LIONEL TRILLING
I have sometimes noted a fugitive resemblance between the
literary world of New York and time as it is characterized by Ulysses in
Troilus and Cressida.
For Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes the parting guest by the hand ,
And with his arms outstretched as he would fly
Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.
A few years back, talking to a fashionable New York host about changing
allegiances , I suggested that Trilling must always retain a specially honored
place in that society. "Well," said the fashionable host , "Lionel 's a lovely
fellow. But there are lots of lovely fellows. "
But there are not lots of lovely fellows . Perhaps this will now be better
understood. The fashionable hosts were always professing surprise that Eng–
lish intellectuals tended to see Trilling as New York's most valuable posses–
sion, that they seemed envious. The reason was that the English had had no
one even faintly comparable , at any rate not since Orwell died, and his style
was so different that the comparison means very little.
I have elsewhere written, with sadness and admiration, of a writer and
teacher who came as close to greatness as his profession, in these times, per–
mit . In doing so I put out of my head all images of Trilling as a friend. But
the images that have recurred so often since then are not directly related to
his writing, having more in common with that gentle little epiphany with
which Jack Thompson ended his
New York Review
obituary: Trilling
skillful, meditative, up to his waist in water and playing a fish . But in my
images there is always a place for Diana.
Diana, Lionel and I drove one day to Eastwood in Nottinghamshire to
visit D .H. Lawrence's house. Afterwards we set out on foot to look for " Mir-
