We go to press on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama, elected in November, the 44th President of these United States of America.

He takes office under the most difficult of conditions.

We wish him well, and firmly believe that our wishes are shared by our fellow Virginians, our fellow Americans, and our fellow citizens of the world, to a degree unprecedented in our memory.

At the Sunday, "We Are One," concert on the mall, both words and music called on us to work together.

I quote two:

First, William Faulkner, on his faith that we will not only endure, but prevail, and the role of those who would tell the stories of humankind at its best.

"He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."

And last, Abraham Lincoln, on honor, dishonor, responsibility, and the fiery trials faced by his country on the eve of civil war.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."