10
PARTISAN REVIEW
and impressions . And this, of course, was the dominant tone of his thinking
all through his life. Like all of us, he went through many phases in his be–
liefs, but always his beliefs were merged with his sensibility, so that they
appeared as intellectual moods . In this respect, Lionel was almost a proto–
type of what has become known as the literary mind, and though he had
very positive political opinions, they were usually subordinated
to
his sense
of style and quality. This was one of the reasons, I believe, why he was able
to remain friendly with people of divergent views, and, in turn, was liked
and admired by many who disagreed strongly with the tenor of his thinking.
Lionel's person was very much like his writing: orderly, gracious, flex–
ible, modulated, appearing to be constantly in control. Though he was set
in many of his attitudes and prejudices, he was never niggardly , usually
generous toward those whose views he opposed, particularly to students
and young people, generally . But it would serve no personal or historical
purpose to deny that we disagreed frequently, sometimes strongly, in liter–
ary
and political matters. Even though he was often attracted to extreme
ideas, particularly to extreme personalities, Lionel was nevertheless wary of
writing or of life-styles that pushed toward the edge of experience . But
obviously, things we had in common were more important than those that
divided us, and we remained friends to the end, not only out of liking and
respect for each other, but also out of respect for the idea of friendship,
which often could not survive the violent political arguments of the time, or
the rampant professional and personal competitiveness.
It
must be said that
it has not been a period in which friendship has been held in the highest
esteem; it could be sustained only by those who felt that friendship was
not a synonym for agreement .
f
first
met
Hannah Arendt sometime in the forties. She had recently
arrived in this country from France, having kept one step ahead of the Nazis,
and was working, as I recall, for Schocken Books. In fact, I think I first saw
her at a party given by Schocken . She had difficulties with the language, and
was seemingly trying to make sense out of America and out of its literary
intellectuals. But one was immediately struck by her alertness, by that kind
of concentrated alertness, as though she were actually able to penetrate
ideas simply by looking through them, that one associated later with the
remarkable power and originality of her mind. I also remember being im–
pressed by the unusual combination of gentleness and force, which perhaps
was her most distinguishing trait to the end of her life.
It
was a very strange
and seductive combination : firmness of tone and strength of conviction with
a soft, almost caressing manner. Even at her most insistent, when she was
rejecting an idea or a person, her eyes seemed
to
be smiling benignly.
Hannah had in its highest form what I've always taken to be the su-
