An American Divertimento: Frederick Law Olmsted [1822-1903]

“The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald noted in his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

Instead, I would argue (and win) that American lives are built on second acts. Sometimes third acts.

For example, impressive as was Frederick Law Olmsted‘s first act, his second and third were perhaps greater, if just by volume and nature.

Olms…