The honorable John Charles Thomas graduated from the university of virginia the honorable charles graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in american governing in 1972. He attended the university and got his law degree in 1975. He was the first at the firm. He is now a retired partner of the farm. In 1983, in 1995 received the lifetime award. In 2005, thomas was a member of international worldclass with global jurisdiction. In 2009. No. The first female dean of the university of Virginia School of law. Scholarship and teaching focusing on american constitutional law. Distinguished scholar and multiple books. A brilliant choice to share the stage. A dynamic and riveting discussion. Simply happy to have both of you here. Please join me in welcoming them. Thank you, sarah. Can everyone hear me . Great. Its harder to see me, i know. Thank you, sarah, for those lovely introductions. Its a pleasure to be here and im honored to be in conversation with Justice Thomas. We were talking before about how last year the justice interviewed chuck rob when his memoir came out. I want you all to know i do not have any memoir on the way. This pattern will not continue. Justice i want you to start, if you havent already gotten your copy, this is the book we are talking about. Its a beautiful and moving book of this amazing trailblazer. When sarah gives your introduction, theres the first of this and the first of that. So many others that were not necessarily first, but work release. When you came to the university of virginia, there were few black students. You have been a trailblazer your whole life. I guess im going to start back early on and say, what in your childhood enabled you to take on all of the challenges you did . I dont think i think of anything enabled me it was my family. I was used to a big family. My mother is one of 15 children. I have 40 cousins to play with and to live up to and to learn things with. The story was that almost all of the children the family was the sears family from norfolk, could talk. We had a talk all the time. We had to do bible verses the dinner table. We had to do Christmas Place for our grandparents. We had to sing songs the church. We were always on our feet and talking. I think we thought we could do that. Thats probably the enabling thing. Of course, my grandfather figured out when i am a baby, 1954, that i had a pretty spectacular memory, and he was right. He decides not to teach me, mary had a little lamb, but to teach me the which is a view of death. At age 4. And then he would make me recite it to his friends who would lean up against the banister to come see him as he sat there on the side porch. He would say, say that poe one. From four years old i am reciting poetry in front of an audience. I guess that is an enabling thing, too. We will come back to the poetry. That something youve done all your life. Some of your early first, i think, were in your childhood you grew up in segregated norfolk virginia. You are one of the people who integrated the schools there. Can you tell us a little bit about that . How that came about and why you . I wasnt the first. There was a norfolk 17 when they closed the schools and all of that. I come along in the next wave when the state of virginia, in 1965, was part of the implementation in brown v board. Freedom of choice segregation plan. I see some people shaking their heads. They might know about it. Heres the plan. Anyway child could leave their Neighborhood School and could choose to go to any black school in the city. And and a black child could leave their Neighborhood School and go to any white school in the city. We are integrated people, we dont the courts, buses, leave us alone, weve got the spurs of course nobody change schools. The teachers at my junior high school, i went to a place and we hear this announcement, and the students could tell the names being called of the kids were pretty good grades. They called us to a room, and when we get there we thought, whats going on . You will have to go to white school next year. Why . We are 17 years old. Because we are fighting for integration, and if we dont go its going to fail. And we need volunteers. Raise your hand. Thats how i wound up i think that is called colun told. Theres violence in the home in life and in that moment, right at the time when im finishing junior high school, my father is violent against my mother one more time, and she decided shes going to leave and flee to california. In norfolk, it was a great naval base is if they move the ship from the naval fleet to the pacific fleet. They leave their cars to the consignment and if you have a license you can deliver their car. So my mom had a license and we went to california in 1965. We go to southcentral l. A. , to a motel called, his western motel. My mother gets a job as a night duty nurse, and we stay in this room with a stove. In a riot breaks out. If it werent for bad luck, we had no luck at all. So when you were in the white schools then, there was a lot of responsibility on you. Theres a real burden. He writes about how you felt like you really carried the weight of your people, your race on your shoulders. Can you talk a little bit about how it was to be one of those few black students in the whites white schools at the time . The way came from several things. One thing that happened in the segregated schools in that era, in the 1960s, our teachers told us it is our job. You have got to go out and change the world, and nobody is going to help you. Nobody is going to give you a break. You have to be better. We got that all the time. We were dutybound, with all, when we got to white school, to do the best we can, and show all that we could do. And so forth. You said, why did i feel duty bound . How did you handle it . The other thing that happened was, some of you may remember, the argument was, no black child is good enough to study with the white child. Even in school, if we faltered or made a mistake, curiously it would make the news. You would wonder how the newspapers could find out that a black kid failed the class at a high school, but apparently some of the teachers were talking to some of the reporters. The black kids new that if we didnt do well, even inside the school, it would wind up publicized. That leads to another story about how i got caught not remembering. You go ahead. You can ask me. I can ask about that. I will let you have a moment and a sip of water if you want. I was going to ask you about that. From the way you describe it, you were on display, right . Everything you did was being judged. Often not judged fairly. You are up against peoples biases, prejudices and underestimation of you time and time again. Will you tell the story about the teacher and the assignment and the poem . Back to granddaddy teaching me poetry. Im four years old. I am born in 1950. By the time i am four years old, for the rest of my life, including now, i am reciting poems. At church that find out a kid can recite for them, they are going to recite a poem. At school, you are going to do it. You are going to do it on the loudspeaker for the morning devotions and so forth. Anyway, by the time im out high school, am 17 years old. I have been reciting poems for 13 years. It never occurred to me to write a poem. I led advanced english because i could speak and write pretty well, and im the only black kid there. I came to school on monday for particular reasons and there is a study hall prior to the english class. Im sitting there twiddling my thumbs. Im not thinking about nothing. The next thing i know, i look up at my white classmates, and the english class are pulling the plastic covers with the strip that went down. And i think to myself, oh my god, the class assignment is due today. We had to write a one, a short story, or an essay for this class assignment, and i knew if i went to class and i didnt turn in the assignment, it would be in the newspaper. Child not able to compete in advanced english at white high schools. Im sitting there, 25 minutes prior to class when i realize this, and i say to myself, i have to write a poem. Its the only option i thought i had. I go to write this poem, and i read a poem so bad, i actually have the papers i wrote this on still, i show people one day. I write this and i could do it again. You know how you do it in a neater hand and turned it in. I go to class. My white class, and they put their things in the box on the desk. I hand the teacher this one piece of paper. She cant read it, its so chic. She called the roll, she walks to my desk on the front row, because if you are a black kid in a white school in 1967 you had to be in the front row because you are being watched all the time. Anyway, she watched walks up, holds the people by the edge and throws it in front of my face in front of the class and says, i reject this. I do not believe a colored child could write this. Yes i did. I rejected. All right. Is there a postscript to that story . When i became Justice Thomas and i am in my chambers and im at the Supreme Court i get a call from this teacher. Who sounded like something to this. John thomas. Yes maam. This is ms. Jones. Yes maam. Will you send me a copy of that poem he wrote in my class . Yes maam. I never sent it. Will you recite it for us . The poem was called the morning. When i was 17 i said, in those 20 minutes, the morning is the time for man to rise. Review the things that formed his past. Make all his disappointments and mistakes quite clear so they will be his last. The morning is a time for man to think of all of the things to come. To plot, to plan, to try to be his best. To be ahead when the day is done. The morning is the time for the man to dream of things not yet conceived, to gather his thoughts and ideas around. The things that he alone believes. The morning is the time for man to rise and think and dream and see that all the world depends on men who with thoughts of hope the day begins. And 20 minuteso spare r 17ig and 20 minutes with tim to spare. Thats amazing. That wasnt the only time you were underestimated or encountered someone who when we think of trailblazer, it might not always be apparent. What you are saying is you and into all these environments where you were the only black person, or one of very few black people, and there were a lot of white people that didnt want you there didnt think you belong there or didnt think you could do whatever the job was you could come to do. You faced those down in your book again and again. I wonder if you could share a little bit about how you navigated those institutions and circumstances, and how you were you, and also helped the people you came into contact with grow and change. This is a book about a person who changes the world, and changes so many different institutions. Can you tell us how do you do that, justice . I didnt think, there are a couple of times in my life where i thought something i was doing might be worldfamous. Most of the time in my life i was trying to keep a job. I was trying to help mama pay bills. I was trying to do things. I was trying to complete the assignment. I wasnt thinking of anything grand. The two times i remember thinking something was really big was the day i sat on my desk at the law firm, and i signed the Partnership Agreement all by myself, and i open that document, and i look back with all the additions and amendments to it, and i could see justice powells signature from a long time ago. I could see other names. I thought, no block person has ever seen this document until this day. I knew as i sat there that was something momentous. I knew when i stood at the Supreme Court and raised my hand with my wife holding my hand, do that day. Most of the other days i was, like, oh my god i have to finish this assignment. You have to make this filing a court before 5 00 today. Most of the time it was like that. I didnt want to fail. I didnt want to commit malpractice. More than that, i just didnt want to be late and have somebody say, you didnt get the job done. That would hurt a lot from where i came from. We did an interview a couple months ago on Martin Luther king day, and you also spoke at that time about reverend king and his legacy, and you talked about the difference between law and justice. I hear you saying you didnt think you were doing anything grand. I still think what you were doing was grand, even if you want thinking it was grand. I know there were definitely moments when people following the law were not thinking about justice. You are intent on doing justice. I wonder if you could talk a little about that. No particular event comes to mind along those lines. You are talking a minute ago about people doubting you. I can remember being in court. I am a brandnew lawyer, just out of law school in 1975, and i am there and i get sent to court, federal court in maryland. I am on a case which was about taxing vetco because vetco put some sensors on the maryland side to sense something coming from virginia. The question was, can you tax vetco in maryland because of the small things they put on their side, which leads to all the lawyers in the room, the International Shoe case, and have they availed themselves of maryland. The Technical Area in constitutional law. Anyway, i write this brief, and i am a first year associate. When you are first year associate at a big law form, nobody works for you. You have nobody who writes for you. I turned this briefing and and this federal judge goes, did you write this . And i am, like, yes, sir. I said, i dont have anybody working for me. I had to do this myself. You mightve said, well, this is pretty good. I was, like, yeah, i wrote up. And stayed up all night, too. But anyway, thats what comes to mind. I guess there are stories about justices in the book but i cant remember them. You talk about equity jurisdiction and equity to write law. I did that the other day. Oh, i know what it was. I was talking yesterday at another study. People were talking about reparations. I was talking about the concept in equity. There is law and equity. I dont know if Everybody Knows what that means. Equity was fairness. Equity was supposed to be exercising the conscious of the king. The law says if you still steal a loaf of bread, your hands must be cut off. The law in england a long time ago. Equity might say, if you steal a loaf of bread because you have a children on the verge of starving, and if you dont steal this loaf of bread they are going to die tonight. We will say we will give you a break. Equity will say, you are up against the wall. Just out of fairness, and a sense of justice, we will not cut your hands off this time. Thats the nature of the difference. Anyway, theres a concept called Constructive Trust in equity that says, if somebody stole your property and build on it, and increased it, and made a hotel out of it, and it belong to you, but it was stolen from you and your family, when equity finds that out, equity will stop that person and impose a Constructive Trust on that, and take back the ill gotten gains and give them back to you. I had thought along the way, in america, there was stolen labor from black people which help build america. Equity has a way to cope without if we were to use equity in the way it was meant to be used. Thats all i got on that. Thats fine. You had more to say before, but thats okay. I will leave it there for now. You already mentioned, you know, your amazing memory. Given all of the trails you have blaze, and all you have been through, and what you said before, if you didnt have bad luck, you wouldnt have any luck. Memory can be a hard thing. It can make a person better. And angry. It does not take very much time talking to you or watching you talk to see the immense joy you have, and the positive way you go through the world. With all of these memories and the people who underestimated you, and all the challenges, how do you come to the world with destroyed and this positivity . I think that what happened with me was this. I can surmise that if you are in a tough spot, and you were doing all that you could to resolve the situation you are in , and to make change, but nothing ever happened, if you were just leaning up against the great wall of china trying to push it over, and it just never moved or never budged, you could become hopeless. And then you could become better and angry. You might just have a whole other change in your personality. I think for me, along the way, i saw enough change, little teeny bits of change. I go to maury and i went up being elected to student government. The only black kid in the class. The teacher said, anybody want to be on the student council, and i go my white classmates elected me for student council. I dont think anybody was running against me or wanted to do it. And then im on student council. Next thing there was a little change there and there. I think it made me have hope. I think that if you are pushing hard, and you have hope, you can still retain joy. I think thats what happened with me. I think thats so important, right . You have to see change happening, even if its not enormous. Its not grand, just little pieces of change. So you write that you often felt yourself to be caught between two racial worlds. A black and a white. For example when you went to the university of virginia and coming home for vacations, for summers, and other times. I wonder if you can tell us more about what that was like for you. I actually can remember coming home the first time from uva. I set up your. Three black guys in my entering class of 1968 out of 1400. Im in here in school, doing things here and listening to music the guys in my class are listening to. I go back home and its a whole other world. Its a whole other language even. I can remember talking to somebody i was raised with. This person said something to me about the sound of my voice. I cannot talk to you anymore. You sound too smart. Something like that. I decided a long time ago that when i am home i will talk like i always did at home, and when im not at home i will talk another way, which makes you have more than one identity, but it is something that i did. Its almost like peacemaking. When i was at the law firm, all of the white lawyers were in the various white bar associations, but i had to be in those and in the black bar association, too, because they were separate. If i hadnt been in both associations, that wouldve caused difficulty. There is this bridging you have to find a way to do, which i was able to do. I still do some sometimes today. I think that he would call that coswitching today. You were doing it long before we had a word to describe it, i think. When you are doing that you are still you. You still brought to each world to the other. You have written about, and ive heard you talk about the perspective you brought into these white worlds, where you were. And i wonder, in particular, being a member of the Supreme Court of virginia, to bring your perspective into that institution, and exercise power there. It was a huge thing. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about what your perspective is to other people, and how they received you, and how that reception may be changed over time. I am 32 years old. I was born in 1950. This was 83, but im born in september. Im still 32. The next youngest justices 21 years old. Chris is 53. The oldest justice is 70 years old. The chief was 68 years old. All of these other justices are from a different everybody is old enough to be my daddy. They are all from a fully segregated virginia. Not one of them has been to school with a black burton in their life. Most of them hadnt been to school with women other than elementary school, because they went to allmale colleges and so forth. I had women in my law class. I didnt have any women that kind of thing. They were from another world. I can remember particularly thinking about i talked about this. I had some violence and all of that in my home. I know what its like for your mother to get a restraining order against your father. I know what its like to fear that somebody is going to come and kill you and blow up the house you live in, or punch you and hurt you or something. I can remember us discussing one day, some case about a woman wanting a restraining order. The justices were very technical. God, john, code section 8. 2 e three 05 clearly says that the judge can only issue this order for 14 days, and then it has to be released. He has the ability to extend it if he wants to. There was a passionless discussion of a situation that i knew the people who were seeking these restraining orders were living in horror and terror. I can remember saying, yall just dont know what it feels like. For somebody to be standing outside your door ready to bust down the door and kill you. You misunderstand what this problem is. That lady was in terror. You talking about adding 14 days. Shes talking about living. They were, like, okay. Okay, what do you think we should do . They would listen. So they came to understand the difference i brought. When i left with a brain tumor, some of them cried. For my leaving because they knew the conversations wouldnt be the same. That didnt make me prevail on every case, but it did get to the point where it was, like, john, what do you think . That wasnt how it always was. When i first got there, this is a young kid that used to practice in front of courts. It got to what do you think . They knew i had seen something they hadnt. Justice perhaps . Just saying. When you talk about the experience of the woman seeking the restraining order in your childhood experiences, you tell us the story of when you were six. Today i think people talk about resilience and grit, and i think this is a informative story for your sense of self and efficacy in the world. I wonder if you could tell that story. A little story. It reminds me of a question you asked earlier but how do i feel with the memory i have. How does the memory i have, which is strong, can create posttraumatic stress for myself when i was writing the book. Because i went back tos two things i had not dealt with for a long time. The stories you talking about is , my mother had to raise money when we were little. She did what she called dramatic recitals at churches. She had what she called props that she would take around. We lived in the housing projects in norfork. We lived in a whole unit that might have been half that space over there. She would keep her props in the living room in the space, which was a lot of spot stuff. My father hates it. He takes her props one day and throws them in this one behind the house. My mothers mother goes and brings them back. And they are muddy and dirty. They get in a fight about it. Hes punching my mama. I thought he was going to kill my mother. So i go in the kitchen and i get the biggest knife i can find, and i get between my mom and daddy and i say to my father, you hit my mama again, and i will kill you. Even though i was a little kid, the army talks about the command voice, he stopped at the moment. He could have just punched me in broken my neck. But he stopped and left. He spent the rest of his life not knowing whether i might kill him at any minute. You were formidable even at six. Unfortunately you had to be. I was just a little kid. You werent. I mean you were but you are forced to be a man very early. You made so much history. When i think about the history of the university of virginia and the law school, you are part of that history. Thats why there is a portrait of you in our building. Youve also spent time in later life thinking about how history is told, and you are on the board at monticello and on the commission here. Why do you spend your time thinking about how we tell Early American History of these founding fathers, who, you know , are challenging . Is i am drawn to history in general. I recognize there is no perfection in the human condition. Theres just not. I know these imperfect men like monroe and jefferson had something to do with building this nation that has evolved and has become better than it started out. Its fascinating. How do you do that . How do you come up with sensible like all men are created equal that you dont live by, the has the transformative power to make it so. And i do become the first black justice and so forth. Its an amazing story. I want to be part of it, but i also want to be part of telling it correctly, and not whitewashing it, if you will. Not veering the story. I want the story to be as truthful and forthcoming as it can be, which is part of what i do that. But i actually love history. I love walking this property and walking at monticello and going up the street and being part of it. I live being part of virginia history. I think its pretty darn cool. I agree. You are not going to get any challenge from me there. Before we open it up to folks in the audience, i wonder if you can just tell us a little more about poetry. Weve heard a little bit about poetry as a child, and how your first came to write poetry, and how you recited poetry. You recited poetry at Carnegie Hall once. I wonder if you can tell is how they came to be. I was on the board this comes from being on the board. I was on the Academic Affairs committee. We were having a dinner at Bruce Hornsbys house, his wife was on the board at the time. Everybody was walking and introduce themselves. Hi, im a professor of medieval law. Hi, i am a professor normally i would say i am judge thomas, but everybody had such cool jobs, so i go, hi, i am a poet. So this one professor goes, what kind of poet are you . And i say, i am a lyric poet in the romantic tradition. So she said, let me hear a poem. So i start residing poetry, which i can do. By the time the evening is over, this professor she says to me, you know . I think that if you stick with your poetry, i could write music. Based on your poetry. I thought, no, im not doing that, ive never done that before, what should i do that now. She persisted. I send her poetry. Anyhow, shes the one that comes up with this idea about why dont they sponsor this concert and will use it as a fundraiser and we will get judge thomas to do poetry and we will do music. Thats what happens and we do this program Carnegie Hall in february 2013, and its called the allure of the music. She called the piece allure. After she does the thing about i can write music about your poetry, she said, i wonder if you can write poetry based on my music, which i hadnt thought of. She sends me a piece called all the world. And i write the allure of the muse, which became the title of this concert in york. These are the great muses that affect all of us, and we depend on for art and so forth. I wrote, she cannot be es just our view. She takes wings on flights of fancy and then dances like the morning dew. She whispers amidst the birdsong that heralds the awakening day. She dances on the sunbeams that sends the night upon its way. She twirls inside the aromas that fills our homes with joy. She floats upon the laughter that floods us through with joy. She skips upon the rainbows that merge softly into the sky. She leaps to the top the breaking waves as they crouch crash on the beach and die. She stands along the hillside as the wind blows through the trees. She murmurs words of tenderness, and burdens process to armies. She slips into the shadows that emerge at the close of the day. She strokes our foreheads until our dreams come out to play. She clings onto our lingering thoughts, and wraps around our hearts, she runs her fingers through our hair, then suddenly she departs. The allure of the muse. That was wonderful. I didnt even have to ask. We can open it up for questions. Sarah has a mic. She will bring it around, if you raise your hand. I was also at the university of virginia. I just wondered if you have any particular memories of [ inaudible ] one of the things remember the mixers they had when they brought this the girls from the girls schools and put them in the dorms and the guys would pick a date. Remember, this was a long time ago. The issue of white some black dating. I was a whole other thing. I went there, there were no black girls in the group. I thought there was nobody for me. All my roommates were happy. We got dates and all that. Im thinking, well, that didnt do anything for me. That and other things. I was a chemistry major, stuff was hard. I thought im leaving, will go back to norfolk. I will go back home and go to school. I get on a bus and go back to norfolk. But next thing i know, i get this phone call from my hall at uva. All the guys from my hall were on the phone, and i can hear them all say, john, please come back. We miss you, man. That was amazing in 1968, for a whole hall of white guys to say come back, and i did. But thats what i remember from that. I look forward to reading your books. Two questions. [ inaudible ] i dont remember. [ inaudible ] they moved to a completely different house. Ive talked to them since. They do as well as they can and suffering. I think maybe the marines will give them another one monday. Im enjoying life very much. [ inaudible ] my question is my peers in norfolk, white folk. [ inaudible ] i dont know anymore, because ive lived in richmond since 1975. Focused on my home but i dont think i know enough about any particular person but i have seen people change. Ive seen people change because they must because the law makes them do certain things, and it makes a difference. I remain hopeful about change in norfolk and across the state. I would agree with that [ inaudible ] there somebody back there. Can you take us back to california during the riots and how you got back to virginia. I was hanging on that story. All right. I write about that in the book. We are in hayes western motel, which is not far from where the riots started. One of the things about being in the riot that people dont know who were there is that it smelled like a cookout because the stores were on fire. The hamburgers and the bacon and chicken were burning, and it smelled like somebody was cooking food. Anyway, at some point i say to my mama, mama we are going to be dead, nobody is going to know who we are. We have to get out of here. We may as go back to norfolk. Basically california was not the Promised Land my mama thought it would be. So, just as we came to california and went to the navy we went back the same way. They were moving the ship to the other feet fleet so we got the car and drove back to norfolk. What happened was i get back to school, back to norfolk after school had started, later in september. The group of kids in the room where they say raise their hands we need volunteers, some of those children had quietly, over the summer, whilst in norfolk change back to go to the black high school. I get to there, there were some of the kids from the class there, but not all the ones that raised their hands that day. I had no choice. I couldnt change because i was too late. I had to go to white school as they said. Your poetry is a moving, i wonder if you had any particular influenced by poets you particularly admire . I speak in the same manner as longfellow. I know several longfellow poems. I know kipling and william tell us bryant. I love those guys who had the art to do the schemes. But i love the builder things like that. Because i was raised with them. Janis joplin even. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. [ inaudible ] i think what we are in and what our british friends might call a tough patch. We have been through tough patch as before. I think the founding of sorting things out over time will guide us by abiding by them. We have to get to this moment, thinking we want to be under leadership, or we really want to have a we dont like the free elections. I think all of those things are long headed. I think that what has gotten us so far this far is that we have trusted in those systems that were created long ago. I dont think the founders got every single thing right. There are changes that could be made with our government. Indeed, the founders thought we would change things when we needed to. They didnt think they were writing a constitution forever. They didnt think it was holy writ. They thought they had it we would be smart enough, as time evolved, that if we needed to change the bill of rights, if we needed to change the constitutional provisions we would, maybe we just have to get to the point that we stand up on our hind legs and say, here are some changes we need to make for the good of the nation. I remain hopeful. One must question. Thinking about your grandfather. It must have been a lot rougher when youre grandfather was little. [ inaudible ] somehow broke out of everything that was expected of them, and came in my granddaddy was born in 1890 in waverley, virginia. He was not an educated man. He went to the one room school house. He was not a college man. But he became a contractor who built houses and buildings, and he ran something called the sears arena, where he had boxing matches. Car races, and things of that kind. He had this entrepreneurial spirit. As i say, he had 15 children. His wife grandma had the 15 children. She had 15 children from 1911 to 1941, with no twins. Almost every two years she is having a child. My aunt, the youngest one, nine years older than me. My mother was the middle child, bold in born in 1925. He became a mason. He became a master mason in the masonic movement. Part of the uplift was teaching young kids how to write papers and recite poetry. Physically he gets this one grandkid who he can see has this memory, and he says, im going to teach this kid all this cool poetry. His old buddies, when i would recite has ever and anyone heard that . A view of death. Anybody want to hear it . My wife doesnt want me to tell you all. All these old guys will lean their, and basically i was his windup toy. To whom Mother Nature holds. Commune in her visible form. She speaks of various language. For his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile. Eloquence of beauty. She glides into his darker musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals away [ inaudible ] when thoughts of the lives better, like a blight over thy spirit. Sad images of the stern agony and reckless darkness, and the narrow house makes it shutter and growth sick at heart. Go forth under the open sky, and listen to natures teachings from all around earth, in her waters and that depth of error comes a still voice. Yet a few days and all the holding son chelsea no more in all his course. Nor in the cold ground where the pill form was laid with many tears. Earth, which nourished the, shall claim the road to be resolved to earth again, and lost these human traits, surrendering up individual beings, shall mix forever with the elements. To be a brother to the insensible rock, and turns with his share and testifies. The oak shall send his roots a broad, yet not to find eternal rest resting place. Thou shalt lie down with patriot of the infant world, with kings , the powerful of the earth. The wise, good, fair forms of ages past, all in one mighty supplicant. The hills are as agent of the sun. The veil in pensive whiteness between. The woods, the rivers that move in majesty, and the complaining brooks that makes the metal spring. Import around old oceans are but the solemn decorations all of the the golden sun, the planet, all the infant and hopes of heaven are shining on the sad death through the steel lapse of ages. All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in his bosom. Take the wings of the morning, peers the bark or lose myself in the continuous woods where rose the oregon, and heres no sound save its own dashing. The dead are there, and millions in the solitudes, since it had begun, had laid them down in there lastly. The dead rained there alone. So what if i join with the living shall taste his favorite. You all these should leave their mirth and their employment and come to make their bed with the. As the long train of ages by the way, the sons of men, the youth in spring and he in gold and full strength of years, matron, maids, and the grayheaded man shall one by one together to the side by those who in turn shall follow. So live, that when thy summons comes to joint the innumerable caravans that moved to background, where each will take the chamber in the simon hall of death. But sustained and soothe by none faltering. And lies down to pleasant dreams. A very things and i am sure i am not the only one who felt like your grandfathers friends had learned to say im sure im not the only one who felt like your grandfathers friends and go, go, go. Thank you. Thank you for joining. Thank you. Thank you. Good