Mat Feltner: "I think of the pain I've given to my children. Especially to Virgil. You hope for a realization in them, finally, that the pain is given out of love, inept and blundering and blind and wrong as it can sometimes be, I don't worry so much about Bess. She's had a family of her own long enough to know the terrified love you can sometimes have for your children. But Virgil I feel like I owe an accounting to. There's maybe only weakness in it. You want your good intentions recognized, even the failed ones. You want it known by the ones nearest you that your good intentions are a real part of your life, and your love for them."
Hannah studied his face, seeing in it an old man's sorrow for the imperfection of his life and fatherhood. She understands suddenly how a young man might be borne up, might justify everything, by the hope of perfection - and growing old, must realize that he has done nothing perfect. She knows that Mat has allowed her to see, as Virgil never was allowed to, the pained underside of his severity.
--A Place on Earth, Wendell Berry
