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[C] Faulkner's Holograph Original / Virginia
This award has, to me, a double value. It is not only a comforting recognition of some considerable years of reasonably hard and arduous, anyway consistently dedicated work, it recognises and affirms *and so preserves [intrl.] a ['quality-lack,' del.] quantity in our American legend and dream well worth preserving.
I mean our past, *a [ab. del. 'that'] happier time in the sense that we were then innocent of many of the strains and anguishes and fears which these atomic times have compelled upon us. It evokes the faded [illeg.] and rotogravures which record the vanished splendor which is still inherent in the names of St Louis and Lipzig—the quality they celebrated still immortalised even *when [ab. del. 'though'] on the labels of wine bottles and pickle jars.
I think that those gold medals—and their myriad spawn—the *gleaming and [ab. del. 'blue'] beautiful ['blu' del.] ribbons fluttering and flashing among the countless booths and stalls of county fairs—['recognised' del.] in recognising no more than a jar of pickles or an apple pie, did much more than that. They postulated the premise that there are no degrees of best. That one man's best is the equal of any other best, no matter how asunder in comparison, and should be honored as such.
We should keep that, more than ever now, when roads get shorter and there is less and less room between elbows, ['We should remember th' del.] and there is more and more pressure ['to' del.] on the individual to retreat into anonymous['ly' del.] serration like filled teeth in order to breathe. We should remember those times when the idea of individuality composed of excellence compounded of resourcefulness and independence and uniqueness not only deserved a blue ribbon, but got it. Let the past abolish [del. 'the past' ab. del. 'it—if' *['bec' del. 'when—and if—' undel. in error ab. del. 'when it can substitute **[doubtful 'ing' intrl. undel. in error] something better; not us to abolish the past simply because it is the past.'] the past when—and if—it can substitute something better for it; not us to abolish the past simply because it was.
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