Passages like this one are why I read novels:
Only in our Valley was there a colliery to poke its skinny black fingers out of the bright green. Over in here was all peace and quiet content, and even the wind sounded happier to be working down there, coming up from our Valley with a joyful rush and pouring down here, passing us sharp and bitter cold, eager to lie along the warm fields and tease the manes of the horses browsing in the sun.
“Sad it is, Huw, my son,” my father said, after a long while. “Sad, indeed. Here is everything beautiful by here, nothing out of place, all in order. And over with us nothing but ugliness and hate and foolishness.”
“How is that, then, Dada?” I asked him.
“Bad thoughts and greediness, Huw,” my father said. “Want all, take all, and give nothing. The world was made on a different notion. You will have everything from the ground if you will ask the right way. But you will have nothing if not. Those poor men down there are all after something they will never get. They will never get it because their way of asking is wrong. All things come from God, my son. All things are given by God, and to God you must look for what you will have. Go dgave us time to get His work done, and patience to support us while it is being done. There is your rod and staff. No matter what others may say to you, my son, look to God in your troubles. And I am afraid what is starting down by there, now this moment, is going to give you plenty of troubles in years to come.”
–Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley
