"I mean you're a man indebted to a dead man. So am I. So was he. That's the story of it. Back of you is Jack Beechum. Back of him was Ben Feltner. Back of him was, I think, his own daddy. And back of him was somebody else, and on back that way, who knows how far? And I'm back of you because Jack Beechum is, and because he's back of me, along with some others. It's no use to want to make it on your own, because you can't..."
Elton laughs. "The line of succession I'm in says you've got to make it on your own. I'm in the line of succession of root, hog, or die."
"That may have been the line of succession you were in, but it's not the one you're in now. The one you're in now is different."
"Well, how did I get in it?" Elton says almost in a sigh, as if longing to be out of it.
"The way you got in it, I guess, was by being chosen. The way you stay in it is by choice."
-Wendell Berry, That Distant Land, 284.
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