A great longing for that happy, waltzing, music-box time came over him. - Hervey Allen

Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is also true that the universal often borders on the void.

Christ Jesus, when I come to die </br> Grant me a clean, sweet, summer sky, </br> Without the mad wind's panther cry. </br> Send me a little garden breeze </br> To gossip in magnolia trees; </br> For I have heard, these fifty years, </br> Confessions muttered at my ears, </br> Till every mumble of the wind </br> Is like tired voices that have sinned.

If there was anything "new and better" about America it was the hope of peace—of peace on a more secure, vaster, continental scale than had ever been tried or attempted before. Oceans to the east and west of her, arid wilderness to the south, and the self-same friendly people to the north—the nation could not be seriously threatened by anything but disturbance from within.