Look Homeward, Angel
December 5, 2010 | 
Author Finally! I had been looking for this angel for years. Literally! I have been going to the Asheville area and looking for Thomas Wolfe‘s angel on and off for nearly 25 years. And I finally found it – by accident.
It is in Hendersonville, NC, and really not hard to find if you know where it is. Now I know, and I have a picture to prove it. A picture that took me 25 years to take.
A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces. Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
- Thomas Wolfe, from Look Homeward, Angel
Posted in Travel & Places, Writing | 
Tags: Asheville, Cemeteries, Hendersonville, Look Homeward Angel, Quests, Thomas Wolfe, writing
4 Responses to “Look Homeward, Angel”
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Gee, well you could have asked!
and do you know what two Unitarian Universalist connections Wolfe had?
Well, I could have, but that would have taken all the fun out of it! Actually, I did once but still couldn't find it.
And no idea on the connections…
Thomas Clayton Wolfe’s middle name Clayton came from his mother’s high school principal, William Clayton Bowman.
Bowman had an amazing life from being a Civil War pastor for the Confederates to being a socialist politician in Los Angeles. –among the things he did was to be an Universalist minister in the 1870s-1880s. At that time, he was also a close friend of Wolfe’s Uncle, who became first an Universalist minister, then an Unitarian minister, first in the south then in Massachusetts.
That is amazing! I appreciate the info. Adds even more to my admiration of the man.