Cousin Lucius

I have been reading I'll Take My Stand, a reprint of the 1930 essays by Southern agrarians at Vanderbilt University. Most of the writings in that collection are essays, all of them are very good. But my favorite is John Donald Wade's narrative, "The Life and Death of Cousin Lucius." This story describes the curriculum vitae of a classcially-educated Georgia farmer, who was about ten years old at the time of the War for Southern Independence. It is an account of how he coped with the misfortunes of the South, and warned against the siren song of industrialization. He had a very meaningful life. He lived until just before the Great Depression. Of course Cousin Lucius is fictional, but he is also a metaphor for how the agrarian can bend but not break, how he can continue to love the land when all around him are becoming something alien to what he always knew. His classical education makes him very reasonable, very courageous, and impeccably honest. This story stands before all of us as an example of what could have been had our educational system not deteriorated into its present state.