f their numbers they
composed, with their sympathizers, perhaps a third of the people in the
country. After seven years of inept war in which they had all the
breaks, including that of a halfhearted enemy, they established 'upon
this continent a new nation.' Some of the phrases thrown off in the heat
of propaganda were taken seriously and despite shocked opposition
written into basic law.

"The cryptogram is readable backward or forward, straightaway or upside
down. Unparalleled resources, the fortuitous historical moment, the tide
of immigration drawing on the best of the world, the implicit good in
conception necessarily resultant in the explicit best of being; high
purpose, inventive genius, exploratory urge, competitive spirit,
fraternal enthusiasm, what does the ascription matter if the end product
was clear for all to see?

"Is it not fitting that a nation calling itself lightly 'God's Country,'
meaning a land abundantly favored by nature, should find its dispatch
through an act of the benefactor become understandably irritable? This
is not to pose the editorial question of justice, but to remember in
passing the girdled forests, abused prairies, gullied lands, the
stupidly harnessed plains, wasted coal, gas, petroleum; the millions of
tons of rich mud denied hungry soil by Mississippi levees and forced
profitlessly into the salt sea.

"A small part, a heartbreakingly small part of the United States remains
at this moment. In a matter of weeks even this little must be overrun,
stilled and covered green as all graves are. Scattered through the world
there will be Americans, participants in a bitter diaspora. For
them--and for their children to be instructed zealously in the
formalities of an antique civilization--there can be no Fourth of July,
no Thanksgiving; only one holiday will remain, and that continue through
all the year. Its name, of course, is Memorial Day. W.R.L."

_64._ This was the last dispatch from the once great editor. It was
assumed generally that he had perished with so many others. It was only
some time later I heard a curious story, for whose authenticity I cannot
vouch.

True to the flippant prediction of Jacson Gootes, Le ffacase returned to
the Church into which he had been born. He went further and became a lay
brother, taking upon himself the obligation of silence. Though an old
man, he stayed close to the advancing Grass, giving what assistance and
comfort he could to the refugees