Motherhood Quote by George Rogers Clark

A polished sword is a flattering gift, but Clark treats it like a mirror: it reflects honor while quietly exposing time’s damage. The opening line, almost courtly in its appreciation, pivots fast into a blunt admission of physical decline. He’s not performing false modesty; he’s staking a claim. By declaring himself “too old and infirm... to ever use a sword again,” Clark forces his audience to confront the difference between symbolic gratitude and material obligation. A weapon given to a soldier who can no longer fight is praise with an edge: recognition arrives safely after the danger has passed.

The phrase “as you see” matters. It’s a public inventory of his body, evidence in a case he’s been making for years. Clark, celebrated for frontier victories in the Revolutionary era, spent his later life plagued by illness, injury, and financial distress, repeatedly petitioning Virginia for compensation and support. The sword becomes a stand-in for everything a state can offer when it doesn’t want to write a check: ceremony, sentiment, and a story about loyalty.

Calling Virginia his “old mother state” is strategic emotional pressure. It’s familial language that turns politics into duty; mothers don’t simply applaud their sons, they care for them. The final clause, “has not entirely forgotten me,” lands as both thanks and rebuke. “Not entirely” suggests partial neglect, a wound dressed up as politeness. Clark accepts the emblem, but he refuses to let the emblem replace what he was owed: real remembrance, measured in more than metal.