University of Virginia Library

I Love It

And I do so love it. For there
seems to be here an irresistible
natural simile.

The snow is falling faster, and it
is only a little whiter than the
church where, I imagine, a parson
glared and pointed a bony finger at
my forebears. And my ancestors
especially if they were Winslows —
glared back.

Today the church is a pretty
curiosity. There is nothing there
now to glare about. Our conflicts are
directed elsewhere.

I remember a precious
conversation with my grandfather
before he died.

The question was: Should
"some communists" speak at the
University of New Hampshire?

No, they should not, said my
grandfather.

Because they would poison the
political thought of youth?

No, not at all, said my
grandfather.

"If they want to come," he
said," they will pay for the heat
and lights and janitors and police
and all the other things it costs to
have them there."

All of which says so much about
a mind which I hesitate to call
anything like "New England" or
"Yankee" for I really do not know
how narrow — or wide-spread it is.