understood at an intellectual level. People die, and therefore, a church bell will toll for them. I got it...I thought.
Nonetheless, in my twilight years, Donne’s prose rings louder and louder for me. Additionally, a couple of decades ago, I danced with death twice. Let me tell you a secret: Doing the dance with death wakens the dancer.
There was another poem that I recited for Mrs. Davis. It was The Bridge Builder by Will Allen Dromgoole. It was a poem in my babybook.
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”
The Bridge Builder parallels Donnes' meditation, and Silas Marner, all of which I recited for Mrs. Davis. However, there are two additional aspects that they share in common. I have a mantra: It is in giving that we get. When you do something for another, whether time or talent, you benefit; it is absolutely true. Giving is a reciprocal. Both parties benefit.
The other aspect is, after the bells toll for you, how will you be remembered? Trump gets the message of being remembered, even though he doesn’t have a foggy idea about Meditation XVII, Silas Marner, or The Bridge Builder.
This is a partial list of things or places that Trump had and/or still has with his name on the item. How will any in the list below benefit the giver and receiver?
Trump Wine, Trump Steaks, Trump Water, Trump Vodka, Trump fragrances: Trump cologne, Empire, and Success.
Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas, Trump International Hotel in D.C., Trump Tower in Manhattan, Sunny Isles Beach Hotel in Miami, and a half dozen scattered around the world.
Trump had the Trump Shuttle, which was a fleet of planes, the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, Trump University, Trump magazine, and more than a dozen books that he wrote. Additionally, Trump specialized in wearing apparel: shirts, suits, ties, and other accessories.
Trump Model Management was his modeling company. When not checking out models, Trump has golf courses here in the States and in Scotland.
He has or wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of the America, and the Kennedy Center is now the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. The U.S. Institute of Peace has a new name: the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace. There is now the President Donald J. Trump Boulevard in West Palm Beach. Palm Beach International Airport to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
Then there is the Trump-class Battleship group. He wants to have Washington Dulles International Airport and the New York Penn Station renamed after him. The same is true for the Smithsonian Institution. It is to be called the Trumpsonian.
Let me assure Donald J. Trump that he will go down in the annals of history as the paragon of despicability.
This video is of George Eliot’s novella, Silas Marner.
This is The Bridge Builder put to song.