Hempfield

So I came to know Hempfield, and all those stories-humorous, tragic, exciting, bitter, sorrowful-which thrive so lustily in every small town. As we treasure finally those books which are not, after all, concerned with clapping finite conclusions to infinite events, but are content to be beautiful as they go (as truth is beautiful), so I love the living stories of Hempfield, nor care deeply whether they are at Chapter I, or in the midst of the climax, or whether they are tapering toward a Gothic-lettered "Finis." Only I have never once come across any Hempfield story that can be said to have reached a final page. Every Hempfield story I know has been like a stone dropped in the puddle of life, with ripples that grow ever wider with the years. And I esteem it the best thing in my life that I have had a part in some of those stories: that a few people, perhaps, are different, as I am different, because I passed that way.