the speech i’d give

We had every­thing be­fore us, we had noth­ing be­fore us, we were all go­ing di­rect to Heav­en, we were all go­ing di­rect the oth­er way – in short, the pe­ri­od was so far like the present pe­ri­od, that some of its nois­i­est au­thor­i­ties in­sist­ed on its be­ing re­ceived, for good or for evil, in the su­perla­tive de­gree of com­par­i­son only.

All these things, and a thou­sand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year two thou­sand and six­teen. En­vi­roned by them, while the Wood­man and the Farmer worked un­heed­ed, those two of the large jaws, and those oth­er two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and car­ried their di­vine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year two thou­sand and six­teen con­duct their Great­ness­es, and myr­i­ads of small crea­tures – the crea­tures of this chron­i­cle among the rest – along the roads that lay be­fore them.

Among oth­er pub­lic build­ings in a cer­tain town, which for many rea­sons it will be pru­dent to re­frain from men­tion­ing, and to which I will as­sign no fic­ti­tious name, there is one an­cient­ly com­mon to most towns, great or small: To wit, a work­house; and in this work­house was born; on a day and date which I need not trou­ble my­self to re­peat, inas­much as it can be of no pos­si­ble con­se­quence to the read­er, in this stage of the busi­ness at all events; the item of mor­tal­i­ty whose name is pre­fixed to the name of this con­ven­tion.

And with jobs scarce, many of you may be con­sid­er­ing leav­ing town with your diplo­ma in hand. And it wouldn’t be un­rea­son­able. For those of you who come from com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing sim­i­lar eco­nom­ic hard­ships, you may also be won­der­ing how you’ll build de­cent lives for your­selves if you choose to re­turn to those com­mu­ni­ties.

Words are, in my not-so-hum­ble opin­ion, our most in­ex­haustible source of mag­ic.

Now we are en­gaged in a great civ­il war, test­ing whether that na­tion, or any na­tion so con­ceived and so ded­i­cat­ed, can long en­dure. We are met on a great bat­tle­field of that war. We have come to ded­i­cate a por­tion of that field, as a fi­nal rest­ing place for those who here gave their lives that that na­tion might live. It is al­to­geth­er fit­ting and prop­er that we should do this.

But, in a larg­er sense, we can not ded­i­cate – we can not con­se­crate – we can not hal­low – this ground. The brave men, liv­ing and dead, who strug­gled here, have con­se­crat­ed it, far above our poor pow­er to add or de­tract. The world will lit­tle note, nor long re­mem­ber what we say here, but it can nev­er for­get what they did here. It is for us the liv­ing, rather, to be ded­i­cat­ed here to the un­fin­ished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad­vanced.

Let those who are in favour with their stars, of pub­lic ho­n­our and proud ti­tles boast, whilst I whom for­tune of such tri­umph bars un­looked for joy in that I ho­n­our most; great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread, but as the marigold at the sun’s eye, and in them­selves their pride lies buried. For at a frown they in their glo­ry die. the painful war­rior fa­moused for fight, af­ter a thou­sand vic­to­ries once foiled, is from the book of ho­n­our razed quite. And all the rest for­got for which he toiled: Then hap­py I that love and am beloved where I may not re­move nor be re­moved.

Shame on the age and on its prin­ci­ples! The Sen­ate is aware of these things; the Con­sul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! Aye, he comes even into the Sen­ate. He takes a part in the pub­lic de­lib­er­a­tions; he is watch­ing and mark­ing down and check­ing off for slaugh­ter every in­di­vid­ual among us. And we, gal­lant men that we are, think that we are do­ing our duty to the Re­pub­lic if we keep out of the way of his fren­zied at­tacks.

I play along with the cha­rade, that does­n’t seem to be a rea­son to change. You know I feel so dirty when they start talk­ing cute, I wan­na tell her that I love her but the point is prob­a­bly moot. Be­cause she’s watch­ing him with those eyes. And she’s lovin’ him with that body, I just know it.

I am be­ing com­plete­ly ex­tem­po­ra­ne­ous when I say that the checks al­most al­ways clear the first time. I love Pres­i­dent Hus­band.
 

‪#‎freak­ingchachi‬
#god­b­lessamer­i­ca‬
#Rmut­tLives

 

(Okay. The last line was swiped from Ja­son Malm­berg. The rest I wrote with as lit­tle help as pos­si­ble.)
 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM!

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