photo #8031235

Seeing Louis L'Amour at the top of a bell tower, it is easy to imagine the conversation happening in his head as he gazed out over the city below, believing, even in his own time, in the promise of those Far Blue Mountains. louislamour.com/novels/tothefa… "We must sail for America, Tom, to forge a new land, you and I and others of our like." "Others of my like?" "Why not, Tom Watkins? Why not, indeed? There are no privileges there, and let us not have them. You are a man, Tom Watkins, and you have lived. You have erred as have we all, but we know what is right and just. The land yonder is fresh, wide open for such as you and me, and if we make again the old mistakes the fault will be ours. If we see clearly we can build something new." "I am a simple man, Barnabas. I have given no thought to such things. It's for my betters—" "Betters? Who is better unless he makes himself so? You can be one of those for whom laws are made if you so will it, or you can be a maker of laws yourself." "I cannot read, Barnabas. I have no learning." "You have lived, Tom. You have done good things and bad, you have seen others who did likewise. You know what you respect and what you do not, so all that is left is to weigh each law, each idea against what you know, decide how you would like things to be, and then work to make them so." "The great lords will own the land. There is talk that the Queen will grant them land." "You have not seen it, Tom. This is no tiny island bounded by the sea, but a vast land stretching westward. If you do not like what they do you may go west, but once you breathe the air in America, you will no longer worry about great lords. England itself will change, but she will change first over there where the land is new."