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Wednesday
The always illuminating Greg Olear of the Substack blog Prevail recently wondered whether the full truth of the Epstein affair will ever be known. While a Stephen Crane poem has him feeling pessimistic, it is countered by an Emily Dickinson poem that gives him hope.
We certainly have enough cause to be pessimistic: there are too many powerful people involved, beginning with Donald Trump. Olear points out that
there have been no consequences, zero, for the enablers of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Two presidents, a prince, a prime minister, a governor, a famous attorney, a Hollywood director, Cabinet members past and present, Silicon Valley billionaires, retail moguls, financiers, bankers, scientists, modeling agents, professors at top universities: We know who they are, anyone with an internet connection knows, but Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice (so-called) will not even deign to produce a list of their names, let alone prosecute any of them.
Crane’s poem doesn’t mention the problem of cover-ups because the poet is talking of truth-seeking more generally. Unfortunately, it’s all too relevant in this case. As Olear glumly notes, we may never know the full extent of what Epstein, Maxwell, and those involved did because “sometimes a darkness is so great that no source of light has the requisite wattage to illuminate it.” Here’s the poem:
Truth
By Stephen Crane
“Truth,” said a traveler,
“Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black.”
“Truth,” said a traveler,
“Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment.
And I believed the second traveler;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.
Then, however, Olear turns to Dickinson and imagines that, perhaps, “the whole truth can be known.” Maybe it takes time for “a truth this abominable, this awful, this diabolically evil” to reveal itself and for people to digest it:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
Olear asks,
Are we, as a nation, finally ready to believe the survivors? Will each individual candle generate the light needed to penetrate the abysmal Epsteinian darkness? Have the facts dazzled gradually enough that we are no longer in danger of being blinded by them? Can we, at last, grab hold of the hem of the garment and unveil the Truth?
Fortunately there are relentless people, some of them Republicans, intent on such unveiling. The jury, as they say, is still out.
