Dedicatory Oath

(Beautiful World by Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma”
Moses, 1860-1961, American painter)

We now come to the end of our study of Philia, or friendship.

“Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breadth of kindness blow the rest away.”

~ Dinah Maria Craik (1826-1887), English novelist and poet, from A Life for a Life

from DEDICATORY OATH

They say that in the unchanging place,
Where all we loved is always clear,
We meet our morning face to face
And find at last our twentieth year. . . .

They say (and I am glad they say),
It is so; and it may be so:
It may be just the other way,
I cannot tell. But this I know:

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

~ Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), French-born poet, essayist, and historian, who became a naturalized British citizen and even served as a Member of Parliament for five years

The Year’s Awakening

(Hoosick River by Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma”
Moses, 1860-1961, American painter)

“When I got to the bottom of the lane, I set my bicycle against a bank and picnicked on a fence. A beautiful Jay in all the glory of his spring plumage flew screaming across the lane into a spinney of larch trees opposite. He seemed to resent the intrusion of a human being in such an infrequented spot. I was glad to find the white Periwinkle still ‘trailing its wreathes’ on the bank, but the flowers were only in bud, and the violets too were just uncurling their buds under their fresh green leaves. Among the notes of the numerous birds I recognized those of the Thrush, Blackbird, Hedge Sparrow, Sky-lark, Wren, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Green-finch, Pied Wag-tail and Yellow Bunting. The latter was especially conspicuous, perched up on top of the hedge with his bright yellow plumage, repeating his cry — one can hardly call it a song — with its last, peculiar, long drown out note, over and over again. ‘A little bit of bread and no che-ese,’ the country people liken it to. In Cumberland they say it says, ‘Devil, devil, dinna touch me-e.’ This bird is called ‘Yeldrin’ and ‘Yellow Yowlie’ in Scotland. I noticed that the white Periwinkle blossoms have five petals, while the blue have only four. I wonder if this is always so.”

~ Edith Holden, part of the entry of March 10, 1906, from the book The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

THE YEAR’S AWAKENING

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth’s appareling;
O vespering bird, how do you know,
How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,
Hid in your bed from sight and sound,
Without a turn in temperature,
With weather life can scarce endure,
That light has won a fraction’s strength,
And day put on some moments’ length,
Whereof in merest rote will come,
Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;
O crocus root, how do you know,
How do you know?

~ Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist and poet

The Beggar

(The Tramp at Christmas by Anna Mary Robertson
“Grandma” Moses, 1860-1961, American painter)

“It will not bother me in the hour of death,” wrote C. S. Lewis in A Letter to an American Lady, “to reflect that I have been ‘had for a sucker’ by any number of impostors; but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need.”

THE BEGGAR

He begged and shuffled on;
Sometimes he stopped to throw
A bit and benison¹
To sparrows in the snow,
And clap a frozen ear
And curse the bitter cold.
God send the good man cheer
And quittal² hundredfold.

~ Ralph Hodgson (1871-1962), English poet

¹ benison – blessing
² quittal – acquittal, forgiveness

On a Windy Wash Day Morn

(Wash Day, 1945 by Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma”
Moses, 1860-1961, American painter)

Grandma Moses began her career as a painter when she was eighty years old. For the next twenty-one years, she had great success as a popular folk artist of traditional American themes like country fairs, maple-sugaring, quilting bees, and Thanksgiving turkey-hunts.

“I like to paint old-time things, historical landmarks of long ago, bridges, mills, and hostelries,” she once said. “Those old-time homes, there are a few left, and they are going fast. I do them all from memory, most of them are daydreams, as it were.”

The painting Wash Day was inspired by the following poem which she had memorized as a schoolgirl:

On Monday was our washing day,
and while the clothes were drying,
a wind came suddenly through the line
and set them all a-flying.
I saw the shirts and petticoats
go flying off like witches.
I lost (oh bitterly I wept),
I lost my Sunday breeches.
I saw them flying through the air,
alas too late to save them.
A hole was in their ample part,
as if an imp had worn them.

~ Author unknown

Grandma Moses’ painting, in turn, inspired the poem below:

ON A WINDY WASH DAY MORN

Soaked and scrubbed in a round tin tub
with homemade soap
up and down the ribs of a wooden washboard
by hands rubbed red & raw
on a windy wash day morn.

Stiffened with starch, squeezed
and wrung to a twisted laundry rope
then hung on lines to flap
back and forth and snap dry
on a windy wash day morn.

Laid on the lawn like paper cutouts
clean shirts and sheets, towels and skirts
smelling of sun and clouds and wind
wait to be ironed and worn and dirtied
again for another wash day morn.

~ Brenda Seabrooke, born 1941, American poet and novelist

I Like Americans

(Bennington, 1945, by Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma”
Moses, 1860-1961, American painter)

And so, we come to the end of our month-long celebration of the American experiment.

“I want no criticism of America at my table. The Americans criticize themselves more than enough,” said Winston Churchill (1874-1965), English statesman, writer, and historian.

I LIKE AMERICANS

I like Americans.
You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.
They sleep with their windows open.
Their bathtubs are never dry.
They are not grown up yet. They still believe in Santa Claus.

They are terribly in earnest.
But they laugh at everything . . .

I like Americans.
They give the matches free . . .

I like Americans.
They are the only men in the world, the sight of whom in their shirt-sleeves is not rumpled, embryonic and agonizing . . .

I like Americans.
They carry such pretty umbrellas.
The Avenue de l’Opera on a rainy day is just an avenue on a rainy day.
But Fifth Avenue on a rainy day is an old-fashioned garden under a shower . . .

They are always rocking the boat.
I like Americans.
They either shoot the whole nickel, or give up the bones.
You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), American poet