A Spot of History: Before WWI began, a
lot of Americans praised Germany as a nation filled with highly organized, detailed,
hard-working people. They thought the Prussian mindset and perspective were to
be held in high esteem and copied wherever possible.
 |
| Author Owen Wister |
"Look
where you might, beauty was in some form to be seen, given its chance by the
intelligence of man -- not defaced, but made the most of; and, whether in towns
or in the country, a harmonious spectacle was the rule.
"I
thought of our landscape, littered with rubbish and careless fences and stumps
of trees, hideous with glaring advertisements; of the rusty junk lying about
our farms and towns and wayside stations; and of the disfigured Palisades along
the Hudson River.
"America
was ugly and shabby -- made so by Americans; Germany was swept and garnished --
made so by Germans."
 |
| Depiction of Prussian Militarism indoctrinating the young. |
But all that
changed when Germany invaded Belgium and France and war began in August 1914. In
a nonfiction book, The Pentecost of
Calamity, published in 1915, Wister carefully and methodically laid out the
case for why he had changed his mind and now felt the Germans were morally bankrupt. He realized that even though
America's democracy was shabby on the outside, it was morally rock solid on the
inside; something Wister could not find in Germany's Prussian militarism. (Cartoon from website: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1687)
As for those
who, in 1915, felt America should not get involved in the European conflict,
Wister had some fine, uplifting words that still ring true today:
"To
speak of the Old World and the New World is to speak in a dead language. The
world is one. All humanity is in the same boat. The passengers multiply, but
the boat remains the same size. And people who rock the boat must be stopped by
force. America can no more separate itself from the destiny of Europe than it
can escape the natural laws of the universe."
My post: Speaking of the universe, I
went to a psychic the other day as a birthday present from my friend, Lisa. I
was initially leery when I saw the psychic, Audra Garcia. She's a young woman
probably in her mid to late 20s and I immediately thought, what could she
know about things.
Well, she nailed me right from the beginning. She did a psychic reading
only from knowing my first name and then at the end of the hour she pulled
three Tarot cards to confirm what she had been saying. The cards, in order of
appearance were "Perfect Timing" "Patience" and
"Love" -- all of which fit beautifully into what she had said.
Basically, this book project
is exactly what I should be doing, and that when I have some bumps along the
way I need to have more patience and keep reminding myself that this project is
what I need and want to do right now. GREAT stuff! I highly recommend her. (Click here for her website.)
All of which leads up to what I really want to
report: I finished another critical deadline! In my Deadline Box on the right
side of this blog page I had posted that by the end of January I needed to have
typed up all the legal pads of handwritten notes I had taken 25 years ago.
Well, my fingers are worn
down to their second knuckles, but I finished last night the 261 pages of legal
pad notes.
Once again, I'm blown away
by all the hard work that this young man, 25 years ago, did on this project.
And, of course, I'm so grateful "he" did all the work -- so that I
can coast into reacquainting myself with
the research.
Now, though, comes the hard
work. That will include jobs such as:
1. Re-reading some of the primary source materials. While my 25-year-old
notes are good, they still can't take the place of actually reading the
original material from nearly 100 years ago. So, I'm strategically choosing a
few critical books, documents, journals and letters and re-reading them
completely to recapture their essence.
2. Doing new research. In many cases my old notes are showing me where I can benefit from
doing new research -- either on topics I had already researched, or on
completely new topics.
3. Taking new notes & making new index cards. As I read the new research
material (books, letters, journals, articles, etc.), I need to take notes and
make up index cards that will be integrated into my previous notes and cards.
Throughout this work, I
have to keep an eye out for my concept. As I've mentioned before, I do NOT yet have
a strong idea of what exactly my book will cover. I have ideas, but nothing
solid or absolute yet.
As I writer, I have to have faith that the concept will reveal itself to me as I get deeper into the material. It's kind of like the story of a sculptor of stone who says she stares at the uncarved block of stone until she "sees" the image within, then simply starts cutting away the stone to reveal the statue trapped inside.
I know that deep within all my material is this GREAT book. I just have to "see" what it is among all the material. Once I have that vision, then the actual writing will just fly by because the hardest part will be done.
So, on to my next deadline!
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