It's called "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding." It was originally published in The Princess of All Lands.In this story, an episode of the eternal present, the hero, Frank Sarsfield, is taken to another time and finds redemption during a prison break. Dr. Kirk takes time to explain the background of the story. If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Kirk's writings, he is famous for writing on two topics: conservative political thought and tales of the mysterious and supernatural. Dr. Kirk did not see the two topics as unrelated.
He died in 1994, and dozens of admirers and organizations, including yours truly, are zealous to keep his legacy on the web, namely, The Russell Kirk Center in Mecosta, Michigan, established by his family, and Wesley McDonald, a former assistant who is now a professor of political science. There is also a listserve of admirers of Dr. Kirk run by Alan Cornett.
David Frum tries to capture Dr. Kirk's literary achievement in this piece in The New Criterion:
'Kirk was writing in the aftermath of the forty most catastrophic years in the history of Western civilization, and at the beginning of another forty of the most tense and terrifying.
It must have seemed to him that everything he treasured had either been pulverized by war or would soon be bulldozed by one form of socialism or another. He strained all his powers to summon up a vision of the Anglo-American past that would stir the imagination, and entice us to preserve as much of the vanished aristocratic age he loved as we possibly could.'Out of the archives of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute is a recording of Russell Kirk reading There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding. Enjoy.
Happy Halloween, Happy All Saints' Day, and Happy All Souls' Day. I shall attend Mass on Saturday with my family at one of the oldest Catholic cemeteries in the South. If anyone wants to join us, we gather every year at High Noon on the first Saturday of November. After Mass, we enjoy a picnic lunch.
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