Thank you, Garrison

Every Land by Ursula Le Guin             The holy land is everywhere. —Black Elk Watch where the branches of the willows bend See where the waters of the rivers tend Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand Every land is the holy land. Here was the battle to the bitter end Here's where the enemy killed the friend Blood on the rock, tears on the sand Every land is the holy land. Willow by the water bending in the wind Bent till it's broken and it cannot stand Listen to the word the messengers send Life from the living rock, death in the sand Every land is the holy land. "Every Land" by Ursula K. Le Guin, from Finding My Elegy. © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Reprinted with permission. It's the birthday of the man who helped spark the Enlightenment in France, writing under the name Voltaire (books by this author), born François-Marie Arouet in Paris (1694). He wrote so much in his lifetime that his collected works are still being assembled and edited by French scholars. He's known to us for a single short novel: Candide (1760), about a young man who follows the philosophy of Doctor Pangloss that no matter what misfortunes befall us, this is the best of all possible worlds. Candide eventually decides that this philosophy is nonsense, and he comes to the conclusion that the secret of happiness is to cultivate one's own garden. Voltaire grew up at a time when Louis XIV had instituted the persecution of Protestants, turning France into a ferociously intolerant society, with little freedom of speech or religion. Voltaire began his writing career just a few years after Louis XIV had died, and Voltaire was one of the first writers to challenge the restrictions of society by writing satirical poems about the new king. He was sent into exile for the first series of these poems, and then, in May of 1717, he was thrown into prison in the Bastille for 11 months. At the time, he wasn't particularly well known, and his imprisonment only served to make him famous. It was when he got out of prison that he began using the pen name Voltaire. No one is sure how or why he picked the name. He became a well-known playwright and poet, but in 1925, he got into an argument with a nobleman. A few days later, that nobleman hired a group of men to surround Voltaire in the street and beat him with cudgels. The nobleman stood by and watched. Voltaire was outraged when none of his political friends came to his aid in trying to get retribution for the incident. He had thought that his stature as a poet made him the equal of the aristocrats he spent all his time with, but this incident made him realize that he was still a second-class citizen. He began publicizing the incident and calling for justice, and he was eventually exiled to England. He spent the rest of his life crusading for human rights. Voltaire said: "Let us read and let us dance — two amusements that will never do any harm to the world."