PREFACE


The Light in the Clearing shone upon many things and mostly upon those
which, above all others, have impassioned and perpetuated the Spirit of
America and which, just now, seem to me to be worthy of attention. I
believe that spirit to be the very candle of the Lord which, in this
dark and windy night of time, has flickered so that the souls of the
faithful have been afraid. But let us be of good cheer. It is shining
brighter as I write and, under God, I believe it shall, by and by, be
seen and loved of all men.

One self-contained, Homeric figure, of the remote countryside in which I
was born, had the true Spirit of Democracy and shed its light abroad in
the Senate of the United States and the Capitol at Albany. He carried
the candle of the Lord. It led him to a height of self-forgetfulness
achieved by only two others--Washington and Lincoln. Yet I have been
surprised by the profound and general ignorance of this generation
regarding the career of Silas Wright, of whom Whittier wrote these
lines:

"Man of the millions thou art lost too soon!
Portents at which the bravest stand aghast
The birth throes of a future strange and vast
Alarm the land. Yet thou so wise and strong
Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,
Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,