Folly and Glory

by Larry McMurtry

“There is no reasoning with grief,” Piet told Mary. “It wears away slowly, like the face on a coin.”

Had it been glory, or had it been folly, the unrelenting American push?

Cold sun shone on the stark mountains to the east. The landscape offered no welcome—it offered its sere implacability. Where was consolation to be found in such terrible country?

But how could one be sure of anything, in country one has not been able to study? It took thorough knowledge of a place before its secrets could be understood—and yet survival depended on knowing the secrets of the land.

There were men who dissembled and men who changed, and then there were men who could only be what they were.