I mean that a man is cut from the cloth of his earliest hours, before reason has time to stitch him into something else. When I was but seven, the great river was only a stream that watered our pleasant places, and the stone walls were not cold law but warm shelter. I did not know then that those halls would one day hold the ghosts of dead judges or the noise of modern traffic; to me, they were simply the house where I learned to walk and talk.

I ask you, before the sun goes down on this busy street, to remember the place where your own small heart first beat in time with the world. Do not look for grand monuments or famous names in that memory, but rather the smell of the air, the sound of a door opening, the face of a nurse or a sister who knew you best when you could not speak. Let that quiet image stay with you against the coming dark.