A Picture from an Institution

This earth carries aboard it many ordinary passengers; and it carries, also,a few very important ones. It is hard to know which people are, or were, or will be which. Great men may come to the door in carpet slippers, their faces like those of kindly more fretful old dogs, and not even know that they are better than you; a friend meets you after 15 years and the Nobel Prize, and he is sadder and fatter and all the flesh of his face has slumped an inch nearer the grave, but otherwise he is as of old They are not very important people. On the other hand, the president of your bank, the Vice Chancellor of the - no, not of the Reich, but of the School of Agriculture of the University of Wyoming : these, and many Princes and Powers and Dominions, are very important people; the quality of their voices has changed, and they speak more distinctly from the mounds upon which they stand, making sure that their voices come down to you.
Pictures from an Institution
Randall Jarrell